Meaning in the Face of Death: Implications for Existential Counseling

Abstract

In the last three years, I lost my father, uncle and mentor, perhaps the three most important men in my life. Though I was saddened by their departure, I accept that death is part of the life cycle and that life is a series of linear ‘tick-tocs’ towards an inevitable death. I have grown comfortable with that. I owe this understanding and comfort to my 18-year relationship with my recently departed mentor Dr. Clemmont Vontress, the father of cross-cultural counseling and an existentialist. As I mourn his passing, I am reminded that death is a reminder of our need to make the most of our fragile existence. Frankl reasoned that accepting death was a natural part of the life cycle and that one should find meaning in their existence with the finite time they do have. It is this view which makes a person fundamentally questioned by life itself. Frankl [1] called this view a “Copernican turn.”