The Process of Meaning-Making and Self-Understanding in Adolescents from the Perspective of Philosophical Counseling Based on Heidegger’s Theory

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to explicate the process of meaning-making and self-understanding during adolescence through the core concepts of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and their application in philosophical counseling.

Methodology: This study employed a descriptive–analytical design grounded in a close reading of Heidegger’s primary texts, particularly Being and Time, along with authoritative secondary interpretations. Data were collected through library research and reconstructed conceptually within a philosophical counseling framework.

Findings: The analysis indicates that meaning-making and self-understanding in adolescence constitute an existential–temporal process rooted in the structure of care (Sorge). This process unfolds in three main stages: immersion in das Man and borrowed meanings, the collapse of everyday meanings through existential anxiety and confrontation with nothingness, and finally the call of conscience, being-toward-death, and the creation of authentic meaning. Existential anxiety emerges not as pathology but as a fundamental condition for authenticity and existential self-understanding in adolescents.

Conclusion: Heideggerian philosophical counseling can facilitate adolescents’ transition from borrowed identities toward responsible choice of authentic possibilities, thereby supporting a more meaningful and authentic mode of existence.