CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Paul Wong
Ph.D, C.Psych
Tyndale University
Toronto, Ontario

The new millennium began ominously with 9/11. Since then, it has witnessed a string of geopolitical wars, natural disasters, terrorist bombings, and human tragedies. The recent events of campus rampage (i.e., Virginia Tech and North Illinois University) further reveals that there remains a strong undercurrent of anger, frustration, despair and existential angst, which manifests itself in an increase in mental disorders and violent outbursts.

There are untold millions of Home Patiens -- the suffering human beings. In spite of the recent happiness craze sweeping across world, so many are still drowning in an ocean of suffering. Life is hard for most people: Some feel defeated by life and have resigned to quite desperation. Others feel exhausted and discouraged in their endless struggle. Still others mourn the loss their loved ones through terminal illness, death or other misfortunes. The cacophony of their screams of pain and cries for help makes happy tunes sound foreign and discordant.

The state of the union is not good in terms of human scales. The events of the last few years have made it particularly clear that technological advancement, economic prosperity and even career success will not bring happiness and the good life, unless progress is made in the area of humanistic and spiritual values.

Against this dark backdrop, MCC offers a bright vision for humanity. It is a meaning-centered and spiritually oriented positive psychology; it is a motivational counseling that affirms that one can find hope, meaning and happiness, regardless of how bleak the reality. It is a positive therapy or positive applied psychology that revolves around the central issue of what makes life worth living. The empirical research in positive psychology provides much of the foundation for MCC (Wong, in press; Wong and Fry, 1998).

MCC favors a psycho-education approach that equips clients with conceptual tools and practical skills that can be used to make life better. It emphasizes the importance of applying the principles and strategies of MCC to daily living; efficacious therapy needs to have broad and practical applications in all arenas of life!

Rooted in the basic tenets of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, MCC extends classical logotherapy (Wong 1997, 2002, 2005a, 2007) and integrates it with various schools of psychotherapy, such as existential-humanistic psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and narrative therapy (Wong, 1998c, 2005b). A brief survey of Frankl’s logotherapy is presented in the next chapter.

Since meaning is both individually and socially constructed, MCC is multicultural in its fundamental orientation. It embraces wisdom traditions from East and West and shows cultural sensitivity in working with clients from different racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, because of their different perspectives and experiences with stress (Wong & Wong, 2006).

Macro counseling skills

Another defining characteristic of MCC it that it addresses both micro and macro issues. MCC is concerned with both individual’s presenting problems and the larger context in which these problems are situated.

Macro counselling skills help clients to view their predicaments in the larger schemes of things, thus, broadening and deepening their understanding of the meaning of their problems and their potential for positive change. Macro skills are needed to address the following issues:

1. The negative aspects of the human conditions: As physical creatures, they are vulnerable to pain, illness, injury, aging, and death concerns. As emotional beings, they are susceptible to anxiety, depression anger, and mood swing. These universal human experiences help normalize clients’ problems.
2. The positive aspects of the human conditions: By tapping into the universal human tendency to pursue meaning, happiness and growth, we can revive clients’ motivation for self-preservation and positive change.
3. The social-economic-political-cultural forces: By recognizing these macro forces can shape and constrain individual values and behaviors, we can minimize clients’ tendency of self-blame and at the same time awaken their awareness of the larger struggle for social justice and human rights.
4. The meta-narratives of religions, myths and legends. By relating their personal problems to an appropriate and preferred over-arching story, they become aware of transcendental sources of wisdom and inspiration that can be uplifting and life-changing.

Another unique feature of MCC is its intervention strategy of double-vision. This two-pronged strategy aims at addressing both the presenting problems and the larger existential concerns and longer life-goals. Double vision is an important macro skill for several reasons:

1. If we focus on a tree, we may lose sight of the forest. We can gain a deeper insight into our clients’ predicaments by looking at the big picture.
2. If we can help restore clients’ passion and purpose for living, this will reinforce their motivation for change.
3. By looking beyond the pressing, immediate concerns, MCC seeks to awaken clients’ sense of responsibility to something larger than themselves.

This manual describes micro intervention skills to facilitate problem-solving as well as the personal quest for meaning in the throe of suffering. It will explain how the intervention strategy of ABCDE works. (A stands for Acceptance, B for Belief and affirmation, C for Commitment to specific goals or projects, D for Discovering meaning and significance, and E for Enjoyment of the discovery or Evaluation of whether the preceding steps have achieved the desired positive outcomes.)

The centrality of meaning

MCC recognizes that a formless void engulfs the human existence. All behaviors, in one way or another, are aimed at filling this vacuum. Unfortunately most of the human endeavors have failed because of our preoccupation with a quick fix of this existential problem and our obsession with happiness as a distraction. MCC advocates a less traveled road -- the primacy of purpose and responsibility for living and dying well.

We need to do the right thing and do the hard work in order to live a responsible and meaningful life, but such pursuit of meaning calls for self-sacrifice and suffering. Consistent with most faith traditions and the tenets of logotherapy, MCC believes that the terminal value of self-centered pursuits of personal happiness and success often lead to disillusion and misery, while ultimate concern of living a responsible and meaningful life lead to fulfillment. Authentic happiness is a by-product of self-less surrender and commitment to a higher purpose.

This manual introduces readers to the meaning-management theory (MMT) as the conceptual framework for both meaning-centered macro and micro skills. MMT is a dual-system model, which emphasizes the need to incorporate both approach and avoidance systems as the most effective way to protect individuals against negative aspects of human existence and at the same time empower their quest for meaning and fulfillment.

MCC emphasizes that meaning is all we need and relationship is all we have in the therapeutic situation. Each counseling session constitutes a genuine existential encounter. In this here-and-now encounter, where life flows back and forth between two human beings, the messenger is more important than the message, and the therapist more important than the therapy.

In other words, an effective counselling process involves much more than mere exchange of words; it also entails the non-verbal interactions between two unique personalities and lives. Thus, in addition to clinical competence, a MCC practitioner needs to be a securely centered person, who possesses the Rogerian characteristics of genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard