Reviews for Pain, Pleasure and Aesthetics: An Essay Concerning the Psychology of Pain and Pleasure

The average rating for Pain, Pleasure and Aesthetics: An Essay Concerning the Psychology of Pain and Pleasure based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-01-12 00:00:00 Tamara Kliment If you can get past the publishing date (1976) and the bizarre book cover, you will find an absolute gem inside. Kastenbaum is a great writer and the book is chock full of info about death. He give a great basic layout of developmental theories and stages, attitudes, influences, and experiences. He effortlessly weaves 200 years+ of thought through the text and provides a frame for the reader to put these ideas together. All the chapters were great. I ended up thinking two chapters in particular were great. The first was how psychology has approached the subject. This is a great survey of psychological thought and perspective on the subject. The second is a thorough presentation of Freud's death drive and it's critics. I would recommend this to anyone studying psychology- it is a great "gateway" into some of the juiciest thinkers.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-30 00:00:00 James Chapman A surprisingly easy to read account of our associations and experiences of death. Although the field of study is perhaps under investigated and much more is still to be understood, this book goes to great lengths to show what is out there. A lot is based on terminal illness and hospice care from the author's own career experience but he also broadens his research to other key work in the field. Fascinating little bits of information everywhere and much more accessible to anyone unfamiliar with psychology than I had expected.