Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a widespread psychiatric disorder. According to the transdiagnostic approach, death anxiety can underpin predominantly somatic manifestations of GAD. Personal resilience factors such as a sense of a meaningful life, and psychological hardiness, which can protect people from developing clinical symptoms, may be lower in individuals with GAD. So far, there has been no study examining the role of meaning in life dimensions, death anxiety, and hardiness in individuals with GAD in Turkey. Thus, we aimed to investigate to what extent the GAD sample differs from the non-anxious control group in terms of death anxiety, meaning in life dimensions, and hardiness. Secondly, we examined how conceptually predicted death anxiety by meaning in life dimensions and hardiness regardless of diagnosis, age, and gender. Just before the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, we could only recruit 38 individuals with GAD and 31 non-anxious control subjects. The Death Anxiety Scale, The Meaning in Life Questionnaire and the Psychological Hardiness Scale were administered to all the participants. The one-way MANOVA results with Bonferroni adjustment revealed that individuals with GAD significantly differed from the control group in every way. Hierarchical regression analysis displayed that the presence of meaning made the most significant contribution in predicting death anxiety. In conclusion, existential issues such as death anxiety, hardiness, and meaningful life can be emphasized for the treatment of GAD, and the presence of meaning is the most crucial antidote to avoid death anxiety in all individuals.

Recently, endless questions about the meaning in/of life have become a growing theoretical research topic especially within the contribution of positive psychology. Research findings suggest that experiencing meaning in life contributes significantly to psychological resilience, well-being, and health. While some people do not hesitate to look for more, even if there is meaning in their lives, some people do not even bother to bring this question to mind. In this paper, our aim is to discuss whether meaningful life can be achieved through a discovery or an invention with two leading perspectives-Frankl and Baumeister-and with recent empirical findings especially on traumatic events. First, Frankl believed that in any case, an individual should try to protect his honor and should discover a deeper meaning under the suffering. On the other hand, Baumeister suggested that there is no hidden or broad meaning in life independent from the person. Meaning can only be constructed by the individual by the satisfaction of four criteria that culture presents. Nevertheless, recent empirical research especially on resilience and trauma literature has revealed that a meaningful life can be achieved through the interplay of these two systems/processes-discovery and invention-especially in dealing with trauma. In conclusion, meaning of life can be characterized by a "degree" matter rather than "all-or-none" and the construction or discovery of life are complementary processes.