Meaning-making and health

Abstract

During the last decades, meaning-making has come into focus as a valuable resource for health. Through life, a person might face different challenges such as bereavement, loss of abilities, and unemployment, among others, and the ability to cope with these is decisive for the person’s health and well-being. Making-meaning is a way of coping with difficult situations and can enhance a healing process of the biopsychosocial individual. As nobody lives in a vacuum, meaning-making is dependent on the cultural, social, and relationship context of a person and is an ever-ongoing process as both the individual, the context, and the interaction with the environment are constantly changing. This chapter discusses different models of meaning-making and provides examples of how they work in suicidality, illness, and loss. On this background, the chapter presents a new way of approaching individuals in difficult situations: the power threat meaning framework (PTMF). PTMF was developed as an alternative to diagnostic and medicalized thinking to provide a more contextual understanding of various challenges, emotional distress, and unusual or troubling behavior. The PTMF also offers practical guidance, which is presented briefly.