The Rediscovery of the Meaning of Illness and the Power to Make for Hope

Abstract

When we get sick, we try to recover from it as soon as possible. However, when a full recovery is impossible, what would strike us? We would be seized by an inescapable surge of despair and anxiety, and even regard illness as a disaster striking our life.

Viktor E. Frankl (1993) described the meaning and value of life. According to him, one is asked by life and has to answer it because to live one's life is to take responsibility for it. ^* While counselling patients daily, I experience the moment when patients stop asking why they should suffer from illness and begin to change their focus. In other words, I share the moment when they achieve what Frankl calls existential shift. Existential shift is a change of attitude from fighting against illness to living with illness. It is also the power to give illness a new meaning, or hope that rises from suffering.

*English translation was made by the author.