What is the place of discontent and unhappiness in human experience and how best can we be with it? There is something about everything that makes it not quite satisfactory. Even things we really love are spoilt by not being quite enough or by going on too long. People entering psychotherapy want to feel better -- more authoritative, less anxious or depressed, more whole -- and although it can help, an enormous amount of difficult and painful emotions continue to arise. Even after years and years of therapy many of us feel that there is no 'happy ever after'. Present with Suffering shows that by becoming present, accepting and kind, we may enfold what hurts us in a more spacious and meaningful way. Chapters consider the discomfort associated with loss, bereavement, emptiness and impermanence.

Present with Suffering: Being with the Things That Hurt, Nigel Wellings and Elizabeth Wilde McCormick, Confer Books, Paperback, 176 pages, $16.95

Nigel Wellings is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist who works within a contemplative perspective. A former director of training at the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology and a founding member of the Forum for Contemplative Studies, he is also the author, with Elizabeth McCormick, of Nothing to Lose: Buddhism and Living Life.

Elizabeth Wilde McCormick has worked as a psychotherapist for forty years in both NHS and private settings. Her self help books translate complex psychological concepts into a language that invites readers to find understanding and support for themselves.

Impermanence and attachment

CONTENTS: Present with Suffering
LIST OF MEDITATIONS		vii
FOREWORD by Henry Schukman		ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS		xiii
INTRODUCTION by Nigel Wellings		xvii
PRESENT WITH SUFFERING IN LOSS AND BEREAVEMENT by Elizabeth Wilde McCormick		1
	Impermanence and attachment	3
	The human body in loss and bereavement	21
	Heart	39
	Mind the gap	61
EMPTINESS by Nigel Wellings		77
	A meditation on the pain of emptiness	81
	A meditation on the delight of emptiness	95
	Being present with emptiness	117
GLOSSARY		173
ENDNOTES		183
INDEX		187