An Experiential Workshop for Meaning Making in Adulthood: The Response of Professional Counselors

Abstract

A basic goal for individuals as they struggle to face normative developmental tasks across their life span is to determine how to make meaning of their experiences, real and vicarious. The authors &scribe a workshop that gave counselors and human service practitioners meaning-making strategies that they could use in their personal and professional lives.Adulthood is a complex period of development covering almost two thirds of a person's life span. During adulthood, many developmental tasks are (or are not) accomplished (e.g., finding a life partner, becoming stable in an occupation, helping adolescents become self-sufficient individuals; Bee, 1992;Craig, 1999). Kegan (as cited in Craig, 1999) explained that "we continue to develop systems of meaning well into adulthood. We actively construct systems of beliefs and values through experience, and in turn they shape our experiences, organize our thoughts and feelings, and underlie our behavior" (p. 427). Kegan referred to this as "meaning making," which is the experience that allows adults to "know" that their life choices are congruent with who they are.The idea of meaning making is not a new one; existentialists have struggled with the concept of meaning throughout history. Camus (1955) stated, "I have seen many people die because life for them was not worth living. From this I conclude that the question of life's meaning is the most urgent question of all" (p. 106). Great writers and philosophers, such as Tolstoy, Sartre, and Molieri extolled the benefits of experiencing the "crisis of meaning" or an "arrest of life" (Yalom, 1980). From a developmental perspective, then, the question seems to be how to help adult clients deal with this "crisis of