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Why Seeking Higher Meaning is a Valid Human Occupation
- Mirror Mind Therapy
- 10 hours ago
- 9 min read
Occupational therapy (OT) has long understood that human beings are not only shaped by what they do, but by the meaning their occupations hold.
Occupation is central to health, wellbeing and participation, and occupational therapy literature has consistently linked doing with identity, purpose and social belonging (Townsend and Polatajko, 2013; Wilcock, 1998).
We do not simply eat, work, rest, care, create or connect as mechanical acts. We attach significance to these activities. They become expressions of identity, values, belonging, hope and purpose. If occupation is about meaningful engagement with life, then seeking higher meaning should be recognised as a valid human occupation in its own right.
This claim may appear abstract at first. The search for meaning is often treated as philosophical, private or spiritual, rather than practical. It can be seen as something separate from daily life, health, therapy or function. Yet people seek meaning through very real occupations: reflection, prayer, meditation, journaling, study, conversation, creativity, ritual, time in nature, service, cultural practice, intentional solitude and, in some contexts, altered states of consciousness.
These are not empty activities. They are ways people organise experience, make sense of suffering, reconnect with values and orient themselves towards a life that feels worth living. Frankl's meaning-centred perspective also supports the idea that the search for purpose is a central human motivation, particularly during suffering and disruption (Frankl, 2004; Bushkin, van Niekerk and Stroud, 2021).
Occupation is more than performance
A central insight of occupational therapy is that occupation is not simply performance. It is not only the visible completion of tasks or the measurement of independence. Occupation includes the subjective experience of doing: why an activity matters, how it is chosen, what it communicates, and how it helps a person belong to the world. Wilcock's framework of doing, being and becoming highlights that occupation supports not only activity and performance, but also identity, reflection, transformation and wellbeing (Wilcock, 1998).
A walk may be exercise, but it may also be:-
remembrance
prayer
emotional regulation
identity
rebellion
recovery
reconnection
Cooking may be a domestic task, but it may also be:-
care
heritage
creativity
grief
work
love
The same is true of meaning-seeking. When people ask, "Why am I here?", "What matters now?", "What is this experience teaching me?" or "How do I live in alignment with my values?", they are not stepping outside of occupation. They are engaging in one of the deepest forms of occupation: the active construction of meaning itself.
Occupational identity literature also shows that what people do is closely connected with who they understand themselves to be, especially through meaningful occupation, belonging and future becoming (Hansson, Carlstedt and Morville, 2022). This may not always produce an immediate external outcome, but it can shape every other occupation a person undertakes.
Meaning-making after disruption
This matters in occupational therapy, because function without meaning can leave people technically independent but existentially disconnected. A person may return to work, complete self-care tasks, manage routines and meet external goals, yet they still feel that life has lost coherence. After illness, trauma, burnout, bereavement or major transition, people often need more than restoration of previous roles.
Occupational identity can be disrupted when meaningful patterns of doing, being and belonging are interrupted, making meaning reconstruction an important part of recovery (Hansson, Carlstedt and Morville, 2022).
They may need to rebuild their entire relationship with meaning and purpose itself. They may need to rediscover what their occupations mean to them now, following a life-altering experience - not simply whether they can perform them.
Major disruption can unsettle the assumptions that previously made life feel coherent...
Someone recovering from a stroke may no longer recognise the body through which they once worked, parented or expressed themselves.
A person living with chronic pain may have to renegotiate the rhythm of every day.
Someone grieving may find that familiar routines feel hollow, because the relationships that gave them meaning have changed.
In these circumstances, the question is not only "How can this person do more?" but "How can this person live meaningfully with what has changed?"
Higher meaning emerges through everyday doing
The insight is that higher meaning often emerges through occupation, not apart from it. Meaning is found in the way someone cares for a child, tends a garden, sits in silence, returns to art, joins a community, grieves a loss, volunteers, studies wisdom traditions, or chooses to live differently after pain.
This inner intention behind these occupations may not always be easily measured, but it can profoundly influence wellbeing, motivation, resilience and identity. Occupational therapy's occupation-based models emphasise that participation is not merely task completion, but a route to health, wellbeing, agency and social inclusion (Townsend and Polatajko, 2013; Townsend and Wilcock, 2004).
It helps people answer not only "What can I do?" but "Who am I becoming through what I do?"
This is why meaning-seeking should not be reduced to belief alone. For some people, higher meaning is explicitly spiritual or religious. For others, it is found through nature, creativity, justice, relationships, learning, embodiment, ancestry, community or service.
Contemporary occupational therapy literature commonly defines spirituality through meaning, purpose and connection, rather than limiting it to formal religion (So et al., 2025). A person may experience transcendence in a church, mosque, synagogue, temple or meditation room; another may find it while walking at dawn, caring for an animal, making music, campaigning for social change or sitting quietly, not doing anything special. The form varies, but the occupational quality remains: attention, intention, participation and transformation.
The therapeutic relevance of spirituality and purpose
Recent occupational therapy literature increasingly recognises spirituality as a fundamental dimension of human life, often described through meaning, purpose and connection (So et al., 2025). Scoping reviews have also identified that occupational therapists may address spirituality through assessment, intervention and therapeutic use of self, while noting barriers such as limited training, uncertainty, cultural sensitivity concerns, lack of time and wider service constraints (So et al., 2025; Amanquarnor, Buchanan and Ramafikeng, 2026).
This suggests that meaning and spirituality are not fringe concerns; rather, they are already present in occupational therapy, even when practitioners lack clear language or confidence to address them.
However, recognising higher meaning as occupation does not mean imposing a worldview. It does not require therapists to become spiritual authorities, counsellors or philosophers. It requires respect for the client's own meaning system and curiosity about how that meaning is enacted through daily life. Client-centred occupational therapy emphasises collaboration, respect for the person's priorities and attention to the meanings attached to occupation (Townsend and Polatajko, 2013).
The therapist's role is not to define what is sacred, purposeful or transformative for someone else. It is to create conditions in which the person can explore...
what matters
what has been lost
what remains
what new forms of participation might support a life of coherence and dignity
Peak experiences and the human need for transcendence
The search for higher meaning also includes the human desire for peak experiences: moments in which ordinary perception feels intensified, expanded or deeply connected. Maslow's work on human motivation and self-actualisation is often used to explain the movement beyond basic needs - towards growth, fulfilment and transcendence (Maslow, 1943; McLeod, 2026).
These moments may arise through music, awe in nature, ritual, prayer, meditation, creative absorption, collective action, birth, death, athletic flow, deep conversation or profound stillness. They can interrupt habitual ways of seeing and allow a person to experience life as more spacious, relational or significant than before.
Such experiences are not always dramatic. They may be quiet and ordinary: a moment of peace after months of distress; a sudden sense of gratitude; the feeling of being held by a community; the recognition that one can still contribute, despite loss. What makes them occupationally relevant is that they often change how people live afterwards. A peak experience may lead someone to reprioritise relationships, return to neglected creativity, seek reconciliation, protect their health, engage in activism or simplify their routines. In this sense, higher meaning is not an escape from daily occupation; it can become the source from which daily occupation is renewed. This resonates with Frankl's view that meaning can be discovered through creative contribution, relationships and the stance a person takes towards unavoidable suffering (Frankl, 2004; Bushkin, van Niekerk and Stroud, 2021).
Ethical and person-centred practice
Of course, higher meaning is personal. For some, it may be spiritual or religious. For others, it may be found through nature, creativity, service, relationships, justice, learning, embodiment or self-understanding.
Occupational therapy does not need to define meaning for the person. Its role is to make space for the person's own values, worldview and lived experience, to shape the therapeutic process.
This is not separate from occupation; it is central to meaningful participation and aligns with holistic, client-centred approaches to practice (Collins, 2016; Townsend and Polatajko, 2013). This requires ethical sensitivity.
Meaning-seeking can involve vulnerability, grief, trauma, culture, faith, doubt and identity. Practitioners must avoid assumptions, coercion or overstepping boundaries. They must also recognise that some clients may not use spiritual language at all, even when they are deeply engaged in questions of purpose and connection. Research on spirituality in occupational therapy recommends open, flexible and sensitive approaches that allow clients to define spirituality and meaning for themselves (So et al., 2025; So et al., 2026).
A person-centred approach begins with listening:
What gives you strength?
What feels meaningful now?
What has changed in how you understand yourself?
Are there practices, places, people or traditions that help you feel connected?
What would make life feel more worth living?
These questions are not indirect. They can inform goal setting, environmental adaptation, routine design and intervention planning. If a person’s sense of meaning is rooted in community, therapy may need to prioritise access to communal spaces or social participation. If meaning is found in creativity, intervention may focus on adapting tools, schedules or environments so art, music or writing can continue. If meaning is linked to nature, therapy may explore safe access to outdoor spaces. If meaning is grounded in faith or ritual, support may involve enabling participation in practices that sustain identity and hope. Such examples reflect occupational therapy’s concern with enabling meaningful participation in the contexts that matter to the person (Townsend and Polatajko, 2013; Wengerd, 2022).
Why this reframe matters
Recognising meaning-seeking as occupation broadens what counts as legitimate therapeutic concern. It challenges overly-narrow ideas of productivity and independence. It reminds us that people are not simply bodies to be rehabilitated, routines to be restored or roles to be resumed. They are meaning-making beings, whose health is connected to purpose, belonging, identity and hope.
Occupational justice literature also argues for the right to experience meaning and enrichment in occupation, not merely access to activity (Townsend and Wilcock, 2004). This is especially important in systems that can reduce care to measurable outputs. While measurement has value, not everything that matters most is easily counted.
The reframe also honours diversity. Because higher meaning is individually and culturally shaped, it resists a one-size-fits-all model of wellbeing. It allows for religious, secular, cultural, ecological, relational and creative forms of meaning.
It also allows for uncertainty. Some people are not searching for firm answers, but for ways to live honestly with unanswered questions. Occupational therapy can support this, by attending to the occupations through which people seek, express and sustain meaning over time. This is consistent with literature that positions spirituality as personal, varied and shaped by worldview, culture and lived experience (Smith, 2008; So et al., 2025).
To seek higher meaning is to engage with life at the level of purpose, awareness and transformation. It is an occupation because it requires attention, practice, choice, reflection and participation. It shapes how people live, heal, relate, work, rest and recover.
If occupational therapy is concerned with supporting people to live meaningful lives, then it must honour meaning-making itself, as a valid and vital human occupation.
Sometimes the most important question is not only "What do you do?" but "What does what you do mean to you?"
References
Amanquarnor, I., Buchanan, H. and Ramafikeng, M. (2026) Incorporating spirituality into occupational therapy practice: A scoping review. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy. 56(1), pp. 1-14.
Bushkin, H., van Niekerk, R. and Stroud, L. (2021) Searching for meaning in chaos: Viktor Frankl's story. Europe's Journal of Psychology. 17(3), pp. 233-242.
Collins, M. (2016) Spirituality and occupational therapy: Reflections on professional practice and future possibilities, in de Souza, M. et al. (eds.) Spirituality across disciplines: Research and practice. Cham: Springer, pp. 203-216.
Frankl, V.E. (2004) Man's search for meaning. London: Rider.
Hansson, S.O., Carlstedt, A.B. and Morville, A.-L. (2022) Occupational identity in occupational therapy: A concept analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 29(3), pp. 198-209.
Maslow, A.H. (1943) A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review. 50(4), pp. 370-396.
McLeod, S. (2026) Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html. Accessed 1 July 2026.
Smith, S. (2008) Toward a flexible framework for understanding spirituality. Occupational Therapy in Health Care. 22(1), pp. 39-54.
So, H., Mackenzie, L., Chapparo, C., Ranka, J. and McColl, M.A. (2025) Spirituality in occupational therapy practice: A scoping review with narrative synthesis. British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 88(9), pp. 531-543.
So, H., Mackenzie, L., Chapparo, C., Ranka, J. and McColl, M.A. (2026) Addressing client spirituality in occupational therapy practice: A qualitative study. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal.
Townsend, E.A. and Polatajko, H.J. (2013) Enabling occupation II: Advancing an occupational therapy vision for health, well-being, and justice through occupation. 2nd edn. Ottawa: Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists.
Townsend, E.A. and Wilcock, A.A. (2004) Occupational justice and client-centred practice: A dialogue in progress. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 71(2), pp. 75-87.
Wengerd, D.S. (2022) Bringing hope: Incorporating spirituality in occupational therapy practice. OT Practice, 1 March.
Wilcock, A.A. (1998) Reflections on doing, being and becoming. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 65(5), pp. 248-256.
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