Anybody has a chance to experience a traumatic event in life, however much avoidance one tried to. The stressor or potentially traumatic event has a broad range of variety. It can take form in intentional human (man-made, deliberate, malicious), unintentional human (accidents, technological disasters) and acts of nature / natural disasters (Schiraldi, 2000). Logo therapy maintains that when we see meaning in life, we are able to endure any suffering (Barnes, 1989). The author witnessed the role of discovering the implications of traumatic events in individual recovery in some survivors looking for psychotherapy. When someone tries to discover the meaning or implications behind the event, our human spirit determines that we are the master of our lives, not the victim, even in very limiting conditions (Barnes, 1989). The suffering gives us the opportunity to overcome the challenge and turn tears to pride (Barnes, 1989; Schiraldi, 2000). Unfortunately, the dynamics of the process to discover the meaning are not well-socialized to allow more individuals to learn from such experience.
This article explain the insight experienced by some survivors in discovering the meaning of traumatic events through psychotherapy, to help them endure the suffering and to help them recover. The issues to be addressed are children with abusive parents, parents coping with the fact that their child is a homosexual, and mother coping with a child’s death in natural disaster. These issues will be addressed with suitable approaches, the attitudinal value explained by Frankl (Crumbaugh, 1996), The “Want” and The “Ought” (Lukas, 1987), and The Search for Ultimate Meaning (Brown Jr., 1993). The meaning that they discovered helps them to live in a more manageable life. |