Existential Psychology
Dr. Paul Wong
Positive Existential Psychotherapy and Pathways to Death Acceptance
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death By Irvin D. Yalom San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. 306 pp. ISBN 978-0-7879-9668-0 $24.95 Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong Never have I reviewed a book from so many perspectives: as a cancer survivor, an existential...
Narrative Practice and Meaning-Centered Positive Psychotherapy
Maps of Narrative Practice By Michael White New York, NY: Norton, 2007. 304 pp. ISBN 978-0-393-70516-4 $25.95 Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong Michael White has become synonymous with narrative therapy in the same way Kleenex became synonymous with facial tissue. His...
Transformation of Grief through Meaning: Meaning-Centered Counseling for Bereavement
Summary Statements This chapter clarifies the nature of grief and bereavement. It reviews major theories on grieving and examines the role of meaning. It presents the meaning-management theory of coping with grief. It introduces meaning-centered counseling (MCC) and...
Meaning Management Theory and Death Acceptance
Introduction Imagine yourself on board a train, which is out of control and doomed to end in a fatal crash. Nothing can be done to slow it down or to change the track. Worse still, there is no exit—no one can get out of the train. As a passenger, how would you...
Anatomy of Midlife Crisis: From Broken Dreams to the Quest for Meaning
Broken Flowers (2005) By Jim Jarmusch (Director) Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong Broken Flowers is one of those unforgettable movies that seem to haunt one and make one think about one's own life. In a subdued and seductive way, it depicts the midlife crisis...
The Challenges of Experimental Existential Psychology: Terror Management or Meaning Management?
Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology By Jeff Greenberg, Sander L. Koole, and Tom Pyszczynski (Eds.) New York: Guilford Press, 2004. 528 pp. ISBN 1-59385-040-9 $65.00 Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong Mainstream psychology sometimes loses touch with the zeitgeist....
The Meaning of Life According to David Owen Russell: Existential Psychotherapy Made Easy
I Heart Huckabees (2004) By David Owen Russell (Director) Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong It is difficult to make sense of I Heart Huckabees. Even the title of this film threw me off at first. To say the least, I Heart Huckabees is an existential comedy quite...
Trauma Recovery and the Promises of Positive Existential Psychology
Coping With Trauma: Hope Through Understanding (2nd ed.) By Jon G. Allen Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2005. 354 pp. ISBN 1-58562-169-2 $29.95 Reviewed by Paul T. P. Wong Saturated media coverage has a way of influencing public consciousness and...
Towards an Integrative Model of Meaning-Centered Counseling and Therapy
In my last installment on Meaning-Centered Counseling (MCC; Wong, 1997) I presented a cognitive-behavioral reformulation of logotherapy. In the present paper, I propose that Meaning-Centered Counseling and Therapy (MCCT) is an integrative model, because the blending...
Meaning-Centered Counseling: A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Logotherapy
Abstract This paper is the first of a series of papers that extend Dr. Frankl’s pioneer work of bridging between existential traditions and cognitive-behavioral psychology. Meaning-Centered Counseling may be regarded as neo-logotherapy, because it...
