Abstract
“Meaning” is a theoretical concept of utmost importance to positive and existential psychologists in their interpretations of narratives of suffering and healing, yet the two schools of thought define meaning in notably different ways: positive psychology tends to hold a "neat" notion of meaning as restoring coherence or transcending suffering, while existential psychology often employs an “untidy” understanding of meaning as often unstable and elusive. As they apply these different theories of meaning to narratives, positive and existential psychology produce distinctive readings that accentuate “concordant” experiences and “discordant” experiences, respectively. We argue that while such readings illuminate certain aspects of life, they do not always capture how these aspects are narratively connected, producing stories of what philosopher Ricoeur (1984) called “discordant concordance.” We use the narrative of an older woman who was living with cervical cancer, grieving the loss of her partner, and finding new love in a recent relationship to show the narrative connections between losses and discoveries of meaning. Her story is especially apt to our purpose, for narratives of aging, illness, and bereavement sometimes provide the best demonstration of the interdependency of narrative coherence and chaos. We believe there is potential for positive and existential psychology to inform each other’s project by including this dialectics of coherence and chaos within their notions of meaning. We conclude by suggesting that our abilities, as psychologists, to understand narratives of suffering may be broadened further by two considerations: first, re-evaluating the association between narrative coherence and well-being—an assumption often held by positive and existential psychologists alike that discounts the potential liberating effects of chaos and uncertainty within narratives; and second, by placing meanings within the social and cultural contexts of their production, which may expand our recognition of multiple narrative forms.
One must still have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1985).
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Notes
- 1.
Some philosophers from the phenomenological tradition have argued that all academic disciplines harbor “preunderstandings” (Gadamer 1989; Heidegger 1962; Derrida 1993) that direct them to certain biased conclusions about their subjects of study. Our attention is primarily on psychology; however, in a Gadamerian move we propose bringing multiple disciplines into conversation with psychology in order to explore and broaden the discipline’s preunderstandings.
- 2.
Pseudonyms are used for all persons referred to in this narrative.
- 3.
- 4.
Mary’s medieval times imagery probably entered her narrative through her exchange with the interviewer, whose use of the word “impaled” carried such historical references (e.g. most notably of the medieval Prince of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler). Thus, not only did the characters within her narrative (e.g., her mother) serve as participants in its shaping, the audience/interlocutor was also implicated in the meanings Mary produced.
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Hammond, C., Teucher, U., Hamoline, R. (2014). Narrative Coherence and Disruption: Negotiating Between Positive and Existential Psychology. In: Batthyany, A., Russo-Netzer, P. (eds) Meaning in Positive and Existential Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0308-5_9
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