The 5th Biennial International Meaning Conference

The 5th International Conference on Personal Meaning will be held July 24-27, 2008 at the Courtyard by Marriott Downtown Toronto

The main conference theme is Death and Dying: The Last Frontier of Positive Psychology and Spiritual Care, but we also welcome submissions on a wide range of topics related to our traditional conference themes including the positive psychology of meaning and spirituality, humanistic-existential psychology, Logotherapy and meaning-oriented research and therapies.

Overview

Consistent with previous Meaning Conferences, we provide a unique opportunity for leading researchers, clinicians and policy makers to come together and tackle an urgent and significant issue from interdisciplinary and multicultural perspectives.

Since 9/11, the topic of death and dying has dominated the mass media as well as our consciousness. From combat missions in foreign lands to gang wars in inner cities, from international terrorism to campus terror, from youth suicides to physician-assisted suicides, from aging to terminal illness, the reality of death demands serious attention from mental health professionals, research psychologists, and graduate students.

Are there solutions from psychology, medicine, religion, humanities and social sciences to the above challenges? What can we do to transform the negative experiences of death and dying to positive forces for change? These and other issues will be addressed at the forthcoming Meaning Conference .

Keynote Speakers

Keynote speakers include Robert A. Neimeyer, Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis, Editor of Death Studies and Co-Editor of the Journal of Constructivist Psychology, Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D. Founder & Director, Milton H. Erickson Foundation, and Paul T. P. Wong, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Tyndale University, Founding President of INPM, and Editor of the Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy. We are in the process of inviting and confirming several other keynote speakers.

Conference Submissions

Please recommend names for consideration as potential keynote speakers. In addition to invited plenary speakers, we also welcome submissions to the following symposia:

1. What is a good death? What are the pathways to dying well?
2. Contributions of positive psychology to living and growing with cancer and terminal illness
3. What are the contributions of neuroscience and medicine to dying well?
4. How do people come to terms with their personal mortality?
5. Death education for people on dangerous missions
6. How do we turn anger, hatred and terrorism to positive forces for change?
7. How do we detect and prevent explosive rage and random violence?
8. How do we transform grief and sorrow to positive motivations for growth?
9. Cultural differences in death attitudes
10. Cultural differences in palliative and hospice care
11. Palliative care: How do best prepare terminal patients spiritually and psychologically?
12. Spiritual and pastoral care: How to best minister to the dying and their families?
13. What constitutes good end-of-life decisions? Who decides on the fate of an unconscious patient?
14. Meaning-oriented therapies and grief counseling

Presentation Format:

• Paper -- Abstracts for paper submissions should be about 250 words.
• Poster -- Abstracts for poster submissions should be about 250 words.
• Symposium -- Proposals for symposia should include a 300-word overview and short abstracts (about 100 words) by individual participants uploaded as a Word document.
• Workshop -- Abstracts for workshops should include a 300-word overview and indicate whether the workshop will be 1 hour or 3 hours.

All submissions are to be sent electronically to pwong@tyndale.ca, clearly indicating “Meaning Conference Submission” in the subject field on your email.

CEU Credits

Individuals who want their submissions to qualify as CEU should also submit a 50-word program description, three CE objectives, 5 T/F questions, a current CV, and a 50-word bio..
CEU credits will be administered by the Milton Erickson Foundation. Details will be posted on www.meaning.ca.

Student presentations

We particularly welcome submissions from graduate students in any of the above four presentation types.

To encourage student participation, we offer three awards to three best submissions. Students interested in entering the competition need to submit a 1,000 word paper together with their abstracts for the Adjudication Panel not later than May 1, 2008.

Students may have their professors as co-authors. Competition winners will receive a monetary award, a certificate and waiver for conference registration.

All student submissions (including competition papers) should be sent to pwong@tyndale.ca.

Deadline for submissions

Deadline for all submissions (except for student competition): May 1, 2008. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out as soon as possible after peer review, but no later than May 31, 2008.

Conference registration Information

Please visit http://conference08.meaning.ca for conference registration details.
For additional information, contact Dr. Paul Wong at pwong@tyndale.ca or Dr. William Evans at evanswf@jmu.edu.
The Meaning Conference is organized by the International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) and the International Society for Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy (ISEPP).
It is co-sponsored by the Milton Erickson Foundation, Tyndale University, James Madison University, and Trinity Western University.