“Meaning-centered psychotherapy” is helping cancer patients who are facing their terminal diagnosis. That’s the premise of a fascinating recent Wall Street Journal article about an experimental group therapy program at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Very simply stated, the work speaks to how people find deep strength by contemplating what meaning their life has had for them, and what creates meaning for them. It could be as simple as remembering how walking near water brings a level of peace, or an understanding of how one’s work touched others.

We, as a nation, have put a great deal of research and thought into how the recent economic collapse has affected—and will continue to affect—consumers of different demographic and psychographic segments. We’re also noting the emergence of transparency, and what social scientist Hugh Heclo calls “performance-based trust” as a requirement for brands.

I think we are truly seeing a fundamental shift in the consciousness around what these times mean for us.

What’s happening? A wide slew of consumers who were unconsciously pulled into creating ideals or pictures of what life meant are now connecting directly with reality. They are bringing to consciousness the gap they have created in their own personal brands between what they thought their promise was and what they were actually delivering for themselves. If brand is a calibration between promise and delivery, then we are going to witness some very exciting new ideas, products and processes that help consumers find their way to their newly sensed equitability.

[Main Image: istockphoto.com]