Mattering to Others: Implications for the Counseling Relationship

"To be of importance to others is to be alive" --T. S. Eliot (from Simpson, 1997, p. 654) Mattering to others, the fundamental need that individuals have to feel important and significant to others, has recently resurfaced in the social sciences literature. Sociologists, psychologists, and a few counselors have led the recent surge in the study of to whom and to what degree individuals perceive that they matter. Sociologists Elliott, Kao, and Grant (2004) recently published a comprehensive empirical validation study of mattering in which they conceptualized and tested their triadic ideology of mattering to others: awareness, importance, and reliance. The current article provides a review of the Elliott et al. article and presents implications for counselors, for the counseling relationship, and for future counseling research. Although the significance of the counseling relationship is well known, counselors' knowledge, understanding, and implementation of mattering as a method for strengthening the counseling relationship has not yet been presented in counseling. Therefore, the consideration of mattering as influential to counseling is timely. Mattering Conceptualized In the early 1980s, Morris Rosenberg (Rosenberg & McCullough, 1981) first conceptualized mattering as an integral component of individuals' self-concepts; he hypothesized that all individuals experience varying perceptions of general mattering (mattering in a broad sense to society) and of interpersonal mattering (mattering to specific other people). Since that time, mattering has remained inherent in social psychology; however, years passed with little empirical research furthering Rosenberg's initial suggestions. Within the past 5 years, social scientists have furthered the worthy study of this powerful experience. Elliott et al. (2004) defined mattering as the perception, to some degree, that we, as human beings, believe we are important and significant to the world around us and to others in our lives. They suggested that mattering to others is actually essential to our sense of self(all human beings want to matter to others) and to society (as an element of social bonding). Elliott et al. (2004) emphasized Rosenberg's initial point: To fully comprehend mattering, there must be a focus on the individual's perceived sense of mattering as considered separately from the actions of others toward that individual. In other words, despite objective indicators (that others explicitly display) that we matter, if we do not intrapersonally recognize and believe that we matter, we will not actually experience mattering to others. Therefore, this process begins with external, interpersonal dynamics but ultimately affects the internal sense of self and self-concept. The antithesis of mattering brings about the detrimental perception of not mattering, or believing we are insignificant and unimportant to others. Elliott et al. suggested that the thought of not mattering to others in our lives is likely one of the most frightening perceptions we could ever have. If others do not pay attention to us, listen to us, and do not believe we are significant, we must find or create ways in which to cope with the realization that we do not matter. The experience of not mattering to others allows for a deeper understanding of just how important mattering to others may be. Elliott et al. (2004) purported that because all people want to matter, the sobering experience of feeling irrelevant to others may lead some individuals to do almost anything in order to matter. Individuals who are ignored and perceive that they do not matter may "act out" in socially undesirable ways to gain others' attention--whether the attention is positive or negative is of no concern (Elliott et al., 2004), they simply want to matter. Elliott et al.'s article facilitated the evolution of the conceptualization of mattering with the inspection of perceptions of mattering compared with other psychosocial constructs. …