We all possess an orienting system (referred to as “global meaning”) that provide us with the cognitive framework to interpret our experiences.

When encountering situations that have the potential to stress or challenge the global meaning, we appraise situations and assign meaning to them.

The extent to which the appraised meaning is discrepant from the global meaning, determines the extent to which we experience distress.

The distress caused by the discrepancy initiates a meaning-making process.

Through meaning-making efforts, we attempt to reduce the discrepancy between appraised and global meaning to restore a sense of the world as meaningful and of their lives as worthwhile.