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

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 describe 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 Moliere 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 meaning," whether it is a crisis about having a baby, losing a loved one, or retiring from one's lifelong occupation? One way to address the crisis of meaning is to offer psychoeducational workshops that give adults knowledge about the developmental tasks they may encounter, which may help them make meaningful choices when a developmental crisis occurs. Another way is to use traditional "talk" therapy (or developmental counseling), which helps the adult client cognitively explore options when various developmental crises are experienced. If developmental counseling occurs, then Ivey (1991) recommended that counselors use Piaget's (1963) model of cognitive development and process the issues through the sensorimotor, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. The questions Ivey posed at each stage ensure that a client explores issues from more than an intellectual, cognitive perspective. In doing so, Ivey's model reinforces a very innate way of making meaning, that is, using an intuitive sensory method. Unfortunately, many adults may have lost the ability to rely on their five senses to make meaning of their lives. Although they may be able to answer questions posed by Ivey (1991), such as "Get a single image in your mind Involving your new baby ... describe what you see, what you hear, what you feel," adults may still be relying on rational logic to answer the questions. Yet, Daly (1973) and Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) all indicated that meaning making of life experiences does not begin with rational logic. Intuitive, gut reactions signal that a meaningful experience is occurring. Although first in the sequence of events, gut reaction is often the last to be acknowledged (Burns, 1985). For example, the body is stimulated to respond to an event, and the individual pursues it. Maybe individuals "get" what they pursue. For many, the getting seems to be enough. However, determining whether or not what is gotten is meaningful is usually done through rational logic. By the time rational logic is applied, many meaningful experiences may have slipped by because the gut reaction was not heeded. Many adults have lost touch with this initial source of meaning making--the body and sensory experiences. …