The long awaited certificate program for existential positive psychology and meaning therapy will soon be offered jointly by the International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) and the Meaning-Centered Counselling Institute. Dr. Paul Wong, a pioneer in the emerging field of existential positive psychology (aka positive psychology 2.0, or PP 2.0) states that, “Over the years many positive psychology coaches and master of applied positive psychology (MAPP) students have told me that my existential positive psychology (PP 2.0) approach, as a special brand of positive psychology, has changed their lives and practices for the better.”

That is why we want to invite more positive psychology students, researchers, and practitioners to enroll in this newly-available certificate program, which is on the cutting edge of both applied positive psychology and existential psychotherapy.

We are witnessing rising suicide rates in young people (Nationwide Children’s, 2023) and increasing number of people asking for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID; Paperny, 2022). Meaning therapy is designed to address these personal existential crises and other global existential threats such as climate change, the pandemic and the power of Artificial Intelligence.

What is the New Science of Flourishing Through Suffering?

A new science of flourishing through suffering has emerged to find solutions for the existential challenges of the 21^st century (see Wong et al., 2021, 2022). Specifically, this new paradigm for wellbeing consists of the following shifts:

• The new positivity is to see the light, be the light, and to kindle a light of meaning even in one’s darkest hours.
• When life gets difficult, go deeper by sinking one’s roots deeper into the dark, rich soil of suffering through resilience and levels of processing.
• Aim high and aspire to grow tall and flourish by faith and the discipline of self-sacrifice and daily self-improvement.
• Learn to integrate polarity through dialectical Yin-Yang interactions and non-duality.
• Learn to overcome and transcend inherent limitations and inescapable suffering through self-transcendence and a resilient mindset.

You can learn all the above skills and other innovative interventions in this certificate program. Positive psychology 2.0 reveals the road less travelled, how to transform suffering into blessings, and the value of striving towards the highest transcendental values of faith, hope, and love (Wong, 2023).

Level one – The Four Foundational Courses

Four introductory courses will be taught by Dr. Paul T. P. Wong this fall:

• Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy: The key to mental health and flourishing
• Integrative Meaning Therapy: How to harness the positive potentials of suffering and turn it into healing and thriving.
• Existential Positive Psychology: The new science of global wellbeing and human flourishing through research on indigenous manifestations of existential universals.
• The Meaningful Living Project: A grassroots movement towards positive mental health.

You will learn the theoretical and empirical foundation of this emerging field step-by-step, interventions, and research on new positive psychology assessments. Sign up for a complimentary free Positive Living Newsletter to receive additional announcements about this unique certificate program.

References

Nationwide Children’s. (2023, February 15). Youth suicide rates increased during COVID-19 pandemic, especially among particular subgroups. https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/newsroom/news-releases/2023/02/bridge_ruch_youthsuicide_pandemic

Paperny, A. M. (2022, December 12). Canada prepares to expand assisted death amid debate. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-prepares-expand-assisted-death-amid-debate-2022-12-11

Wong, P. T. P. (2020). The maturing of positive psychology and the emerging PP2.0 [Book review of Positive Psychology (3rd ed.) by William Compton and Edward Hoffman]. International Journal on WellBeing, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v10i1.885

Wong, P. T. P. (2023). Spiritual-existential wellbeing (SEW): The faith-hope-love model of mental health and total wellbeing. International Journal of Existential Positive Psychology, 12(1). https://www.meaning.ca/ijepp-article/vol12-no1/spiritual-existential-wellbeing/

Wong, P. T. P., Cowden, R. G., Mayer, C.-H., & Bowers, V. L. (2022). Shifting the paradigm of positive psychology: Toward an existential positive psychology of wellbeing. In A. H. Kemp (Ed.), Broadening the scope of wellbeing science: Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on human flourishing and wellbeing (pp. 13-27). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18329-4_2

Wong, P. T. P., Mayer, C.-H., & Arslan, G. (2021). COVID-19 and existential positive psychology (PP2.0): The new science of self-transcendence [Editorial]. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.800308/full

The post Announcing the Certificate Program for Existential Positive Psychology (PP2.0) and Meaning Therapy appeared first on International Network on Personal Meaning.

            Viktor Frankl has the best answer to the mental health crisis during COVID-19, and we ignore him at our own peril. His dialectical and paradoxical self-transcendence (ST) model emphasizes that we can find our true self only by letting go of the old one. He defines meaning in terms of ST and propose that meaning is the key to mental health and flourishing. My remembrance of Frankl revolves on his three aspects of ST: (1) ST is an awe-inspiring way of life, (2) ST is at the heart of therapies, and (3) ST represents a new paradigm for wellbeing research.

            Keywords: Viktor Frankl, logotherapy, meaning therapy, self-transcendence, awe, existential positive psychology, suffering, resilience

Looking back, I owe Viktor Frankl such a great debt of gratitude that I do not even know how to start recounting his impact on my life and career in psychology. His writing is like an inexhaustible gold mine; the deeper I dig, the more I discover.

What really connects us is our similar experiences in suffering. Frankl was the product of German occupation, Nazi concentration camps, and discrimination against Jews; and I am the product of Japanese occupation, the Chinese civil war, Hong Kong refugee status, and discrimination against Asians in North America.

It was inevitable that my research on how to reduce suffering led me to Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning (1946/1985). This why both of us have come to the same conclusion that our best self comes from our worst self and worst circumstances – a heresy to most positive psychologists and most Americans, but a truth consistent with the ancient wisdom of Taoism.

After more than 3 decades of studying Viktor Frankl, my professional judgement is that Dr. Frankl has the best answer to the mental health crisis during COVID-19 and we ignore him only at our own peril. Most people merely recognize him for his bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl, 1946/1985), but very few understand his wisdom that we can find our true self only by letting go the old one. His dialectical and paradoxical self-transcendence model reminds us of Taoism.

In a nutshell, his self-transcendence model of mental health has two parts. First, his optimistic worldview in human potential (responsible freedom, the will to meaning, and the intrinsic meaning of life) transcends his tragic worldview of life (death, pain, and guilt); this mixture of positive and negative beliefs results in the invincible Tragic Optimism, which enables us to dream the impossible dreams (Frankl, 1985; Leung et al., in press). His central concept, “the will to meaning”, is a spiritual act of volition to direct one’s life toward a transcendental goal in order to rise above the evitable suffering and death (Frankl, 1988).

Second, his meaning triad (creative, experiential, and attitudinal values) transcends the neurotic triad (aggression, addiction, and depression), resulting in meaningful living in spite of the potential for mental illness in a cruel and meaningless world. In other words, it is impossible to have meaning and happiness without death and suffering just as we cannot have light without darkness. Thus, his Yin-Yang framework of self-transcendence is the key to mental health and flourishing (Wong, 2021a).

I did not discover the essence of Frankl’s logotherapy by chance; it is the result of more than three decades of engagement with Frankl’s work. In my remembrance of Frankl, I just want to I highlight three aspects of self-transcendence: (1) It is a lifestyle of a soul set on fire; (2) it is the heart of all effective therapeutic modalities; and (3) it is the ground-breaking insight into flourishing based on self-transcendence.

Self-Transcendence is an Awe-Inspiring Way of Life

In 1996, when I was working on my first edited volume of The Human Quest for Meaning (Wong & Fry, 1998), I took a chance and made a cold call to Viktor Frankl in Vienna. I did not expect to get any answer because he was an international “Rockstar” with his Man’s Search for Meaning (1946/1985), which sold over 16 million copies globally. To my surprise, he returned my phone call almost immediately with a strong voice. He apologized that he was too old to contribute a forward to my book and suggested a number of prominent logotherapists; all of them eventually contributed to my book.

He listened with great interest to my meaning research and my integrative meaning therapy; but what impressed me most was his passion for spreading the message that people cannot become fully human without discovering their transcending self and dedication to serve the greater good.

Later that year I was able to present my paper on meaning therapy during the 1st Congress of the World Council for psychotherapy (WCP), which took place in 1996, Vienna. I hoped to meet him in person, but for some unexpected personal reason, I was not able to attend the Conversation Hour with Viktor Frankl. However, my wife and I were able to visit his resident at Mariannegasse 1, 8th District, Vienna.

From my brief encounter with Frankl over the telephone, I could sense his unwavering passion to restore the soul in psychology (Wong, 2021b), just one year before his death. From my personal experience as an 84-year-old man, I know that it must have been exhausting for a 91-year-old Frankl to talk to me over the barriers of distance and different accents for more than half an hour. I was awe-struck and deeply loved by a soul on fire for logotherapy.

From my reading of his writing, and from my interaction with him, it is abundantly clear to me that according to Frankl, self-transcendence is neither a unique positive emotion to be pursued (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), nor a conceptual form to be expanded (Reed, 2003). It is basically a spiritual awakening that moves one’s heart and soul so deeply that leading to the reorientation of one’s life purpose and a fundamental change in one’s life (Wong, 2016a, 2017a).

More specifically, Frankl believed that self-transcendence is a primary motivation characterized by (a) a shift in focus from the self to others, (b) a shift in values from extrinsic motivation, such as materialism, to intrinsic motivation (the activity itself is the reward), (c) an increase in moral concern of doing what is right, and (d) the emotion of awe that contributes to life transformation and which inspires others (Wong, 2017b). My recent research on the four-factor measurement of self-transcendence (Wong, Arslan et al., in press) shows that a re-orientation of focus and value remains the dominant factor after several factorial studies, but the emotion of awe did not emerge as a unique factor.

Recent self-transcendence research tends to focus on the emotion of awe experienced during cognitive accommodation of something vast and unusual (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) without any reference to Frankl and his ST perspective of awe (Allen, 2018).

For Frankl, awe is not just an emotional response due to something so spectacular that it cannot be assimilated by our existing belief and knowledge structures. It is more like the following quotes from Anagarika Govinda: “The feeling of awe and sense of wonder arises from the recognition of the deep mystery that surrounds us everywhere, and this feeling deepens as our knowledge grows.”

In other words, Frankl’s self-transcendence model provides a much broader and deeper way to experience awe as a lifestyle, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The Seven Ways to Boost Awe and Wellbeing Based on the Self-Transcendence Model of Flourishing

The above figure shows that a self-transcendent life naturally involves two kinds of emotion of awe. The first kind of awe comes from our appreciation of all small wonders and deep mystery of everyday life even in mundane circumstances – a baby in her mother’s arm, a tiny wildflower in a rock, or the smile of a wrinkled and toothless old man. This emotion of awe involves a mixture of feelings when marvelling at human resilience, and a deep sadness toward suffering and death; this calm-based awe is like the sparkling still water that runs deep with dark undercurrents.

The second kind of awe arises from our encounters with something so spectacular, not only the vastness and beauty in nature that it takes our breaths way and transports us to a transcendental realm, but also in moral excellence or sacredness that moves our heart and soul deeply that it evokes emulation (Kristjánsson, 2017).

There is already some evidence that meaning is involved in dispositional awe (Zhao et al., 2019), which can be better understood as the kind of awe as an inseparable aspect of living a meaningful or self-transcendental life. The neural basis of dispositional awe (Guan et al., 2019) supports Frankl’s broader perspective of awe; he was awe-struck by both the beautiful sunset and remarkable kindness and courage shown in some inmates which enlarged his heart and soul rather than his mind.

Self-transcendence is at the Heart of all Therapies

Frankl (1949/1986) considered logotherapy as an adjunct to all modalities of psychotherapy and as a medical ministry to medical practice because how to cope with suffering and death is a timeless and universal existential theme. In other words, how to transcend suffering and death is a transdiagnostic approach to health. That is why I have argued that integrative meaning therapy represents the future of psychotherapy (Wong, 2020a).

Joseph Fabry (Wikipedia, 2021) carried on the mission of Frankl in North America as founder of the Institute of Logotherapy in Berkeley, California (Noetic Films, 2020). He became my mentor in logotherapy. In July 1995, I sent him the first draft of my chapter on Meaning-centered therapy (Wong, 1998a); and he replied immediately and wrote: “I read it with mounting enthusiasm and relish every page.”

This letter began a 3-year friendship and mentorship through exchange of letters and phone calls. During this period, he shared with me what Frankl believed deeply and what caused the fragmentation in the logotherapy movement. My publications in the Forum for Logotherapy (Wong, 1997, 1998b, 1999) reflects his mentorship.

The highlight of this relationship was my visit to his home near Berkeley in August 1998 (see Figure 2). Over the dinner table and a long walk after dinner, we discussed a wide range of things related to the future of logotherapy. He was excited about me organizing the Festival of Meaning in Toronto and editing a special issue of the Forum of Logotherapy, focusing on meaning research. He assured me that Dr. Barnes, the person appointed by him as the President of Institute of Logotherapy in Texas, would not object to his suggestion.

Figure 2

Meeting Between Joseph Fabry and Paul Wong in August 1998

Unbeknownst to him, his enthusiasm in promoting me to Dr. Barnes turned out to my downfall after his death. In May 1999, shortly after his death, I was expelled from the Institute of Logotherapy by Dr. Barnes on some trumped-up charges (Wong, 2017c). This misfortune turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave me the free hand to develop integrative meaning therapy (Wong, 2009a, 2016a, 2016b) and launch the International Network on Personal Meaning (www.meaning.ca) which organizes Biennial International Meaning Conferences and founded the International Journal of Existential Positive Psychology (IJEPP). I believe that Frankl would be pleased that I did not disappoint him by becoming an international ambassador for logotherapy (my two encyclopedia entries).

Self-Transcendence Represents a New Paradigm of Wellbeing Research

“Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not be concerning himself with his self’s actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Frankl’s greatest contribution to wellbeing research was his discovery that self-transcendence is the most promising path for us to become our best true self through overcoming all internal and external obstacles and all the destructive forces.

This represents a paradigm shift which simultaneously restored the human soul and spirituality to the center stage of psychology and elevated the search for meaning as the most important primary motivation capable of healing the broken hearted, the wounded ego, and empowering human beings to flourish in the face of suffering and death.

In one bold stroke, Frankl succeeded in integrating the best wisdom from the East and the West, and clinical psychology with positive psychology. Thus, Frankl, along with William James and Abraham Maslow, deserve the credit as the grandparents of existential positive psychology—an emerging wave for the 21st century.

To both Frankl and Maslow, self-transcendence represents the highest values. Maslow (1971) has provided a comprehensive definition:

“Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.” (p. 269).

The main difference is that Maslow began with self-actualization and discovered in his old age that self-actualization could be realized without moving to the highest stage of self-transcendence. In contrast, due to his more difficult circumstances, Frankl advocated that we need to begin with self-transcendence at our life goal, and self-actualization and happiness will ensue as a result.

In addition, Frankl has successfully resolved several existential issues. For example, for the ontological dilemma of staying the same vs. making changes for a better future, Frankl argues for taking the risk of moving forward with the risks of uncertainly and possible failure because life is not about maintaining the status quo or homeostasis, but about embracing the necessary tension and risks of growing. It is the process of striving that makes us fully alive. His logic is that human beings are an open system in a complex evolving society, where the only constant is change. That is why we need to have the courage to embrace change in order to move forward. It is consistent with the Chinese saying: when we paddle upstream, not moving forward is going backward. Progress always involves a struggle and overcoming risks and setbacks.

Based on Frankl’s teaching and my own lifelong research (Wong, 2019b), the following summarizes the main three insights of existential positive psychology (PP 2.0):

1. True positivity is the ability to see the light in the darkness. Cultivating the resilient mindset (Wong, 2020) and the attitude of tragic optimism (Leung, 2019; Wong, 2001) allows one to see the bright side of the worst situation and suffering as a blessing in disguise (Jans-Beken & Wong, 2019). This ability needs to be awakened and stretched. Such effort is worth it because it results in sustainable positive mental health even during the worst circumstances.
2. True success is to embrace the dark side and turn it into the foundation for achieving one’s highest value. The next step is to strive towards one’s dream made up of one’s highest ideals. This will involve coping with the difficulties and failures by developing the necessary resources according the deep and wide hypothesis (Wong & Worth, 2017) following the resource-congruence model of effective coping (Wong et al., 2006). With problems that are beyond human control, the most congruent ways of coping are religious coping and meaning-focused coping.
3. The good life is a balancing act of navigating between opposite forces in each situation. This would require practicing the dual-system model (Wong, 2012) or the Yin-Yang dialectic to maintain a dynamic balance between two opposite forces. Sustainable mature happiness can be achieved through the practical wisdom and the successful managing of the opponent process of Yin-Yang (Wong, 2021a; Wong & Bowers, 2018).

In terms of application, the following 12 rules for mental heath and flourishing are based on Frankl’s 4 Triads and his deep insight into human nature. To the extent that his timeless classic appeals to all people, Frankl’s rules may be the most promising way to achieving healing and flourishing relative to any other bundle of 12 rules, such as Peterson’s 12 rules for life (2018):

1. We all have the freedom and responsibility for our life and wellbeing.
2. We all have the free will to pursue meaning rather than power or pleasure.
3. Life has intrinsic value and meaning because of its potential to grow and bear fruits.
4. Pain and suffering are an inevitable part of life.
5. All life ends in death.
6. We all feel guilty for our wrongdoings and broken relationships.
7. People often react to pain or frustration with aggression.
8. People often react to suffering with addiction.
9. Depression often results from people’s inability to cope with harsh reality.
10. I can face the terrors of life with courage and faith.
11. I can create something of value for the greater good.
12. I appreciate my life and feel grateful for all the things that has happened to me.

Conclusion

Viktor Frankl, one of the most influential and enduring psychotherapists, continues to speak to the 21st century. His paradoxical wisdom on suffering provides the foundation for PP 2.0 (Wong, 2009a, 2011, 2019). In a time of deadly pandemic, denial or avoidance is no longer an option. The new science of flourishing through embracing what we fear may be the most promising way to save a society riddled with the problems of addiction, suicide, and injustice (Williamson, 2020; Wong, Mayer et al., in press). We still have a lot of work ahead of us in implementing Frankl’s grand vision.

I have presented existential positive psychology for years without getting much attention from the psychological establishment (Wong 2019, 2020c, 2021). Even my recent free book on the Frankl cure (Wong, 2020b) has not received wide attention. This failure may be due to my own inadequacy or discrimination (2020d).

However, my recent invitation to Harvard’s Human Flourishing program to do collaborative research on the new science of flourishing through self-transcendence provides the much-needed confirmation that this new approach to wellbeing research will become mainstream. Following Frankl’s example, I will use my last breath to shout from the roof top:

Fear not and lift up your eyes!

It may be your darkest hour,

your most painful moment,

but a new dawn is near if you don’t give up.

Yes, you can turn suffering into blessing,

if you keep on believing.

References

Allen, S. (2018). The science of Awe. Greater Good Science Center. https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf

Frankl, V. (1949/1986). The doctor and the soul: From psychotherapy to logotherapy. Second Vintage Books.

Frankl, V. E. (1946/1985). Man’s search for meaning. Washington Square Press.

Frankl, V. E. (1988). The Will To Meaning. Penguin Group.

Guan, F., Xiang, Y., Chen, O., Wang, W., & Chen, J. (2018). Neural Basis of Dispositional Awe. Frontiers, 12, Doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00209

Jans-Beken, L., & Wong, P. T. P. (2019). Development and preliminary validation of the Existential Gratitude Scale (EGS). Counselling Psychology Quarterly. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2019.1656054

Keltner, D. J., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297

Kristjánsson, K. (2017). Emotions targeting moral exemplarity: making sense of the logical geography of admiration, emulation and elevation. Theory Res. Educ. 15, 20–37. Doi: 10.1177/1477878517695679

Leung, M. M. (2019). Tragic optimism: An integrative meaning-centred approach to trauma treatment. Counselling Psychology Quarterly. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2019.1633497

Leung, M. M., Arslan, G., & Wong, P. T. P. (in press). Tragic Optimism as a Buffer against COVID-19 Suffering and the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Version of the Life Attitudes Scale (LAS-B). Frontiers.

Maslow, A. (1971). Farther reaches of human nature. McGraw-Hill.

Noetic Films. (2020, July 21). MEANING CENTERED PSYCHOTHERAPY – Joseph Fabry 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JljDt29PD5I

Peterson, J. B. (2018). 12 Rules for Life: An antidote to chaos. Vintage Canada.

Reed, P. (2003). A nursing theory of self-transcendence. (pp. 145-166). In M. J. Smith & P. Liehr (Eds.), Middle range theory for advanced practice nursing. Springer.

Wikipedia. (2021). Joseph Fabry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fabry

Williamson, M. (2020). The origins of America’s mental health crisis. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/marianne-williamson-origins-americas-mental-health-crisis-opinion-1539782

Wong, P. T. P. (1997). Meaning-centered counseling: A cognitive-behavioral approach to logotherapy. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 20(2), 85-94.

Wong, P. T. P. (1998a). Meaning-centered counselling. In P. T. P. Wong & P. Fry (Eds.), The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications (pp. 395–435). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Wong, P. T. P. (1998b). The endurance of logotherapy. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 21(1).

Wong, P. T. P. (1999). Towards an integrative model of meaning-centered counseling and therapy. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 22(1), 47-55.

Wong, P. T. P. (2001). Logotherapy. International Network on Personal Meaning. http://www.meaning.ca/archives/archive/art_logotherapy_P_Wong.htm

Wong, P. T. P. (2006). Existential and humanistic theories. In J. C. Thomas & D. L. Segal (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of personality and psychopathology. Wiley.

Wong, P. T. P. (2009a). Existential positive psychology. In S. J. Lopez (Ed.), Encyclopedia of positive psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 361-368). Wiley Blackwell.

Wong, P. T. P. (2009b). Viktor Frankl: Prophet of hope for the 21st century. In A. Batthyany & J. Levinson (Eds.), Existential psychotherapy of meaning: Handbook of logotherapy and existential analysis. Tucker & Theisen.

Wong, P. T. P. (2011). Positive psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good life. Canadian Psychology, 52(2), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022511\

Wong, P. T. P. (2012). Toward a dual-systems model of what makes life worth living. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 3-22). Routledge.

Wong, P. T. P. (2016a). Meaning-seeking, self-transcendence, and well-being. In A. Batthyany (Ed.), Logotherapy and existential analysis: Proceedings of the Viktor Frankl Institute (Vol. 1; pp. 311-322). Springer.

Wong, P. T. P. (2016b). Integrative meaning therapy: From logotherapy to existential positive interventions. In P. Russo-Netzer, S. E. Schulenberg, & A. Batthyány (Eds.), Clinical perspectives on meaning: Positive and existential psychotherapy (pp. 323-342). Springer.

Wong, P. T. P. (2017a). From Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy to the four defining characteristics of self-transcendence. DrPaulWong.com. http://www.drpaulwong.com/four-defining-characteristics-self-transcendence/

Wong, P. T. P. (2017b). Logotherapy. In A. Wenzel (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of abnormal and clinical psychology (pp. 1984). Sage.

Wong, P. T. P. (2017c). The untold story of the INPM (Autobiography, Ch. 24). DrPaulWong.com. http://www.drpaulwong.com/the-untold-story-of-the-inpm/

Wong, P. T. P. (2019). Second wave positive psychology’s (PP 2.0) contribution to counselling psychology. Counselling Psychology Quarterly [Special Issue]. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2019.1671320

Wong, P. T. P. (2020a). Existential Positive Psychology and Integrative Meaning Therapy. International Review of Psychiatry. Doi: 10.1080/09540261.2020.1814703

Wong, P. T. P. (2020b). Made for Resilience and Happiness: Effective Coping with COVID-19 According to Viktor E. Frankl and Paul T. P. Wong. INPM Press.

Wong, P. T. P. (2020c). The maturing of positive psychology and the emerging PP 2.0 [Book review of Positive Psychology (3rd ed.) by William Compton and Edward Hoffman]. International Journal on WellBeing, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v10i1.885

Wong, P. T. P. (2020d, September 24). The Unheard Cry of a Successful Asian Psychologist. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2020.1820430

Wong, P. T. P. (2021a). Existential Positive Psychology (PP 2.0) and global wellbeing: Why it is Necessary During the Age of COVID-19. International Journal of Existential Positive Psychology, 10(1), 1-16.

Wong, P. T. P. (2021b). Preface: Frankl’s cure for a soulless psychology and a sick society. In N. Krasovska & C.-H. Mayer, Psychobiography of Viktor Frankl. Springer publishing.

Wong, P. T. P., & Bowers, V. (2018). Mature happiness and global wellbeing in difficult times. In N. R. Silton (Ed.), Scientific concepts behind happiness, kindness, and empathy in contemporary society (pp. 112-134). IGI Global.

Wong, P. T. P., & Fry, P. S. (Eds.). (1998). The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications. Erlbaum.

Wong, P. T. P., & Worth, P. (2017). The deep-and-wide hypothesis in giftedness and creativity [Special issue]. Psychology and Education, 54(3/4). http://www.psychologyandeducation.net/pae/category/volume-54-no-3-4-2017/

Wong, P. T. P., Arslan, G., Bowers, V. L., Peacock, E. J., Kjell, O. N. E., Ivtzan, I., & Lomas, T. (In press). Self-transcendence as a buffer against COVID-19 suffering: The development and validation of the self-transcendence measure-B. Frontiers.

Wong, P. T. P., Mayer, C.-H., Arslan, G. (Eds.). (in press). COVID-19 and existential positive psychology (PP2.0): The new science of self-transcendence. Frontiers.

Zhao, H., Zhang, H., Xu, Y., He, W., & Lu, J. (2019). Why Are People High in Dispositional Awe Happier? The Roles of Meaning in Life and Materialism. Frontiers, 10, 1208. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01208

The post The Frankl Cure for the 21st Century: Why Self-Transcendence is the Key to Mental Health and Flourishing appeared first on International Network on Personal Meaning.

When there is great risk to life, the government tells the public to stay home. The government tells    frontline workers to protect the people who get to stay home. For most of us, our focus is on avoiding COVID-19, and we can cry, panic, isolate, and avoid situations where we feel unsafe. For frontline workers, however, there are no options. We expect them to risk personal safety to help us. Their professionalism keep us safe, even while they may feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

Although the current pandemic has been here only for a few months, we’re beginning to understand the added pressures on frontline workers. They are trying to cope with increased numbers of patients, coupled with shortages of supplies including safety gear and medical supplies. Depending on the work setting, they may also be coping with long-standing low morale within their profession. Prior to the current pandemic, many police, firefighters, and emergency response teams were struggling with emotional exhaustion and high suicide rates.  We also hear reports of high levels of stress related to risk of infection with repeated exposure to the virus and concerns about infecting loved ones. For many workers with young families, it is emotionally taxing to come home after long shifts to children who have been away from school routine, friends, and meaningful activities.

Many workers are taking on increased hours because of staff shortages, where less experienced frontline workers have either quit their jobs or taken leaves of absence. This means the bulk of the effort is taken on by those with many years on the job. Although they are competent professionals, they are also at high risk for burnout and compassion fatigue because of the cumulative nature of job stress.  Errors made on the job because of cognitive and physical fatigue are often devastating for these workers because errors may put others at risk or cause accidental death of a patient.

The World Health Organization assures us that it is normal to experience work-related anxiety and depression during the pandemic, which may lead to any number of stress-related problems, including trauma and increased drug and alcohol use. Most of us are inside a safety bubble; frontline workers protect that bubble, acting stoically despite risk. Yet many struggle with the complexity of maintaining this stoicism despite being a fallible human. For those who struggle to live up to the expectations they have put on themselves, guilt and shame can be crucial factors in the development of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

We need to learn to listen to the struggles of frontline workers and first responders, to attend to their struggles. We’ve learned from the previous pandemics of SARS, MERS, and Ebola that it is essential to help those suffering from job-related stress to process these experiences. These efforts take time and support from management and government. And from the public.

We have a duty to those who are keeping us safe during the pandemic, and we can help even if we’re not mental health professionals. We can listen to their stories of loss, grief, and feelings of inadequacy. We can appreciate that many stress-related symptoms our frontline workers will experience will not surface for many months or even years. Anxiety, depression, fear, existential angst, and the gradual, often imperceptible erosion of one’s emotional stability are looming for these workers, even if today they seem to have it all together. Mental health professionals have learned from past pandemics that job-related stress injuries take time to heal. All of us can help by listening to the struggles of those who have willingly put themselves at risk to help us and not forgetting about them.

A new member of INPM, Jeri-Lyn Munro is an Registered Clinical Counsellor with a private practice in Ladner, BC. She specializes in trauma work, PTSD, Critical Incident Stress and often works with frontline workers.

The post Learning to Listen appeared first on International Network on Personal Meaning.

Approaches that Don’t Work (with Addiction)

Over the years we’ve examined many approaches that the literature suggested might help clients pursue a meaningful life. Below are some examples.

Restoring meaning. Many psychologists who use meaning-oriented therapies have little experience with an addicted population. They often talk, for instance, about a client’s suffering as a “loss of meaning,” and see therapy as a vehicle for “restoring” or “reconstructing” meaning. Yet addiction psychologists have pointed out that those suffering from substance use disorders typically have never felt their lives were meaningful. It’s not a matter of once having meaning and then losing it. Rather, those suffering from addiction—with rare exceptions—have never had sufficient meaning in their lives to begin with. Restoring meaning does not make much sense to them.

Yalom’s existential therapy. In the book, The Psychology of Meaning, Zafirides, Markman, Proulx, and Lindberg (2013) looked to Irvin Yalom as a practical guide to help clients pursue a meaningful life. Yet Yalom, himself, singled out alcoholics as different from his other patients. His one attempt to conduct therapy with a group of alcoholics left him questioning if he had provided any help.

Spiritually focused therapy. Those suffering from addictions are fascinated by spirituality, and more than 1500 research articles have shown increases in spirituality are positively correlated with addiction recovery. Yet treatment programs based directly on religiosity/spirituality (RS) research have had little or no statistically significant effect on outcomes. Perhaps the most sophisticated RS program is Miller, Forcehimes, O’Leary, and LaNoue’s (2008) 12-session, manualized Spiritual Guidance program for alcoholics based on empirical studies of spirituality among the addicted. The program had no effect on outcomes. White (2008) wondered, among many other questions: “Does the essence of spiritual experience get lost in efforts to artificially define and replicate it within a professional treatment intervention?” (p. 443).

In our facility, we also discovered that a focus on spirituality had little effect on how well a client did in recovery. Sadly, a spiritual focus often resulted in a spiritual bypass, a term coined by Welwood (1984/2000) to describe clients who used spirituality to bypass what they needed to work through, such as their fears.

Versions of logotherapy. There are several meaning therapies developed for addictions, and most are based on Frankl’s logotherapy, such as Crumbaugh, Wood, and Wood’s Logotherapy: New Help for Problem Drinkers. The key stage in their 5-stage program is dereflection. Dereflection is one of Frankl’s therapeutic techniques and, according to Crumbaugh, Wood, and Wood (1980), “is the core of the logotherapeutic process of searching for meaning and purpose in life” (p. 103). This technique helps the person shift focus from failures and shortcomings to abilities, successes, and aptitudes. The shift is necessary if one is to find new goals and “discover tasks that will bring him into sufficient relationship with the ‘significant others’ in his life” (p. 103). Unfortunately, logotherapy, like most addiction therapies, has not produced any inspired results in outcome studies.

12-step model of spirituality. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) interprets a meaningful life as a connection with what it calls a higher power or God. Harry Tiebout, a Connecticut psychiatrist, provided a clinical interpretation of the AA program, which aligns with how AA, itself, defines spirituality. According to Tiebout, “The so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity.” But, he concluded, the alcoholic who followed the AA program was able to tame this defiant individuality and grandiosity because the program helped them “truly accept the presence of a Power greater than himself.” The acceptance of a higher power forced a new perspective on life, one in which the alcoholic was no longer the center of their own universe.

Yet outcome studies based on recovery through AA have shown little effect. It may be that AA’s version of spirituality is too limited, created as it was by middle-class, middle-aged, white men in the 1930s in the northeastern United States, with no intellectual background. The outcome studies may also confirm Hoffman’s (2017) argument that imposed or artificial forms of meaning rarely lead to a personally meaningful life.

What Does Work

Our inductive research (Thompson, 2016) at the center found that clients entering treatment had poor self-awareness, weak relationships, and goals that were given to them by the external world. Meaning therapy as practiced at the facility helped clients begin to reverse these factors. Clients gained a more sophisticated understanding of their values, beliefs, strengths, limitations, how they made choices, the meanings they ascribed to their suffering, and other issues of self-awareness. They also developed authentic relationships with peers and staff at the center, though this positive relatedness did not necessarily extend to families or friends.

The research also showed that pursuing personally meaningful goals in treatment didn’t work very well. The vast majority of clients were baffled by the very idea of pursuing a meaningful life. One client put it this way: “How can I set goals or figure out what I want from life if I don’t even know who I am?” Another client pointed out that that the only thing he felt confidant about was what he didn’t want from life, because his life was largely a series of miserable experiences. But he had no idea what he did want to do or accomplish.

Yet the therapy had an effect on their pursuit of meaning. Essentially, it helped clients recognize that their suffering had purpose. They recognized that how they lived their lives—the choices they had made and goals they pursed—did not resonate with personal values and beliefs. Although most were angry at themselves for wasting so many years in active addiction, many said they were “grateful” to have suffered because it forced them to appreciate the value of living. Clients who played with the idea of becoming addiction counselors typically interpreted their suffering as a requirement to help others who were suffering.

What was most noticeable was their belief that if they could begin doing things that matched their values, then they could live—for the first time—an authentic life. They knew this new life would take years of work to gain self-awareness and connect with others, but they had confidence that they could achieve it.

References

Crumbaugh, J. C., Wood, W. M., & Wood, W. C. (1980). Logotherapy: New help for problem drinkers. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.

Hoffman, L., and Paige, J. (2017). Varieties of suffering and meaning: Clinical implications. Proceedings of the 2016 Meaning Conference. Journal of Existential Psychology & Psychotherapy, Special Issue. Toronto, ON.

Miller, W. R., Forcehimes, A., O’Leary, M., & LaNoue, M. (2008). Spiritual direction in addiction treatment: Two clinical trials. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 35(4), 434–442. Doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2008.02.004

Thompson, G. R. (2016). Meaning therapy for addictions: A case study. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(5), 457–482. Doi:10.1177/0022167815585913

Welwood, J. (1984/2000). Toward a psychology of awakening. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.

White, W. L. (2008). Spiritual guidance, addiction treatment, and long-term recovery. [Editorial] Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 35(4), 443–444. Doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2008.05.010

Zafirides, P., Markman, K. D., Proulx, T., & Lindberg, M. J. (2013). Psychotherapy and the restoration of meaning: Existential philosophy in clinical practice. In K. D. Markman, T. Proulx, & M. J. Lindberg (Eds.), The psychology of meaning (pp. 465–477). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Doi:10.1037/14040-023

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“What are you doing there?” he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.
“I am drinking,” replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
“Why are you drinking?” demanded the little prince.
“So that I may forget,” replied the tippler.
“Forget what?” inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him.
“Forget that I am ashamed,” the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
“Ashamed of what?” insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
“Ashamed of drinking!”

Addiction Psychology Interprets Shame as a Negative Emotion

Our Western culture does not like to talk about shame; we hide it, feeling ashamed of being ashamed. But the new discipline of affective science has promoted examining emotions, including the self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt. And it seems that shame is an integral part of addiction. Psychological studies have consistently shown that those suffering from addictions score higher than the general population on measures of shame. And they score higher on measures of shame than on guilt.

Psychologists distinguish between shame and guilt. Although both emotions include a negative evaluation of the self, guilt is more concerned with behavior, with actions that hurt others. Shame, on the other hand, is an internalized belief that the self is flawed. The distinction is important. In fact, many therapists believe that the method to alleviate shame is to help a client transform it into a shame-free guilt.

With few exceptions, psychologists, including addiction psychologists, have not been kind to shame. Luoma, Kohlenberg, Hayes, and Fletcher (2012) said that shame is “nonadaptive” and has “deleterious effects.” Empirical studies, which also include those targeted at addictions, have indicated that shame promotes hiding and avoidance, whereas guilt promotes empathy, accountability, and making amends. Shame, not guilt, is a predictor of relapse in addiction (Randles & Tracy, 2013). Matthews (2019) proposed that shame for those with substance disorders arises mainly from the “false and distorting attitudes and beliefs that are internalised and lead to harmful effects, including further substance use and self-sabotage” (p. 5). Guilt—with its focus on behaviours and not on a defective self—is a far more useful emotion.

Studies have appeared questioning the objective accuracy of research on shame and guilt. There are more than 25 scales developed to measure shame and slightly fewer for guilt (Robins, Noftle, & Tracy, 2007). Tignor and Colvin (2017) found that a researcher’s theoretical orientation and method used to study shame and guilt have likely limited or biased their results. They note, for instance, that studies of shame-proneness (dispositional shame) and guilt-proneness (dispositional guilt) have led to mixed conclusions. The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA; Tangney, Wagner, & Gramzow, 1989), a commonly used instrument in addiction studies, essentially sees guilt as beneficial because it leads to reparations, but later research suggested TOSCA does not account for pathological guilt. Giner-Sorolla, Piazza, and Espinosa (2011) concluded that the TOSCA guilt scale tends to measure motivations for reparation but not the emotion, itself. The TOSCA shame scale, however, was stable, an effective predictor of drug use and relapse and had no association with motivation to change. TOSCA might not have gotten guilt exactly right, but shame remained essentially a negative and unproductive emotion.

Shame Can be Beneficial

But is shame simply destructive? It’s telling that most philosophers have had little trouble making a case for shame as a motivator to change. Flanagan (2013, October 8), for example, who personally struggled with addiction, did not hesitate discussing shame as a positive force in addiction recovery. He located two sources of shame in the addicted person: First, the person is ashamed because she failed at agency (i.e., failed to quit the drug), and secondly, she failed to live up to the standards she had set for herself to pursue the good life. Failing at agency and personal standards, the person was motivated to quit the drug and get on with a new life.

Chapman (2019, September 9) pointed out that Immanuel Kant believed that when you are ashamed, you don’t so much “think less of yourself as you think of yourself less.” Being humiliated is not so much about feeling degraded as it is about “feeling humility.” Similarly, Augustine wrote that his conversion arose from the shame he felt when he reflected on his youthful and sinful exuberance.

Shame Arises from Conscience (Our “Second Self”)

If we examine shame and guilt and their relationship with conscience, these self-conscious emotions become even more complex. Although psychologists have not paid much attention to conscience, it has been a staple in philosophy, theology, and literature. As an aside, one of the earliest connections between literature and formal psychology was Dostoyevsky’s influence on Freud. Freud had studied the Russian’s novel Crime and Punishment, which follows Raskolnikov’s conscience before and after he murders the old pawnbroker. The guilt/shame he experiences is less the consequence of his act as it is, in large part, the very thing that propels him to commit the murder, an idea that resonated with Freud.

Nietzsche had little respect for conscience, reducing it to an arbitrary, socially imposed form of self-punishment. But conscience has a long history as a force of positive change—from the ancient Romans and Christians to Hobbes and the Enlightenment thinkers. Contrary to Nietzsche’s interpretation, conscience is not necessarily imposed on the individual by society. Luther, for instance, admonished his followers to listen to their personal conscience, even if society (and religion) condemned it. Today, many countries at war make accommodations for conscientious objectors. Conscience, and following one’s conscience, holds a special place for many of us.

For most philosophers and artists, conscience acts as what Strohm (2011) called a “second self” (p. 66), not an unwelcome outsider preaching a social propriety. It is precisely this link between conscience and shame that led them to conclude that shame can be a good thing. It cajoles us into looking more deeply into ourselves, into our values and identities and beliefs. When we are ashamed, our conscience prods us to reflect on who we are, how we fit into the world around us, and what we want from life.

It is difficult to deny Flanagan’s assertion that shame is a natural part of addiction and can goad the drug user into taking stock of how his life is going and what he needs to do to live a fuller life. But addiction psychologists disagree. My own take on why they resist any notion that shame could be beneficial is that raises two issues, both attached to morality. First, shame is associated with the stigma of addiction, which reduces the chronic drug user to the other, not like us regular people. The stigma promotes shame and has been shown to impede recovery. Secondly, addiction psychologists have worked hard to dismantle the moral model of addiction—a model that condemns addicts as irresponsible reprobates. The denial of a moral component in addiction is particularly emphasized in the biomedical model, which states the addict suffers from a brain disease, not a moral failing.

Yet Flanagan faced the nature of the addict’s shame directly, without apology. He understood that to speak of shame is to recognize addiction as a moral failing. Addiction psychologists can learn from the philosopher. Shame is natural not only to those who suffer from drug use but to all human beings. The Biblical story of the Fall tells us that by virtue of being human, we are imperfect. The idea that we are Fallen, imperfect, is not a condemnation. It is the human condition. As writers from Dante to Eugene O’Neill have pointed out, the Fall is not something bad or negative or to be condemned. It arises from our “second self.” It is, in fact, the source of meaning in our individual lives.

Rather than reduce shame to a “non-adaptive” or “deleterious” emotion, psychologists might well consider that shame, with its focus on the self rather than on behavior, helps us understand who we are, what we want from life, and what we have to do to flourish—but only if we are open to it.

References

Chapman, L. (2019, September 9). The value of shame. Aeon Newsletter. Retrieved from https://aeon.co/essays/on-immanuel-kants-hydraulic-model-of-moral-education?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=debbd1feeb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_09_02_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-debbd1feeb-70848119

Giner-Sorolla, R., Piazza, J., & Espinosa, P. (2011). What do the TOSCA guilt and shame scales really measure: Affect or action? Personality and Individual Differences, 51(4), 445-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.010

Flanagan, O. (2013, October 8). The shame of addiction. Frontiers of Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00120

Luoma, J. B., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., & Fletcher, L. (2012). Slow and steady wins the race: A randomized clinical trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy targeting shame in substance use disorders. Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology, 80(1), 43-53. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026070

Matthews, S. (2019). Self-stigma and addiction. In J. D. Avery, & J. J. Avery (Eds.), The stigma of addiction: An essential guide (pp. 5-32). New York, NY: Springer.

Randles, D., & Tracy, J. L. (2013). Nonverbal displays of shame predict relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(2), 149-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702612470645

Robins, R. W., Noftle, E. E., & Tracy, J. L. (2007). Assessing self-conscious emotions: A review of self-report and nonverbal measures. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.). The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 443-467). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Strohm, P. (2011). Conscience: A very short introduction. New York, NY: Oxford.

Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P. E., & Gramzow, R. (1989). The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA). Fairfax, VA: George Mason University.

Tignor, S. M., & Colvin, C. R. (2017). The interpersonal adaptiveness of dispositional guilt and shame: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Personality, 85(3), 341-363. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12244

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(Scene of Dr. Dysart and the magistrate, from the movie version of the play, Equus, by Peter Shaffer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDajCkGmXSU)

Sir Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, Equus, follows psychiatrist Martin Dysart’s struggle to make sense of his work. Although he’s treated hundreds of troubled young people in his hospital, his therapy with 17-year-old Alan Strang has triggered questions about whether he is helping his patients live better lives. Dysart tells us that these questions are, for a psychiatrist, “subversive.”

Shaffer’s expertise is, of course, as a playwright. But he has an understanding of Freud and R. D. Laing, both of whose ideas are present in the play, and he said that he consulted a child psychiatrist to ensure his therapy scenes were accurate.

Equus asks questions about the nature of psychotherapy that many real-life therapists shy away from or have never given much thought. Like Dysart, these therapists go about their day easing the pain of others, with a mission to help them live ordinary lives. But Dysart begins doubting whether a life of healthy-mindedness and good order, a normal life, is living at all. For Dysart, “The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his priest.”

The Story

Alan Strang has blinded six horses with a metal spike, an act that has sparked outrage in the community and guilt in his parents. The magistrate refers the young offender to Dysart, knowing the good doctor can cure Alan’s pathology and help him adapt to a normal life.

During therapy, Dysart discovers that Alan has created a fantasy life in which he “worships” a horse-god Equus. Alan’s daily life is dull and constricted, having been brought up by his severely religious mother and rigid father. He has no friends and little education. His mother gave him a large, stark, realistic picture of the Crucifixion for his bedroom, which his father tore down believing that it was warping his son’s mind. Alan replaced it with an equally large picture of a horse’s head restrained by a metal bit. The two pictures merged in Alan’s mind as a god, Equus. Every three weeks he sneaks out of the house to act out his fantasy by riding a horse wildly through the night, after which they embrace.

The brutal stabbing occurred after Alan met Jill, a free spirit who took him to a stable to have sex. But Alan was overwhelmed by all those horse-gods staring at him, judging him, and he reacts by blinding them.

Dysart knows that he can take away Alan’s pain, but only at the cost of taking away the boy’s passion: “Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created.” Dysart is sensitive to a life of passion, because the psychiatrist has lived only with healthy-mindedness and good order.

In the scene above, the magistrate tells the psychiatrist that his job is to take away the boy’s pain: “That’s all you need to know in the end.” But Dysart responds that taking away pain is not enough. “I’m talking about passion… Do you know what that word originally meant? Suffering. The way you get your own spirit through your own suffering. Self-chosen, self-made. This boy’s done that. He’s created his own desperate ceremony, just to ignite one flame of original ecstasy in the spiritless waste around him… One thing I know for sure, that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have known in any second of my life. And let me tell you something. I envy it.”

“Subversive” Thoughts on Therapy

There are at least 250 mainstream therapy models recognized in counseling and clinical psychology, either because they are science-based or the majority of psychologists approve them. Most have emerged from principles in behavioral, cognitive, and systems psychology, and more recently from neuropsychology. Therapists who rely on these models seem to be in agreement with the magistrate—the goal is to ease suffering and help the client adapt to a normal life. They don’t leave space for the probing questions that Dysart asks, questions on what it means to be human and whether we, as mental health professionals, are truly helping clients as much as we could be.

Rollo May—rather bluntly—called many of these models “gimmicks,” pointing out that the founding fathers of therapy never intended that its goal be merely to ease pain, as if we were like doctors mending broken arms and heart valves. May focused on helping clients flourish in life, which meant depathologizing suffering. Suffering is, as Dysart points out, the original meaning of the word passion. It is through personal suffering that we discover what it means to feel vital and alive.

Psychiatry in the 1970s was different than it is today, and it’s been pointed out that Dysart’s tactic, for example, of lying to Alan about a pill that forces a patient to speak the truth would not be condoned in 2019. Still, Dysart’s subversive questions are reminders of our own limitations as therapists and reminders that human nature may be far more complex that can be accounted for in our current mainstream scientific psychology.

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Two-and-a-half years into the health emergency, we appear to have accomplished little. In 2016, there were 667 fentanyl-related deaths, 67% of all illicit-drug deaths. Then, in 2017, there were 1,210 fentanyl-related deaths, 84% of all illicit-drug deaths. Most recently, in the first six months of 2018, there were 601 fentanyl-related deaths, 81% of all illicit-drug deaths (BC Coroners Service, 2018).

Faced with such dismal numbers, not only in B.C. but throughout Canada and the United States, a handful of psychologists have admitted we’ve overlooked fundamental dynamics that underlie the crisis. In a study of 600,000 drug overdose deaths, for example, Hawre et al. (2018) have shown that the current opioid-overdose crisis is not a standalone, discrete event. It is the most recent manifestation of an exponential rise in (American) drug overdoses since 1979, which have included, at various times and places, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs. Rather than focus on opioids, the authors called for elucidating the “‘deep’ drivers of the overdose epidemic” (p. 1188), such as “despair, loss of purpose, and dissolution of communities” (p. 1188).

Despite being labeled by the media and professionals as the opioid crisis, these “‘deep’ drivers” have little to do with a type of drug, its prevalence, or its potency. The crisis is not about a class of drugs known as opioids; it’s about addiction, itself, and specifically the psychosocial drivers that make intoxication appealing, even when users know that the drug leads to severe and chronic suffering (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

What Hawre and colleagues hint at is that addiction is a response to a meaningless life. Interpreting chronic drug use (including opioids) as a problem of meaning has been a minor topic in addiction psychology. Frankl (1984) is generally credited with stating this idea formally in Man’s Search for Meaning, where he argued that addiction is “not understandable unless we recognize the existential vacuum underlying [it]” (p. 124). In the decades since Frankl’s proposal, research has consistently associated low levels of meaning and purpose with addiction and high levels of meaning and purpose with recovery (Csabonyi & Phillips, 2017; Robinson, Cranford, Webb, & Brower, 2007). Studies have also shown that high levels of meaning and purpose are a protective factor against chronic drug use (Giordano et al., 2015).

In 2006, INPM sponsored a conference on Addiction, Meaning, and Spirituality, based on the proposal that that chronic intoxication was a response to a dull and impotent life. One of the keynote speakers, Stanton Peele, had been unimpressed with the mainstream view of addiction as neurobiological pathology or a consequence of conditioning—“the compulsion to bypass human experience” (Peele, 1998, p. ix). He pointed out that the drug user’s weak self-efficacy, lack of direction in life, superficial relationships, and disregard for others and community was not conducive to living a fulfilling life.

Thompson’s (2016) inductive study at a residential facility for addicted men found that addiction was associated with weak self-definition, poor relatedness, and extrinsic motivations. Roos, Kirouac, Pearson, Fink, and Witkiewitz (2015) found associations between temptations to drink, purpose in life, and drinking outcomes. Although there is no agreed upon theory or model describing the link between meaning and addiction, the body of meaning research in addiction psychology indicates that chronic intoxication is appealing to those who experience life as without significance.

Seeing addiction through the lens of meaning offers insights into the epidemic. For example, if chronic drug use is a response to a lack of personal meaning, then addiction must be in the person, not in the drug. Contrary to popular thought, there is nothing in a drug, itself, that dooms anyone who uses it. The vulnerability for addiction lies in an individual person’s experience of daily life as without meaning and purpose. In fact, the frequent media reports of people overdosing multiple times on opioids or using safe injection sites is not evidence that opioids have hijacked their brains but rather that they can find no reason to quit the drug.

Interpreting addiction as a problem of meaning can also guide interventions. Pursuing meaningful activity, such as volunteering, has been shown effective for recovery (Johansen, Brendryen, Darnell, & Wennesland, 2013), and addressing the existential vacuum is likely, as Frankl (1980) said, a “prerequisite” (p. x) to overcoming chronic drug use. Mikal-Flynn (2015) concluded that interventions aimed at helping people overcome drugs must

promote an individual’s biological, psychological, and spiritual abilities to transform and experience higher levels of functioning—actually brought about by traumas and personal life crises such as addictions and dependencies. These conditions become vehicles, providing opportunities to creatively restructure the self and find significant existential meaning. (p. 144)

Similarly, Diaz and colleagues (2014), confirming the association between addiction and a lack of meaning, promoted creativity, service, and solitude (prayer) as important factors to develop meaning and purpose in life for those recovering from drug addictions.

Compare these meaning-centered approaches to our current interventions. The medical professions and U.S. National Institutes of Health blamed the crisis on physicians (and pharmaceutical companies), who were prescribing too many opioid medications for patients in pain, essentially turning them into addicts. According to this thinking, addiction is in the drug and not in the person. Patients who take enough opioid medication enough times become addicted. When the physician refuses to refill the prescription, the patient is abandoned, left to search out the street dealer. Medical regulatory bodies intervened by making it more difficult for physicians to prescribe opioid medications.

But reducing the crisis to opioid medications does not stand up to scrutiny. Research has consistently shown that only 1-2% of those prescribed opioids actually develop an addiction, although some current research puts the rate at 3-7%. Beyond this addiction rate, research in British Columbia has indicated that overdoses are not limited to opioids, such as fentanyl (76%) and heroin (23%), but also include cocaine (48%) and amphetamines (31%) (BC Coroners Service, 2018).

We’ve given priority to biomedical models: ensuring a supply of naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses, opening safe-injection sites, and expanding the North American Opiate Medication Initiative, which provides medical-grade heroin to users. Indeed, medication is now emphasized more than counseling and psychotherapy to curb the crisis. Medically assisted therapy (MAT) for opioid addiction, such as prescribing opioid replacement drugs (typically, methadone or Suboxone), has historically been combined with psychosocial therapy. Today, however, many consider that MAT, alone, is effective (Brady, McCauley, & Back, 2015; Sheridan, 2017). The problem, and the solution, is a chemical one.

We’ve also intervened by educating drug users on the dangers of opioids, under the assumption that if they knew how risky fentanyl was, they wouldn’t use it. As part of this effort, the B.C. government even provides portable mass spectrometers to festivals and clinics where patrons can test their drugs to detect the presence of fentanyl. Yet, like our other mainstream interventions, education has done little. Clancy (2016) reported one opioid user who overdosed on fentanyl-laced drugs seven times in one day. It’s obvious that a lack of education was not his problem.

The reality is that opioid users usually search out fentanyl. A client I worked with told me, “If I don’t get fentanyl mixed in with my drugs, I consider I’ve been ripped off.” And it hasn’t escaped notice that as the media published more and more stories of fentanyl overdoses, fentanyl dealers did more and more business. It was the best advertising they could have hoped for. Interpreted from within a meaning framework, the reason why some drug users are attracted to fentanyl is precisely because it is so risky. Those suffering from addictions live with a drug-fueled intensity as a substitute for living meaningfully, and it is at the line between life and death that they find life is most intense. For those who can find no meaning in their lives, “Death is,” as the poet Henry Scott Holland said, “nothing at all.” In Vancouver, a new ritual has emerged known as yo-yoing, in which one person injects an opioid drug while another person is ready to inject naloxone in case of overdose.

More treatment beds have been promoted as a solution to the public health crisis (Vancouver Police Department, 2017). The assumption is that once a person is revived from an overdose, or just wants help, then treatment is immediately available. The reality, however, is that most opioid users do not ask for help, even after the near-death experience of overdosing (Kolodyny et al., 2015). Calls for more treatment beds also assume that addiction treatment is quite effective. The reality, however, is that our mainstream treatments have not produced any inspired success rates. Treatment typically helps only 1 in 4 clients keep away from the drug for a year; the rest will reduce drug use by 40 to 60% for a year. Successful treatment is not so much quitting the drug as it is reducing use at a statistically significant level.

At the last meaning conference in Vancouver, Bruce Alexander (2018), one of Canada’s foremost addiction psychologists, complained that our interventions into the opioid crisis are the same as those we used when he first started studying addiction psychology 50 years ago. It’s a discouraging observation, but it makes clear that the addiction field desperately needs new energy. Our failure to curb the crisis is an invitation to recognize that the deep driver of the crisis is not opioid use but a life that lacks personal meaning. If we don’t accept this invitation, it’s guaranteed that we’ll be talking about another crisis when the next popular drug hits the streets.

References

1. Alexander, B. K. (2018, August). Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech. Presented at “Courage, Faith, and Meaning: Existential Positive Psychology’s Response to Adversity” at the 10th Biennial International Meaning Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia.
2. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
3. Brady, K. T., McCauley, J. L., & Back, S. E. (2015). Prescription opioid misuse, abuse, and treatment in the United States. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 173(1), 18-26. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15020262
4. BC Coroners Service (2018, November 14). Illicit drug overdose deaths in BC (January 1, 2008 – September 30, 2018). Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/illicit-drug.pdf
5. Clancy, N. (2016, December 18). Downtown Vancouver ER is ground zero of opioid overdose crisis. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fentanyl-overdose-er-1.3889942
6. Csabonyi, M., & Phillips, L. J. (2017). Meaning in life and substance use. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167816687674
7. Diaz, N., Horton, E. G., & Malloy, T. (2014). Attachment style, spirituality, and depressive symptoms among individuals in substance abuse treatment. Journal of Social Service Research, 40(3), 313-324. https://doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2014.896851
8. Frankl, V. E. (1980). Foreword. In J. C. Crumbaugh, W. M. Wood, & W. C. Wood (Eds.), Logotherapy: New help for problem drinkers (pp. ix–x). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.
9. Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man’s search for meaning. New York, NY: Vintage.
10. Giordano, A. L., Prosek, E. A., Daly, C. M., Holm, J. M., Ramsey, Z. B., Abernathy, M. R., & Sender, K. M. (2015). Exploring the relationship between religious coping and spirituality among three types of collegiate substance abuse. Journal of Counseling & Development, 93(1), 70-79. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2015.00182.x
11. Hawre, J., Buchanich, J. M., Roberts, M. S., Balmert, L. C., Zhang, K., & Burke, D. S. (2018). Changing dynamics of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States from 1979 through 2016. Science, 361(6408), 1184-1190. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau1184
12. Johansen, A. B., Brendryen, H., Darnell, F. J., & Wennesland, D. K. (2013). Practical support aids addiction recovery: The positive identity model of change. BMC Psychiatry, 13(201). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-201.
13. Kolodyny, A., Courtwright, D. T., Hwang, C. S., Kreiner, P., Eadie, J. L., Clark, T. W., & Alexander, G. C. (2015). The prescription opioid and heroin crisis: A public health approach to an epidemic of addiction. Annual Review of Public Health, 36, 559–574. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122957
14. Mikal-Flynn, J. (2015). Metahabilitation: Transforming life crises: A story of enhanced recovery involving addiction and dependency. Journal of Addictions Nursing, 26(3), 144-151. https://doi.org/10.1097/JAN.0000000000000088
15. Peele, S. (1998). The meaning of addiction: An unconventional view. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
16. Robinson, E. A. R., Cranford, J. A., Webb, J. R., & Brower, K. J. (2007). Six-month changes in spirituality, religiousness, and heavy drinking in a treatment-seeking sample. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 68(2), 282-290. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3125889/
17. Roos, C. R., Kirouac, M., Pearson, M. R., Fink, B. C., & Witkiewitz, K. (2015). Examining temptation to drink from an existential perspective: Associations among temptation, purpose in life, and drinking outcomes. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 29(3), 716-724. https://doi.org/1037/adb0000063
18. Sheridan, K. (2017, May 15). How effective is medication-assisted treatment for addiction? Here’s the science. Statnews. Retrieved from https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/15/medication-assisted-treatment-what-we-know/
19. Thompson, G. R. (2016). Meaning therapy for addictions: A case study. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(5), 457-482. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167815585913
20. Vancouver Police Department. (2017, May). The opioid crisis: The need for treatment on demand. City of Vancouver. Retrieved from http://www.vancouver.ca/police/assets/pdf/reports-policies/opioid-crisis.pdf

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Dr. Laura Armstrong, Ph.D., C.Psych., is an Assistant Professor, Clinical Psychologist, and researcher at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, in the School of Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Spirituality. She also holds a Diplomate Clinician certification in Logotherapy from the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy.

Dr. Armstrong is the editor of two textbooks and the author of 31 published, in press, or submitted peer-reviewed book chapters and journal article manuscripts. She was also invited by the Ontario Ministry of Education to write a resilience brief for educators and community leaders working with children. Meaning-centred theory has now infiltrated the public education system!

In addition to invited public presentations or media interviews to enhance resilience and community mental health, Dr. Armstrong works clinically with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families in her private practice, Tomorrow Me Psychological Services.

Dr. Armstrong is the founder of R.E.A.L. therapy. R.E.A.L. therapy combines Rational-Emotive, Attachment, and Logotherapy theory and practice within a Second Wave Positive Psychology framework. Grounded in R.E.A.L., she has developed a resilience-based mental health promotion program for school children called the D.R.E.A.M. (Developing Resilience through Emotions, Attitudes, and Meaning) program. This program has been funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Council Insight Development Grant, as well as John Wells Spiritual Care awards from the Society for Pastoral Care and Counselling Research.

The D.R.E.A.M. program uses original music, games, artistic activities, and drama to teach skills for resilience. In its most recent adaptation, collaboratively developed with mental health practitioners, children, their parents, and teachers, the D.R.E.A.M. program was adapted to address the unique socio-emotional needs of intellectually gifted children, ages 6 to 12. Approximately 30% to 40% of gifted children experience mental illness compared to 20% of their non-gifted peers. Intellectually gifted children are more likely than non-gifted children to face bullying, social exclusion, perfectionism, and emotional, sensorial, and imaginational over-sensitivities that can put them at risk for concerns. In our research, a R.E.A.L. protocol has been found to be helpful in addressing these concerns.

From challenges, great meaning can arise if children have the tools and awareness to recognise it, allowing children to be resilient to mental health concerns. In the D.R.E.A.M. program, children are taught about challenging and positive emotional alarm bells as helpful indicators for unhelpful thoughts, learning about the world, or as indicators for moments in which they can mindfully experience joy or gratitude. The children learn how to challenge unhelpful thoughts through attitudinal change. They also learn socio-emotional literacy skills to build meaningful connections with others.

Further, in the program, children learn how to choose meaningful actions, problem-solve, and use creativity to make a difference in their homes, as well as how to make a difference at both local community and global levels. For example, gifted children often worry about mature real-world issues but can feel distressed when they perceive personal impotence in response to these issues. In the program, through creative activities, children learn how to choose a major real-world issue and problem-solve ways in which they can make a difference.

Dr. Armstrong has developed and validated a child meaning in life questionnaire called the Child Identity and Purpose questionnaire (Ch.I.P.) for children ages 6 to 12 (Armstrong, 2016; in The International Forum for Logotherapy). The current revised version of the measure is video-based, with each item presented online in a dramatized video clip to engage child attention and to allow early readers or children whose first reading language is not English to participate. Such a measure may be helpful for evaluating meaning-centred therapies with children and moving such therapies into the realm of mainstream evidence-based practice.

Currently, Dr. Armstrong’s Doctoral and Master’s thesis students are carrying out research using R.E.A.L. theory, the D.R.E.A.M. program, or the Ch.I.P. with children, adults, or families. When she conducted her own doctoral dissertation research, funded by over $300,000 in scholarships or student grants (including Canada Graduate Scholarships), Dr. Armstrong explored how meaningful youth engagement in structured extracurricular activities acted as a buffer to prevent suicidal ideation in those at risk, given rural dwelling, depressive thoughts, low self-esteem, or risk behaviours.

Dr. Armstrong’s work is most influenced by Drs. Viktor Frankl and Paul Wong. She has attended the INPM Summer Institute and regularly attends or presents at the INPM conferences. She would look forward to collaborating on research or writing projects with other INPM members.

In addition to research, clinical work, and teaching, Dr. Armstrong has developed a recent passion for Irish dancing. Her daughter took up the activity a few years ago and conveyed so much joy that mom, dad, and toddler brother were all inspired to become Irish dancers!

Dr. Armstrong also finds meaning in photography, church activities, song writing, and spending a great deal of quality time with her family, particularly outdoors.

The post Featured Member: Dr. Laura Armstrong appeared first on International Network on Personal Meaning.

Over the past decade, “meaningful work” has become a phrase I see more frequently in management and leadership circles. Google Scholar searches for the term “meaningful work” yields 16 items between 1981 and 1990, 38 between 1991 and 2000, 140 between 2001 and 2010, and 297 between 2011 and 2018. I am quite delighted that many different models on meaningful work now exist in divergent disciplines—from management to psychology to philosophy to economics (e.g., Askinosie & Askinosie, 2017; Beadle & Knight, 2012; Bendassolli, Borges-Andrade, Alves, & Torres, 2015; Chalofsky, 2010; Fairlie, 2011; Hakala-Ausperk, 2017; Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2011; Martin, 2000; Michaelson, Pratt, Grant, & Dunn, 2014; Poswolsky, 2016; Roessler, 2012; Spencer, 2015; Tummers & Knies, 2013; Veltman, 2016; Wong, Ivtzan, & Lomas, 2017; Yeoman, 2014). In this essay, I share the work I consider my life work—albeit slow-going—to reduce suffering in the workplace and promote meaningful work for sustainable growth.

Before I delve into my work on “meaningful work,” let me share exciting trends I’ve noticed in recent years. First, I started to find articles in economic blogs and journals that consider “meaningful work” in creating an economic model (Goodwin, 2017; Spencer, 2015). This is big. As a person who wants to see a change in the definition of wealth to include well-being (i.e., meaning, happiness, and physical health), I believe “meaningful work” must be part of economic modeling and development. Despite the complexity of measuring “meaningful work,” economists are finally making a move! Second, in 2016, the Academy of Management (AOM) had its annual conference theme of “Making Organizations Meaningful.” Management scholars and consultants are catching on, too, in a big way! Third, Harvard Business Review, a very popular magazine amongst business leaders, published articles on meaningful work in recent years—e.g., “Meaningful Work Beats Over-the-Top Perks Every Time” (McCord, 2016); “Meaningful Work Should Not Be a Privilege of the Elite” (Straub & Kirby, 2017); and “Every Generation Wants Meaningful Work—but Thinks Other Age Groups Are in It for the Money” (Weeks, 2017). These article titles alone indicate that a big shift toward “meaningful work” is taking place in the corporate world previously often described as greedy and cutthroat.

Combined with the popularization of mindfulness practices, conscious capitalism (Mackey and Sisodia, 2014), and stakeholder capitalism (Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar, & De Colle, 2010), even big corporations are now trying to authentically become more humane in doing their business. For example, Microsoft has been fostering compassionate culture to do good business. Yet, at this point, corporations often use the commonly-used default proxy mechanism of Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey to link workers and their productivity. While this survey with 12 questions penetrated the market, there is a renewed debate if the survey indeed measures employee engagement and if those 12 questions are relevant across cultures. The 2015 survey results tell us that only 13 percent of workers are fully engaged worldwide, and 31 percent in the United States (Mann & Harter, 2016). If we assume that the higher the engagement rate may be, the higher the productivity should be, then we have a lot to improve here. Despite costly corporate efforts, the engagement rate has been steady over the past decade, at least in the U.S. Given this situation, the corporate world is showing its readiness to try a meaning-centered approach to manage human productivity that matches human motivation for innovation and creativity, which are considered key drivers in surviving fast-changing business environments.

Background for the MOW Theory

Figure 1 depicts the Meaning-of-Work (MOW) Theory for High Performance that I created in 2007. The MOW Theory is primarily built on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 2012; Gagné & Deci, 2005) and the Psychological Well-Being model (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). The theory expands SDT’s innate psychological needs to include higher purpose, learning, creativity, and personal growth, and it designates the satisfaction of innate psychological needs and the expression of personal values as intrinsic motivators for optimal performance. When we satisfy our needs and express our values, we are bound to significantly self-identify ourselves with and create positive meaning in our work. We then naturally commit ourselves to our work and be at our best, while contributing toward organizational purpose and goals. Based on the previous research data, a sense of contribution toward organizational purpose and goals may be considered an innate psychological need within the context of work.

Last year, I conducted my second round of instrument development and validation for the Meaning-of-Work (MOW) Theory for High Performance Survey and presented preliminary results at the First European International Meaning Conference (IMEC) in London in August.

In many areas of literature (e.g., existential psychology, positive psychology, philosophy, and management), the relationship between “meaning” and “purpose” is historically either equal counterparts, or “meaning” is a construct somewhat subordinate to “purpose.” However, my initial theoretical and qualitative research as a doctoral student indicated that “purpose”—specifically “higher purpose” is one of the fundamental variables in constructing “meaning” in our work. The MOW Theory positions “higher purpose” as one of the subordinate variables for meaning-making.

In the previous study presented at the 2016 INPM conference, the following statements were statistically well supported:

1. The MOW Theory for High Performance can explain how we make meaning in our work. In other words, a significant regression equation was found to predict the meaningfulness of work.
2. The MOW Theory for High Performance Survey yields results similar to other instruments such as the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI) (Steger, Dik, & Duffy, 2012) and SDT. In other words, correlations between the MOW Theory Survey items and other established survey items were significant, indicating the validity of the single-item-per-variable MOW Survey.

Additionally, qualitative interview data indicated two types of relationships between “higher purpose” and “meaning”:

1. “Meaning” and “purpose” are the same and interchangeable.
2. “Purpose” is subordinate to “meaning.”

2017 Research

Based on the aforementioned findings, I took the next step in developing and validating the MOW Theory for High Performance Survey. The quantitative survey with two open questions was developed. Included for validation purposes in the survey were 5 items for each variable and all WAMI items as well as items from SDT and other instruments.

Eliminating incomplete responses and screening for high English-language proficiency, 472 respondents were included for statistical analysis. Significant patterns emerged as expected and supported the MOW Theory. Reduced from five to three items per variable, the scale reliability was the lowest of .537 for autonomy to the highest of .848 for meaningfulness. Very surprisingly, however, confirmatory factor analysis (CFS) indicated three meta factors; organizational resonance, work resonance, and spiritual resonance (Figure 2)

Organizational resonance included: relatedness, environmental support, self-identification with organization, personal growth, and organizational alignment. Work resonance included: contribution, competence, autonomy, learning, creativity, values, self-identity with work, and personal growth. Spiritual resonance included: higher purpose, values, and autonomy.

Speaking on the notion of spiritual resonance, the combination of three variables of higher purpose, values, and autonomy may be paraphrased as self-transcendence; the work we do resonates with us when it speaks to our values and autonomous spirit and serves something bigger than ourselves. Paradoxically, becoming our best self is to lose self (Wong, 2016). To be clear, this “spiritual resonance” does not connote any specific religion or gods of such a religion. Spiritual resonance or self-transcendence in the workplace may be secularly encouraged. As stated previously, at this time of human history, the corporate world may be able to shift toward a business model that fosters human flourishing of all—not just that of business owners or shareholders. We yearn to be a whole person, be decent human beings, and do good. Business can provide a vehicle for us to do so. In the late 1990s, there was a small movement to promote spirituality in the workplace by some business scholars and leaders (Mitroff & Denton, 1999). However, spirituality with a religious tone didn’t stick in the corporate world as a viable leadership and management approach. Just like secular mindfulness has spread like a wildfire, secular self-transcendence that leads to meaningful work may be more appealing to many in the workforce.

Implications on Research and Practice

The variable comparison across SDT, Wellbeing Theory, WAMI, and MOW shows that the MOW Theory has integrated other well-established theories and is comprehensive. Additionally, the MOW Theory provides the Flourish model (Seligman, 2011) with operational details on meaning within work settings. The MOW Theory can adequately explain how we construct meaning in our work. It may potentially predict our work performance and thus can be used as a tool for performance management and organizational development with further validation. Conversely, the time may be right to re-assess the relationship between “meaning” and “purpose.” The accurate assessment of this relationship will significantly influence the development of future research and practice on “meaningful work” and how we organize work and manage organizations.

Table 1: Variable Comparison of Theories/Models

Future Research Agenda

In broad strokes, I hope to continue working on the following moving forward:

1. Complete the data analysis of the survey conducted in 2017 to validate the survey instrument and define the relationship between higher purpose and meaningful work;
2. Run the same survey with a different population to replicate the results;
3. Investigate if meaningfulness of work can predict individual or organizational performance;
4. Compare existing meaningful work models and measurements for its utility in organizational development settings;
5. Assess if meaning-centered training programs and coaching are effective in improving individual and organizational performance;
6. Define the relationship between meaningful work and employee engagement;
7. Identify collective strategies to have organizational leaders switch to meaning-centered approaches instead of engagement-centered approaches; and
8. Examine the relationships amongst mindfulness practices, meaningful work, and leadership behavior.

References

Askinosie, S., & Askinosie, L. (2017). Meaningful work: A quest to do great business, find your calling, and feed your soul. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.

Beadle, R., & Knight, K. (2012). Virtue and meaningful work. Business Ethics Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.5840/beq201222219

Bendassolli, P. F., Borges-Andrade, J. E., Alves, J. S. C., & Torres, T. de L. (2015). Meaningful Work Scale in creative industries: A confirmatory factor analysis. Bragança Paulista, 20(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-82712015200101

Chalofsky, N. (2010). Meaningful workplaces: Reframing how and where we work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Self-Determination Theory. In P. A. M. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology: Collection: Volumes 1 & 2 (pp. 416–437). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Fairlie, P. (2011). Meaningful Work, employee engagement, and other key employee outcomes: Implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 13(4), 508–525. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Fairlie/publication/216717417_Meaningful_Work_Employee_Engagement_and_Other_Key_Employee_Outcomes_Implications_for_Human_Resource_Development/links/09e41508148f347011000000.pdf

Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Parmar, B. L., & De Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331–362.

Goodwin, N. (2017). Meaningful work: A radical proposal. Retrieved April 11, 2018, from https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meaningful-work-a-radical-proposal

Hakala-Ausperk, C. (2017). Renew yourself: A six-step plan for more meaningful work. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Lips-Wiersma, M., & Morris, L. (2011). The map of meaningful work : A practical guide to sustaining our humanity. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Greenleaf.

Mann, A., & Harter, J. (2016). The worldwide employee engagement crisis: EBSCOhost with Navigator. Retrieved April 11, 2018, from https://web.a.ebscohost.com/eli/detail/detail?vid=25&sid=c2123631-2c2b-4434-90c6-121bafca9c34%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWxpLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3D%3D#AN=112306054&db=bth

Martin, M. W. (2000). Meaningful work: Rethinking professional ethics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

McCord, P. (2016). Meaningful work beats over-the-top perks every time. Retrieved March 30, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2016/02/meaningful-work-beats-over-the-top-perks-every-time

Michaelson, C., Pratt, M. G., Grant, A. M., & Dunn, C. P. (2014). Meaningful work: Connecting business ethics and organization studies. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1675-5

Mitroff, I. I., & Denton, E. A. (1999). A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion, and values in the workplace. Business and Society. San Franscisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Pub.

Poswolsky, S. (2016). The quarter-life breakthrough: Invent your own path, find meaningful work, and build a life that matters. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.

Roessler, B. (2012). Meaningful work: Arguments from autonomy. Journal of Political Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2011.00408.x

Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 719–727. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.719

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Free Press.

Spencer, D. A. (2015). Developing an understanding of meaningful work in economics: The case for a heterodox economics of work. Cambridge Journal of Economics. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beu074

Steger, M. F., Dik, B. J., & Duffy, R. D. (2012). Measuring meaningful work: The Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI). Journal of Career Assessment, 20(3), 322–337. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072711436160

Straub, R., & Kirby, J. (2017). Meaningful work should not be a privilege of the elite. Retrieved March 30, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2017/04/meaningful-work-should-not-be-a-privilege-of-the-elite

Tummers, L. G., & Knies, E. (2013). Leadership and meaningful work in the public sector. Public Administration Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12138

Veltman, A. (2016). Meaningful work. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Weeks, K. P. (2017). Every generation wants meaningful work—but thinks other age groups are in it for the money. Retrieved March 30, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2017/07/every-generation-wants-meaningful-work-but-thinks-other-age-groups-are-in-it-for-the-money

Wong, P. T. P. (2016). Self-transcendence: A paradoxical way to become your best. International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, 6(1), 9. Retrieved from http://journal.existentialpsychology.org/index.php/ExPsy/article/view/178

Wong, P. T. P., Ivtzan, I., & Lomas, T. (2017). Good work: A meaning-centred approach. In L. G. Oades, M. Steger, A. D. Fave, & J. Passmore (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of the psychology of positivity and strengths-based approaches at work (pp. 233–247). West Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Yeoman, R. (2014). Conceptualising meaningful work as a fundamental human need. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(2), 235–251. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1894-9

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The Agile Business Leader (ABL) Model

The ABL Model has its underpinnings in the idea of social and emotional intelligence, since it involves an ability to manage oneself in the context of interpersonal relations. In other words, to be an effective leader, one must be able to perform a task with an appropriate level of interpersonal skills, professional knowledge, and operational ability to achieve the goal. These ABL components can be driven from both internal and external sources. The model emphasizes self-awareness, engagement techniques, knowledge, and methods for business development. The ABL model is deceptively simple. It answers the question, “What type of leadership is needed in the current world of chaotic and ever-changing business practices?” The ABL model was developed from working with clients from around the world. As we listened to clients share about their issues, we consistently heard they regularly faced two realities:

1. The need to be business AND people focused, and
2. The need for leadership capabilities AND the ability to put turn those capabilities into action for successful outcomes.

The Horizontal Reality

The horizontal reality of the Business (financial capital: wealth employed for the production of more wealth) and the People (human capital: the sum total of an organization’s human performance capability) addresses the factors impacting the success of an organization.

Business includes: assets, liabilities, and equity. Business Capital is the net worth of a business or, in simpler terms, the amount by which the organization’s assets exceed its liabilities. Business includes the mission, goals, values, and vision for the organization. It includes the methods and practices an organization endorses to achieve financial well-being.

People includes: the human resources contributing to organizational performance. An organization’s human capital is the collective sum of the attributes, life experiences, knowledge, inventiveness, and enthusiasm of its people. It incorporates group dynamics, values, norms, attitudes, motivational forces, and collaboration that drives and influences strategic operations, employee loyalty, and commitment.

The Vertical Reality

The vertical reality of Capabilities (an individual’s unique knowledge, skills, and abilities) and Action (turning talent into effective responses) addresses the components of character and behavior.

Capability includes: the sum of the individual’s knowledge, skills, and attributes. Capability focuses on the uniqueness of the individual and his or her expertise, natural aptitude, acquired proficiency, and ability to perform. It incorporates consistent behavior and a degree of mental capacity and moral quality.

Action includes: the ability to transform knowledge and talents and convert it into strategic initiates, improved effectiveness, implementation of new business directions, or motivating people to achieve results. Action involves sensing changes in signals from the environment (both internal and external) and adapting accordingly.

When these two realities of Business and People and Action and Capability are combined, four roles (each with specific traits) emerge as the basis for leading in today’s frantic world:

1. Strategist
2. Enabler
3. Champion
4. Specialist

As change in business is inevitable, the traits of the ABL provide the competencies necessary to ensure business survival and oversee the dynamic growth of an organization. All ABL traits are essential and required for leaders to quickly deal with and adapt to change.

These ABL traits can be taught, learned, monitored, and measured to assist individuals and organizations to deliver business results.

Our Approach

Our approach to this requirement is pure and simple: to equip leaders to perform with excellence. The program is designed to enable participants to do their jobs better, faster, more accurately, and more efficiently through a combination of education and learning activities.

Developing Leadership Competencies Aligned with the Organization

We know that developing leadership competencies often requires changing people’s mental models and altering their long-standing beliefs. Our sessions shift executive, middle management, and individual contributor mindsets away from hierarchical, bureaucratic, linear thinking systems and processes, and move them towards responding quickly, with resilience, and building upon the shared knowledge of the organization.

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