The Crisis of Meaning in Psychotherapy and the Vulnerable Therapist

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-33
Author(s):  
Helen W. Coale
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Of Meaning

scholarly journals Exploring the Etiological Pathways of Problematic Pornography Use in NoFap/PornFree Rebooting Communities: A Critical Narrative Analysis of Internet Forum Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitra Chasioti ◽  
James Binnie
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Pornography Use ◽  
Online Persona ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Everyday Living

AbstractProblematic pornography use (PPU) has been extensively studied in terms of its negative implications for various life domains. The empirical literature reveals measured outcomes of interpersonal and intrapersonal dysfunction in participants’ everyday living, supporting its classification as a disorder. The increasing number of complaints around PPU opens the door to the creation of online self-help rebooting communities. This qualitative study aimed to provide a better understanding of this behavior by investigating potential etiological pathways contributing to the onset of PPU, as they were expressed by members of the online NoFap/PornFree self-help communities with self-perceived PPU. The critical narrative analysis reveals a complex web of mutually informing causal connections. The dialectical relationship between situational resources, material conditions, and an embodied spectator gives rise to an online persona with motivations of self-exploration, experimentation, and socializing. A sense of vulnerability rendered the use of pornography as a means of escape and validation. Furthermore, commitment to abstinence, framed by the notions of recovery and relapse, was found to be a major factor for maintaining distress. The study highlighted the need for a thorough understanding of the etiological pathways of PPU for a more effective and targeted intervention. Moving beyond biomedical conceptualizations suggests an intervention whereby PPU is placed in a context of a crisis of meaning.

scholarly journals Crisis of meaning in connection with mental distress of a modern man

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 154-170
Author(s):  
Sebastjan Kristovič
Keyword(s):  
Mental Distress ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Psychometric Instrument ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Doctor Of Philosophy ◽  
The Will ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Precise Moment

In contrast with the contemporary spirit, which directs a person towards their own needs, satisfactions, and desires, logotherapy views the person and its life as an assignment. Man is not an individual "for himself" (according to Freud, the main internal motivational force is "the will of pleasure" and "the will of power" according to Adler), but a being of sense or a being for someone or something. According to Frankl, the purpose is defined as tasks, which life sets us in a precise moment and in a precise situation. These are tasks requiring a responsible reaction and a specific realisation of values. Each of them is unique. Each individual is responsible for a task, and only he can respond to it in a responsible man-ner. In this sense, life can be seen as a chain, whose links are the tasks themselves. Each in-dividual is unique, with a unique goal in life, which consists of individual, equally unique tasks. The centre of logotherapy is future - tasks and meanings. The founder of logotherapy is Viktor E. Frankl, who was a doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy, and a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna. The third psychotherapeutic school in Vienna - logotherapy - is based on a holistic approach to an individual, which means that it analyses a person on a physical, mental, and spiritual level. Spiritual dimension is, among others, a place of realisation of responsibility and freedom or space of realisation of actual possibilities and tasks. Existential crisis, exis-tential vacuum, and noogenic neuroses are issues and mental problems, which originate from the spiritual dimension. This means failing to perceive and failing in life as an assignment. The empirical part of the research, which is based on the psychometric instrument LOGO-test, performed on two hundred re-spondents, gave us the results that even 24 percent of respondents are in various mental distresses and seriously existentially endangered. The paper highlights the most problematic areas and causes for such mental distress. The COVID-19 pandemic only deepened and revealed this crisis of meaning.

scholarly journals Egology and Hermeneutics: the Inspiration of Greimas and Kavolis in the Cultural Philosophy of Sverdiolas

Problemos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Gintautas Mažeikis
Keyword(s):  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
Existential Phenomenology ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Cultural Philosophy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Crisis ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning

The purpose of the article is to analyze how existential phenomenology and hermeneutics of Sverdiolas helps to understand the formation of culture as a transcendental process in the periods of the social and cultural crisis. Sverdiolas explains in detail the egology of Greimas and the cultural sociology of Kavolis, their understanding of the crisis, the exile and decline of cultures, and the radical choices of public intellectuals. Since much is said about egology and participatory understanding, the article develops the concept of hermeneutical anthropology. In this connection, we discuss Sverdiolas’s relation to the hermeneutical anthropology of Cl. Geertz and the condition of the transgressive being, which partly explains the role of personal choice in the time of cultural crisis. The article asks where and how do existential hermeneutics become anthropological or sociological. Greimas is discussed in the context of the crisis of meaning and phenomenological egology, and Kavolis in the context of group symbolic interactionism, the sociology of trust and friendship.

Use of Spirituality to Make Sense of Loss by Homicide

2020 ◽  
pp. 003022282090742
Author(s):  
Shannon K. Johnson ◽  
Brooks Zitzmann
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Homicide Survivors ◽  
Spiritual Change ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning ◽  
Stage 1 ◽  
Cognitive Meaning

This article presents a magnification of Stage 2 of the Theory of Post-Homicide Spiritual Change, a three-stage grounded theory of spiritual change after homicide (Theory of PHSC). Having endured the disintegration of their belief systems in the immediate aftermath of murder (Stage 1), survivors turn in Stage 2 to a more extended process of grappling with a crisis of meaning. This Stage 2 process is presented within the framework of the meaning making model, with attention to spiritual meaning making and transcendental experiences. Findings can help service providers support homicide survivors throughout an intermediary stage of bereavement that is marked by a sense of stagnation and diminished well-being. By accompanying survivors through the difficult meaning making efforts that characterize this stage, providers can help position them to break free of intensive cognitive meaning making and gain forward momentum in Stage 3 of the Theory of PHSC and can focus on aspects of life that can help them successfully make meaning of their loss while positioning them to gain forward momentum.

The Democratic Prospect

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 13-20
Author(s):  
Richard John Neuhaus
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Inhibiting Factors ◽  
The Poor ◽  
New Period ◽  
The Future ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning

I wish to explore, first of all, the nature of the crisis of liberal democracy and will argue that it is essentially a crisis of meaning. If, as I believe, we are entering a new period of ideological candor and contest, we must examine some inhibiting factors in making the case for liberal democracy. These factors are in large part internal to Western thought, but they are also increasingly vulnerable to our perspective on the future ofthe “third” and “fourth” worlds, that is, to the poor. Finally, I wish to suggest some directions that could sustain and enliven our hope for the democratic prospect.The first twinges of anxiety have turned into a torrent of rumors building toward a new consensus that democracy is now on the defensive and probably in decline. What some view with fear and others with hope is not all that sudden or all that new.

MEANING OF LIFE STATES: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND EMPIRICAL TYPOLOGY

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-107
Author(s):  
K. Karpinski
Keyword(s):  
Self Regulation ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
Integral Form ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Dominant Type ◽  
Life Tasks ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning ◽  
The Individual

The article presents the results of theoretical and empirical research devoted to the psychological regularities of the formation of the individual as a subject of life in the process of solving meaning of life tasks. This class of tasks of personal development includes the search, preservation and practical implementation of the individual meaning of life. Psychological indicators of the process and the results of solving life meaning tasks are subjective experiences of meaningfulness of life and crisis of meaning. In order to denote the integral form of feedback functioning in the system of self-regulation of the individual as a subject of life, the concept of «meaning of life state» is proposed and theoretically substantiated. Meaning of life states are understood as a specific category of permanent mental states that reflect the status of the subject-object relationship of the individual with his own life. Contrary to the common in psychological science notions of incompatibility and mutual exclusiveness of experiences of meaningfulness of life and meaning of life crisis, the hypothesis that the meaning of life is a specific form of conjugation and integration of these subjective experiences is theoretically argued. On the empirical material it is shown that there are typical combinations of these experiences, which form stable meaning-life states of the person: prosperous, crisis, conflict and stagnant. It is established that the dominant type of the meaning of life state of a person depends on its internal position in relation to the meaning of life tasks, expressed by their acceptance or non-acceptance, as well as on the productivity of their solution in everyday life. As a promising line of development of the present study longitudinal strategy, designed to reveal the psychological mechanisms and regularities of their mutual transitions and transformations, which are conditioned by the dynamics of solving meaning of life tasks.

PARENTAL BEREAVEMENT: THE CRISIS OF MEANING

Death Studies ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inese Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Parental Bereavement ◽  
Crisis Of Meaning
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