Suffering and salutogenesis

In considering pain and suffering, some considerations will appear about epistemological beliefs shaping the clinical practices of health-care workers. With this, we try to understand the usual omission of human suffering in the training of many health professionals. So, we emphasize the role of the pathogenic paradigm in how human suffering is viewed in health care. In contrast to those who see suffering only as pathogenic, we defend that suffering can be a source of significant learning for both the sufferer as well as those who undertake caring in certain circumstances. We therefore argue that it is necessary to educate for health and not only for illness, choosing a holistic paradigm: Aaron Antonovky's salutogenic model that encloses positive aspects of human suffering when it is lived with an internal sense of coherence.