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President’s Column: Is Existential Wellbeing the Key to Positive Mental Health?

Dr. Paul T. P. Wong, Ph.D.
I don’t want to bore you with all the current statistics about our mental health crisis. You already
know that the prevalence rates of depression, drug overdoses, and suicide among young people.
The challenge before us is how to solve the mental health crisis without solely depending on the
medial model (Wong & Laird, 2023). We need to consider other alternatives such as a holistic
community-based approach.
As a clinical psychologist, I have learned from my clients that most of them have succeeded by
any objective standard and enjoy good physical health. Yet, they feel so they miserable and
stressed out to the point of seeking professional help. “With all my success, why do I still feel
unfulfilled, frustrated, and disappointed?” “Why do I have problems with my spouse?” “What is
the point of all the struggle?” “What is the meaning of life?” “Is there any solution to my
problems?” These are of the common questions raised by my clients.
No wonder many young people have become very cynical about the traditional formula for a
good life – good education, good job, and a happy marriage. That have witnessed the futility of
the traditional path to success and happiness in their parents, yet they do not know any
alternative life purpose.
Is this essay, I want to unpack the meaning of existential wellbeing as the key to positive mental
health and global flourishing.
Meaning is the Answer According to Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl discovered many years ago that “ever more people today have the means to live,
but no meaning to live for.” And he correctly pointed out that neither pleasure nor power can
satisfy the human soul, which cries out for meaning. The genius of Viktor Frankl is not his
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discovery of the importance of meaning, but his profound understanding of meaning in life in
terms of self-transcendence, as explained in the above quote from Frankl.
We need self-transcendence, because we need to transcend our ego, the main source of inner
torments, because of all its unfulfilled pride, insecurities, and insoluble conflicts. In addition, we
all need self-transcendence in order to pursue something greater than ourselves and connect with
the Ultimate Meaning and others.
According to Frankl, all mental illnesses can be attributed to one general factor – a sick soul
from living a meaningless life; therefore, the key to mental health and flourishing is to live a
meaningful life defined as the self-transcendental way of life. I have expanded Frankl’s concept
of self transcendence into the new paradigm of existential positive psychology (See Figure 1;
Wong, Mayer et al., 2021; Wong, Cowden et al., 2022).
Figure 1
The New Paradigm of Existential Positive Psychology

How to Turn Suffering into Flourishing

My new paradigm for happiness and flourishing is to accept the baseline of suffering and
transform it into flourishing. Here is a step-by-step guide towards positive mental health in spite
of all your problems:
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The First Step Is To Accept And Embrace Suffering As An Inevitable Part Of Life
Figure 2 shows that our suffering can come from any combination of the four major sources of
suffering. Most people are not even aware of their spiritual-existential suffering because they are
so preoccuped with the material world that they do not spend time to cultivate the spiritual or
transcendental values of faith, hope, and love (Wong, 2023a).
Figure 2
Four Major Sources of Suffering

From a holistic framework, the inevitable result of ignoring our ultimate concerns for meaning
and connection is a sense of emptiness, boredom, and loneliness, which cannot be fullfilled by
pleasures, and worldly success, as my clients have demonstrated.
That is why the spiritual-existential dimension is the most important dimension for our total
health or quality-of-life as shown in Figure 3. The spiritual-existential dimension actually
permeats every apects of our life because we are basically spiritual beings with the breath of God
in us. That is why we can never find meaning and fullfillment when this dimension is neglected,
even when we have satisfied all the needs of the other three dimensions.
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Figure 3
The Bio-psycho-social-spiritual Model of Health

The Second Step Is To Endure Suffering And Make It The Foundation For Flourishing
Yes, endurance. If you really accept suffering as the baseline of life, it logically follows that you
need to learn how to endure suffering, no matter how painful.
I have already published a lot on the new science of enduring and transforming suffering (Wong,
2023a; Wong & Worth, 2017; Wong, Ho et al., 2023). It will take a book to document all the
empirical evidence and real life examples of the importance of endurance. Without enduring the
long dark night, you will not see the new dawn. Similarly, without endurance of suffering, you
cannot flourish as demonstrated in Figure 4.
Figure 4
Towards a General Theory of Global Wellbeing
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The Third Step Is To Understand The Meaning Of Suffering And Achieve Existential
Wellbeing As The Foundation For Mental Health And Flourishing
According to my suffering hypothesis (Wong, 2023b; Wong & Laird, in press), sinking one’s
roots deep into the soil of suffering is necessary for flourishing. It will involve existential
intelligence, self-transcendence, and the virtues of courage, patience, and faith in order to
flourish and experience existential wellbeing even in the worst of circumstances.

What Is Existential Wellbeing? What Does It Look Life?

I want to conclude this little adventure into the wonderland of existential positive psychology by
describing existential wellbeing in a way that my readers can readily relate to.
In simple terms, existential wellbeing (EWB) means the ability to live well and die well in spite
of pain, obstacles, and impending death. Generally a person is enjoying a sense of EWB when
one has gone through adversity and has learned (a) the meaning of suffering, (b) the existential
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wisdom concerning the big picture and long-terms benefits, (c) the need and skills to relate to
others at a deeper level, (d) the need and benefits of connecting with God or a Higher power, and
(e ) the wisdom of dialectically navigating opposite forces and achieving balance and harmony.
Figure 5 shows some of the indicators or correlates of existential wellbeing.
Figure 5
Indicators of Existential Wellbeing

In our latest invited article on existential wellbeing for the journal Medicina (Wong et al., in
preparation), we emphasize that existential wellbeing (EWB) is the most important kind of
wellbeing for people suffering from various diseases, especially for patients in palliative or
hospice care (Wong & Yu, 2021). We propose that this type of wellbeing involves some
combination of the following experiences:
(1) Prior experience of overcoming adversity.
(2) Some level of existential intelligence (Gardner, 2020) in solving one’s existential concerns,
such as meaninglessness and fear of death.
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(3) Some level of spiritual wellbeing based on transcendental values of faith, hope, and love
(Wong, 2023a).
(4) Some wisdom of the soul (Wong 2022).
(5) Some knowledge of meaning-focused coping (Eisenbeck et al., 2021).
(6) Some knowledge and experience of self-transcendence (Reed & Haugan, 2021; Wong, Arslan
et al., 2021).
The discovery of EWB provides new ground of hope for mental health without total dependence
on the medical model, and it is based on the new science of suffering (Wong, Ho et al., 2022).
Just imagine how it can change your attitude towards suffering and transform your life for the
better when you know how to (1) redefine positivity or wellbeing in terms of seeing and being
the light in the darkness, (2) navigate the dialectical process of balancing between opposites, and
(3) enjoy the mature happiness (Wong & Bowers, 2018) of inner peace and harmony during
turbulent times.
References
Eisenbeck, N., Carreno, D. F., & Pérez-Escobar, J. A. (2021). Meaning-Centered Coping in the
Era of COVID-19: Direct and Moderating Effects on Depression, Anxiety, and Stress.
Frontiers in psychology, 12, 648383. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648383
Gardner, H. (2020, July 8). A resurgence of interest in existential intelligence: Why now?
https://www.howardgardner.com/howards-blog/a-resurgence-of-interest-in-existential-
intelligence-why-now
Reed, P. G., & Haugan, G. (2021, March 12). Self-transcendence: A salutogenic process for
well-being. In G. Haugan, & M. Eriksson (Eds.), Health promotion in health care – wital
theories and research (Chapter 9). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585654
Wong, P. T. P. (2022). The wisdom of the soul: The missing key to happiness and positive
mental health? [Review of the book A Time for Wisdom: Knowledge, Detachment,
Tranquility, Transcendence, by P. T. McLaughlin & M. R. McMinn]. International
Journal of Existential Positive Psychology, 11(2). https://www.meaning.ca/ijepp-
article/vol11-no2/the-wisdom-of-the-soul-the-missing-key-to-happiness-and-positive-
mental-health/
Wong, P. T. P. (2023a). Spiritual-existential wellbeing (SEW): The faith-hope-love model of
mental health and total wellbeing. International Journal of Existential Positive
Psychology, 11(2). http://www.drpaulwong.com/spiritual-existential-wellbeing
Wong, P. T. P. (2023b). Pioneer in research in existential positive psychology of suffering and
global flourishing: Paul T. P. Wong. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 18, 2153-2157.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10207-7
Wong, P. T. P., Arslan, G., Bowers, V. L., Peacock, E. J., Kjell, O. N. E., Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T.
(2021). Self-transcendence as a buffer against COVID-19 suffering: The development
and validation of the Self-Transcendence measure-B. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 4229.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648549
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Wong, P. T. P., & Bowers, V. (2018). Mature happiness and global wellbeing in difficult times.
In N. R. Silton (Ed.), Scientific concepts behind happiness, kindness, and empathy in
contemporary society (pp. 112-134). IGI Global.
Wong, P. T. P., Cowden, R. G., Mayer, C.-H., & Bowers, V. L. (2022). Shifting the paradigm of
positive psychology: Toward an existential positive psychology of wellbeing. In A. H.
Kemp (Ed.), Broadening the scope of wellbeing science: Multidisciplinary and
interdiscipinary perspectives on human flourishing and wellbeing (pp. 13-27). Palgrave
Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18329-4_2
Wong, P. T. P., Cowden, R. G., Yu, T. T. F., & Arslan, G. (In preparation). Existential wellbeing
(EWB) and palliative care. Medicina.
Wong, P. T. P., Ho, L. S., Mayer, C.-H., Yang, F., & Cowden, R. G. (2023). A New Science of
Suffering, Existential Intelligence, and the New Behavioral Economics of Happiness-
Toward a General Theory of Wellbeing [Special Issue]. Frontiers in
Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1280613/full
Wong, P. T. P., & Laird, D. (2023). Varieties of suffering in clinical setting: Re-envisioning
mental health beyond the medical model. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1155845
Wong, P. T. P., & Laird, D. (in press). The suffering hypothesis: Viktor Frankl’s spiritual
remedies and recent developments. In C. McLafferty, Jr. and J. Levinson
(Eds.), Logotherapy and Existential Analysis: Proceedings of the Viktor Frankl Institute
of Logotherapy Frankl Institute Vienna (Vol. 2). Springer Research.
Wong, P. T. P., Mayer, C.-H., & Arslan, G. (Eds.). (2021). COVID-19 and Existential Positive
Psychology (PP 2.0): The new science of self-transcendence [Special Issue]. Frontiers in
Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14988/covid-19-and-existential-
positive-psychology-pp20-the-new-science-of-self-transcendence
Wong, P. T. P., & Worth, P. (2017). The deep-and-wide hypothesis in giftedness and
creativity [Special issue]. Psychology and Education, 54(3/4). Retrieved
from http://www.psychologyandeducation.net/pae/category/volume-54-no-3-4-2017/
Wong, P. T. P., & Yu, T. T. F. (2021). Existential suffering in palliative care: An existential
positive psychology perspective. Medicina, 57(9), 924.
https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57090924