Turning Away from Suffering

Why do we sometimes look away from suffering—and what might help us remain involved?

A news report closes. An appeal goes unanswered. Another crisis feels too large to comprehend. Turning away can arise from exhaustion, helplessness, uncertainty or fear. Understanding those responses matters, but the needs of people who suffer remain.

In Turning Away from Suffering: Care and responsibility in the face of suffering, Stuart Corlett explores the distance between witnessing pain and responding to it.

This academic edition brings psychological research into conversation with ethics. It asks whether other people’s vulnerability sometimes brings us closer to fears about ourselves, those we love and our own mortality, while carefully examining other explanations for withdrawal. It distinguishes attention, emotion and action, asking what can sustain responsibility when feelings fluctuate.

Drawing on published accounts of humanitarian work in Gaza and southeast Myanmar, the book recognises people living through crises as active participants in their own communities: organising assistance, sustaining schools and clinics, and deciding what they need.

Corlett’s years of cross-cultural health work inform an inquiry into care that allows for human limits, rest and everyday pleasure. The question is how to connect concern with thoughtful, continuing action.

The third of three linked books exploring bereavement, mortality and our responses to the suffering of others.