Dear Colleagues,

Although there is a large body of literature examining how people cope with different serious crises, the effects of contextual parameters, among others culture, and ways of thinking have not been seriously taken into consideration.

In the last two decades, researchers have found significant relations (both negative and positive) between religious and spiritual and existential variables and different crisis. We have also witnessed a growing interest in studying the role of culture in coping. In this regard, attention is directed towards studying not only religious people, but also individuals who are either nonbelievers or who, if they are believers, do not consider themselves as religious people, i.e., religion is not an important part of their life; in other words, the focus is turning to studying people in societies in which the dominant culture and ways of thinking do not leave much scope for religion to play an important role in people’s lives. This issue is rarely taken before into consideration in the research area of coping. An important question to pose in these studies is: What role do meaning-making existential coping and religion and spiritual-oriented coping play in dealing with crisis among theists, non-theists or atheist people? And what is the role of culture and ways of thinking in the choice of these meaning-making coping methods? To answer these questions, there is need for sociologically, psychologically as well as clinically relevant studies to advance research in this area by focusing on the cultural perspective. This Special Issue attempts to meet such a need.

The purpose of this special issue is to present international studies on meaning-making coping among people who have been affected by a crisis; this is in order to understand the influence of culture on the use of these methods. The term “meaning-making coping” is used to describe the coping methods related to existential questions, i.e., the whole spectrum of religious, spiritual (religious–spiritual and not religious–spiritual) and existential coping methods.

The ideal submission will be grounded in key research, close reading, or case studies that opes to broader observations concerning meaning-making coping.

Prof. Fereshteh Ahmadi
Guest Editor

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