Talk:Meaning-making

Meaning-making in the applied psychology professions versus other more basic academic disciplines

There seems to be at least two largely independent groups of people who talk about "meaning-making". One group, with which I am most familiar, is the applied psychology professions such as counseling psychology and educational psychology which are primarily interested in how people's meaning-making changes and in how they can help people become more skillful meaning-makers (even if, as Robert Kegan said in his 1982 book The Evolving Self, "it is not that a person makes meaning, as much as that activity of being a person is the activity of meaning-making"). These are practical clinical professionals whose principal work output is helping other people. The other group, with which I am less familiar, is the academic researchers doing more basic research whose principal work output is theoretical academic texts. This article as originally written referred to the work of the first group. I see now that some reference to the work of the second group is being added to this article. I wanted to point out what I see as the discrepancy between the goals and discourse of these two groups (at least two groups; perhaps one could differentiate more). I am not sure how to deal with this in this in the article; any suggestions are welcome. Biogeographist (talk) 12:35, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Additional information concerning Robert Kegan's meaning-making model

I am most interested in Robert Kegan's work surrounding the Meaning-making model. I am aware that he has drawn from other's work, and was appreciative that that information was included in the article. However, I would like to see more of his contributions present here. In the field of adult development, I believe he offers an additional insight about what meaning-making really is. More information about his life, work, and ultimate findings, other than a singular quote concerning people making their own meaning, would enrich the article significantly. Katergater (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@Katergater: Kegan is already mentioned twice in the article. Perhaps a few more sentences are warranted, but any more would be WP:UNDUE weight here. Deeper information on his work can be found by clicking on the wikilink Robert Kegan and reading the article about him and his work. Biogeographist (talk) 01:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Current developments in meaning-making theory

This article refers to psychologist Crystal L. Park’s commentary on the growing pace of the development of the meaning-making theory. I think this article can benefit from reflecting more of the current developments within this area.AmandaBYUI (talk) 04:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@AmandaBYUI: That sounds like a good idea. If you are planning to work on that, please think about the issue I mentioned above in § Meaning-making in the applied psychology professions versus other more basic academic disciplines, about how to deal with the difference between applied research and basic research on meaning-making in this article (e.g., counseling psychology is applied, semiotics is basic—and, importantly, counseling psychology is not applied semiotics: they are completely different approaches to researching meaning-making). I am not saying that we need to explicitly name that applied/basic-research distinction in the article (which would be WP:OR if it were not attributed to a cited source), but if I was correct that there is a discrepancy between the goals and discourse of these two groups (at least two groups; perhaps one could differentiate more) then it would be most accurate to keep the different research groups' work in different sections. Biogeographist (talk) 04:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Too emotional?

I enjoyed reading how meaning-making can occur in emotional aspects of life, like relationships and religion, but I would have liked to see more rational, everyday situations like meaning-making in a career, in school, even in everyday life. I think that this would appeal to a greater audience, especially those who are more logical than emotional, those who can't relate to these situations, and those who want to know what it is like from a different perspective. Cruzserenity (talk) 03:03, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@Cruzserenity: Many of the texts that are already cited in this article discuss the subject areas that you mentioned, so it would not be too difficult to expand the article's coverage of those areas by consulting the texts already cited in the article and adding more information about those areas. For example, the psychologist Robert Kegan, who was a prominent early user of the term meaning-making, is mentioned several times in this article, and his book In Over Our Heads (1994) discussed his theory of meaning-making in separate chapters on parenting (families), partnering (couples), working (companies), healing (psychotherapies), and learning (schools).

Also note that there are many other articles on Wikipedia that are focused on rationalist approaches to cognition that would emphasize logical/mathematical operations; some of those more rationalist articles you can find via the article on Meaning (philosophy). I suspect that this article is not very rationalist because the psychologists who use the term meaning-making tend to take a constructivist perspective instead of a rationalist perspective. In other words, different theories of psychology tend to use different vocabulary, and if a psychologist uses the term meaning-making, it generally indicates that the psychologist has a constructivist perspective. (There are exceptions, like Richard DeGrandpre, who is mentioned in the article as using the term with a behaviorist emphasis.) For more information on the difference between constructivist and rationalist perspectives in counseling psychology, see, for example, the following texts:

• Mahoney, Michael J.; Lyddon, William J. (April 1988). "Recent developments in cognitive approaches to counseling and psychotherapy". The Counseling Psychologist. 16 (2): 190–234. doi:10.1177/0011000088162001. There has been substantial evolution and differentiation among cognitive psychotherapies, of which there are at least 20 distinct modern varieties. It is argued that these various cognitive approaches reflect two fundamental traditions in philosophy and psychological theory—rationalism and constructivism. Rationalist cognitive therapies are exemplified by Albert Ellis's rational-emotive therapy and view counseling as technical consultation in rational thinking and 'reality contact.' Rationalist counselors assume that explicit thought processes are the optimal focus of intervention. Constructivist cognitive therapies challenge reductionistic accounts of the relationships among thought, feeling, and action. As reflected in George Kelly's personal construct approach and the contemporary works of Guidano, Ivey, Joyce Moniz, and Mahoney, constructivist therapies emphasize proactive processes in adaptation. They also acknowledge the importance of emotional attachments, affective cycles of disorganization, and self-organizing processes in individual psychological development. Key differences between rationalist and constructivist approaches are outlined at philosophical, theoretical, and practical levels.
• Winter, David A. (September 2008). "Cognitive behaviour therapy: from rationalism to constructivism?". European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. 10 (3): 221–229. doi:10.1080/13642530802337959. Another distinction is that between rationalist and constructivist epistemological positions, essentially whether people are viewed as passively perceiving an independently existing real world or actively constructing their realities. It has been found that rational-emotive therapists are more rationalist and less constructivist than personal construct psychotherapists (Neimeyer & Morton, 1997); and that therapists' epistemological positions are reflected in their personal characteristics, therapeutic styles, and choice of interventions, rationalists being more likely to use cognitive-behavioural techniques (Neimeyer et al., 2006). A further indication of the rationalist position of cognitive-behavioural therapists was provided by Winter, Tschudi, and Gilbert (2006), who, comparing them with psychotherapists of eight other orientations, found them to be more rationalist than all except hypnotherapists. They were also more outer-directed than all other therapists, and more likely to construe therapy in technical terms.

Biogeographist (talk) 01:38, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Social meaning making

It would be important to expound upon social meaning-making and social semiotics because there is reference to it in the Lead. There is no further explanation in the rest of the Wikipedia article. Perhaps a section should be devoted to this subject. --Alaura.a.borealis (talk) 05:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

@Alaura.a.borealis: There is a separate article on social semiotics, and information on social semiotics belongs in that other article. Please think about the issue I mentioned above in § Meaning-making in the applied psychology professions versus other more basic academic disciplines, about how to deal with the difference between applied research and basic research on meaning-making in this article (e.g., counseling psychology is applied, social semiotics is basic—and, importantly, counseling psychology is not applied social semiotics: they are completely different approaches to researching meaning-making). Besides, for many thinkers in counseling psychology like Robert Kegan, meaning-making always already is social: they don't define meaning-making as different from social meaning-making. Biogeographist (talk) 12:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I think it might be helpful to elaborate a bit on the social aspect. Since it was mentioned in the lead it might be beneficial to have a very brief section on the social aspect of it. Smii25 (talk) 03:25, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

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