Book Review: The Human Quest for Meaning

If, like me, you think therapy can enhance the meaning of a client's life, then this book is well worth reading. If you have flirted with logotherapy, but been disappointed by its quasi-religious flavour and are looking for something more rooted in scientific research findings, then it's an absolute must. But if you think that questions of the meaning of life raises many philosophical issues, which may well precede or even preclude attempts to measure meaning and produce techniques to enhance it, then you may well end up with some reservations.

The book is certainly a major work, nearly five-hundred pages long, consisting of nineteen essays, many of them substantial offerings in their own right. It is split into three sections. The first, 'Theoretical Approaches to Personal Meaning' illustrates well the diversity of the ways in which one can develop theories about meaning. Salvatore Maddi describes what he calls an existential personality theory (if that is not a contradiction in terms) which concludes that meaning is created through making decisions. In contrast, Eric Klinger's theoretical approach is evolutionary, postulating that the search for meaning has biological roots. Other chapters look at the development of personal meaning in adults, and an 'implicit theory' approach which looks at layperson's conceptions of an ideally meaningful life.

The second section contains seven papers focusing on research in personal meaning. These include a paper (jointly) written by Roy Baumeister, well-known for his book, Meanings of Life where he argued that we had four basic needs of purpose, efficacy, value and self-worth. Baumeister, like some other researchers in this section, relies on ideographic, qualitative research methods, in his case that of personal narratives. Other contributors aim to develop more positivistic, quantitative, measures of meaning. A long-standing weakness of logotherapy, at least according to commentators such as Yalom, were the flaws in its Purpose in Life test, upon which many claims regarding the efficacy of logotherapy were based. Dominique Debats presents a new test, the Life Regards Index, which claims to be a more valid test, and appears very promising.

But it is to the third section "The role of Personal Meaning in Counselling and Psychotherapy" to which I suspect most readers of this journal will turn first. Here we have six essays on how therapy can be used to enhance meaning. Some of these come from mainstream logotherapeutic circles. Thus Joseph Fabry argues that we need to emphasise responsibility and community, to "respond to the demands of meaning", not just invent meanings. Elizabeth Lukas, another protege of Frankl, in a similar vein asserts that "there is a most meaningful path for every person" - the need is to discover that special meaning. The style of this writing will I am sure be inspiring to some, but rather too religious and lacking rigor for others. In contrast Hubert Hermans introduces an original, more psychologically-rooted, "self-confrontation" method to assess the meaning of life which includes a case study. Paul Wong, in the final chapter, offers a major new meaning-centred approach described as a hybrid between existential-humanistic and cognitive-behavioural paradigms. His chapter is long - 40 pages - and worthy of further comment. Wong begins with a review of the basic tenets of logotherapy, followed by an evaluation, in which he asserts "The main weakness of logotherapy is that its principles are stated in philosophical terms or in metaphor. This vagueness precludes scientific analysis". For Wong the main concepts include 'existential attribution' - seeking the reason and purpose for behaviour - 'existential coping' - 'accepting uncontrollable problems as the reality of life and perceiving some positive meanings in negative life experiences' (p. 412) and 'life task' - 'active engagement in an activity considered valuable and meaningful'. Wong also introduces a number of therapeutic techniques aimed at enhancing meaning. Some of these are clearly based on logotherapeutic ideas - for example the 'life review' expands on some of Frankl's techniques aimed at helping patients have the right attitude to the past - i.e. an attitude where they can see meaning in what had previously been framed as negative events. Another, which Wong calls 'Magical Thinking' seems very close to Solution-Focussed therapy's 'miracle question'. A third technique, 'fast-forwarding', suggests the client imagines what would happen if an option under consideration was carried out, thereby enabling a reality check on its desirability, and potentially motivating them to implement it. Whilst many of these, and the other techniques mentioned, are not entirely original, Wong does us a great service in bringing them all together in the context of enhancing meaning, and his theory is worthy of serious attention.

In general, the papers are interesting, well-written, relevant and recommended reading. A striking feature of this book is that its 19 chapters makes scant reference to each other. This makes Wong and Fry's achievement in bringing these chapters together all the more important.

Less praiseworthy is its total neglect of the English existential/phenomenological contribution to meaning. It is almost as if the book was published in a parallel universe where the Society of Existential Analysis and this journal did not exist! Equally, the book does not delve in to any of the philosophical questions surrounding meaning, and on occasions blurs the distinction between meaning as purpose and meaning as value. Nevertheless, in terms of achieving its main objective - to provide an up-to-date and (relatively) scientifically-rooted reading on the theory, research and clinical applications of personal meaning - the book must be considered a major contribution to the field.

Tim Lebon