ABSTRACT
For those not familiar with the application of the concept of meaning making in the bereavement literature, a brief description may be helpful. Over the past 25 years, attempts to frame the grieving process in stages, tasks, and outcomes have not been necessarily supported by empirical research with bereaved individuals. There has also been a great deal of difculty nding language that is accurate and descriptive of a process widely variable between individuals and very multidimensional in its expression. For instance, does one accommodate, integrate, or “work through” a signicant loss experience, or does one “recover” from grief? In a comprehensive review of published studies of grief counseling, Neimeyer (2000) states that one of the more commonly described aspects of the experience of bereaved individuals was an attempt to attach meanings to loss experiences. Originally founded in constructivist psychology, the concept of making meaning extends from the idea that human beings construct life narratives, and part of this construction is also the assignment of meaning, or attaching signicance to an event. I would also suggest that meaning making is one of the primary processes in
which individuals engage when there is dissonance between their life experiences and their existing assumptive world.
