Why We Suffer and How We Heal: Using Narrative, Ritual, and Purpose to Flourish Through Life's Challenges

A psychiatrist who has dedicated her life to treating global survivors of unspeakable horrors shares the three keys to resilience that we can use to weather stress, loss, and trauma in our own lives.

“This book is a gift of empathy and lived wisdom—rare, real, and deeply human.”—Dr. Koen Sevenants, former global lead for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies for UNICEF’s Child Protection Area of Responsibility

In her debut book, Dr. Suzan Song draws from patient stories, humanitarian research, and her own life to help readers release their unrealistic longing for stability and open them up to a new, healthier mindset. As uncomfortable as it is, instability, Dr. Song suggests, is what ultimately invites us into transformation.

From her clinical practice in the United States to her global work over two decades with survivors of human rights violations, Dr. Song has uncovered three keys to resilience: Narrative, Ritual, and Purpose. Western therapy teaches that we heal by examining our influences, inner conflicts, and goals. This is vital work, but insight alone does not lead to lasting change.

Song has found that rituals, whether private or community-based, create the bridge from insight to change. She brought this observation back to her clinical work along with the third potent source of healing: Purpose. Whatever you're going through, these three tools can help you not only weather the winters of life but thrive through them.

Profoundly insightful and beautifully written, Why We Suffer and How We Heal offers a groundbreaking new path to deep healing and finally feeling alive again.

Dr. Suzan Song is a Harvard- and Stanford-trained psychiatrist, humanitarian researcher and adviser. For more than two decades, she has dedicated her work to building resilience in individuals and communities affected by adversity. Dr. Song has advised the United Nations, multiple U.S. federal agencies and Ministries of Health, shaping systems of care for children and families in crisis to bridge clinical innovation with systems reform. She has a private practice in Washington D.C., is a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, and is a sought-after speaker on the science of healing.