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Ask your client to rate himself on how meaningful he perceives his life to be at the moment using the rating scale in the following assessment.

Caution: The indicators of meaning in life in the self-assessment below are based on propositions in the reviewed literature. Please explain to the client that the purpose of the self-assessment is to enable the client to identify areas of her internal experience of life in which she could increase satisfaction. This has nothing to do with whether or not her life is meaningful in any objective sense, as an internal experience is not something that can be measured externally by observers. The client may even be able to think of other indicators of meaning in her life that are not listed here. If she does so encourage her to list them in the ‘Other Indicators of Meaning in your Life’ category and rate herself on them accordingly.

Ensure that the client understands that a low score in this self-assessment does not mean that his life is meaningless or worthless, but it merely means that perhaps in the client’s mind, he could optimize meaning for increased satisfaction with his life. Irrespective of what we feel about how our lives are going, it would be wise to remember that if we ask those close to us, they will probably tell us that our lives are immeasurably important to them irrespective of our accomplishments and failures. Ultimately, an individual is the best judge of personal circumstances and in the end it is the individual’s opinions and feelings about life that matter.

Fig 1.1: Assessment of perceived meaning in life