Making Meaning Out of Our Lives

Meaning-making is the fundamental human process by which we interpret and make sense of our experiences, relationships, and the world around us. It is an intricate and dynamic process, influenced by cultural, social, psychological, and individual factors. Our immediate family, institutions, and close relationships primarily shape these influences.

What Is Meaning-Making?

Meaning-making involves our cognitive and emotional processes for interpreting our experiences and constructing a sense of significance, self, and purpose. It involves integrating new information with existing values and beliefs, and it often requires reconciling conflicting or complex experiences that we have encountered throughout our lives.

It's important to keep in mind that meaning-making is a deeply personal and subjective process. Two individuals can experience the same event but derive entirely different meanings from it based on their unique perspectives, backgrounds, and psychological states.

The Importance of Meaning-Making

Viktor Emil Frankl (1905 – 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's meaning as the central human motivational force. Frankl leaned on Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspective that states, “He who has a ‘why’ for which to live can bear with almost any ‘how’."

The importance of meaning-making lies in helping us understand our ‘why,’ which is shaped by the following:

1. Sense of Identity: By interpreting our experiences and integrating them into our life narrative, we develop a coherent sense of self. This process helps us understand who we are and where we are headed.
   

2. Coping and Resilience: Our ability to make meaning out of challenging experiences significantly impacts our coping mechanisms and resilience.
   

3. Motivation and Goals: Understanding the 'why' behind our actions can fuel intrinsic motivation and drive.
   

4. Mental Health and Well-being: Our coherent and positive sense of meaning can enhance life satisfaction, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, which improves our psychological well-being. Conversely, a lack of meaning or unresolved existential questions can contribute to psychological distress.
   

Factors Influencing Meaning-Making

One of the most challenging aspects of being human is finding our place in the world. We grow up navigating the slow process of human development. Several factors influence how individuals make meaning of their experiences, broadly categorized into cultural, social, psychological, and individual influences.

●    Cultural Factors: Our cultural beliefs, values, and narratives provide a context for our meaning-making.

●    Social Factors: Our family, friends, and communities provide support, feedback, and alternative perspectives that can shape how we interpret our experiences.

●    Psychological Factors: Our cognitive abilities, such as critical thinking and reflective capacity, enable us to analyze and integrate our experiences.

●    Individual Factors: Our past experiences provide a reservoir of knowledge and insights that shape our current interpretations. Personality traits, such as openness to experience and resilience, can influence our approach to meaning-making.

All these factors can get overwhelming. Sometimes examining our personal factors through the lens of stages of development can help us orient our personal experiences. Looking back on our lived experiences in stages can help us identify the pivotal moments that currently define our current meaning-making narrative. We can rely on those in psychotherapy to provide the scaffolding of orientation.

Erik Erikson, (1902 – 1994) was an American child psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings and coined the phrase identity crisis. Erikson's theory progresses as follows:

●    Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy to 18 months)

○      Question: Can I trust the people around me?

○      Positive Outcome: Hope

●    Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (18 months to 3 years)

○      Question: Picking & Choosing?

○      Positive Outcome: Will

●    Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (Years 3 to 5)

○      Question: Am I good or bad?

○      Positive Outcome: Purpose

●    Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority (Years 6 to 11)

○      Question: How can I be good or bad?

○      Positive Outcome: Confidence

●    Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion (Years 12 to 18)

○      Question: Who am I?

○      Positive Outcome: Fidelity

●    Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Years 18 to 40)

○      Question: Will I be loved or will I be alone?

○      Positive Outcome: Love

●    Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Years 40 to 65)

○      Question: How can I contribute to the world?

○      Positive Outcome: Care

●    Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair (Years 65 to death)

○      Question: Did I live a meaningful life?

○      Positive Outcome: Wisdom

According to this model we are moving toward the defining question of “Did I live a meaningful life?” This question haunts each of us. As we face suffering, joy, pain and fulfillment in life we are building toward being able to answer this question.

It is difficult to answer this question along the way when we are not able to define meaning and how to make meaning out of the experiences of our lives. We are all shaped by the meaning that is lent to us along the way. Our parents or guardians lend us what meaning is through their values and beliefs. We are also highly influenced by institutions and environments that we are sent to or choose to participate in regularly. This would be in the form of relationships, schools, religious institutions and our predominant home culture. These experiences are the petri dish of our human development and help us in navigating and answering the questions we are asking along the way.

Implications for Mental Health and Well-Being

Our understanding of meaning-making, or our ‘why’ has significant implications for our mental health and well-being.

Therapeutic approaches that incorporate meaning-making can enhance their effectiveness in promoting psychological health. These include:

1. Meaning-Centered Therapy: This therapeutic approach focuses on helping individuals find meaning and purpose in their lives. Techniques such as life review, narrative reconstruction, and existential exploration are used to facilitate the meaning-making process.
   

2. Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS): Addressing and identifying ways that religious practices and theological teachings have distorted our interpretation or ability to interpret suffering and pain.
   

3. Trauma Work: Psychologists have identified three types of trauma.

4. Acute trauma: results from a single incident.

5. Chronic trauma: repeated and prolonged, such as domestic violence or abuse.

6. Complex trauma: exposure to varied and multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature.
   

7. Grief Counseling: Meaning-making is particularly important in the context of grief and loss. Grief counseling often involves helping individuals make sense of their loss and find new meaning in their lives without the deceased.
   

Our meaning-making is a complex and multifaceted process that plays a crucial role in shaping our identities, coping mechanisms, motivation, and overall mental health. By understanding the factors that influence meaning-making and the different approaches to facilitating this process, we can better understand our ‘why’.

Knowing our ‘why’ changes the ‘how’ of how we navigate the pain, joy, suffering, and enjoyment of our lives as humans.