ABSTRACT
Humans are meaning-making beings. We constantly strive to process new experiences in ways that have meaning and that confirm the meanings we have already established for ourselves. We like stories, and we are prone to believing that they have a linear trajectory, starting at the beginning and moving through various vicissitudes to a conclusion that gives coherence to the whole. Coherence makes us safe in our assumptions. It confirms the world as we know it and helps us feel secure, even if that world has been hateful or harmful. It is the contradictions and unpredictability that life presents us with that are disturbing, generating emotions that fuel the hard psychological work of resisting and adapting to the new and unfamiliar.
