There are certain times of crisis, or stages of life transitions, in which a person's way of life, or who one experiences oneself as being, is called into question and such an individual may begin to doubt one's place in the world. Such a crisis can take on psychological, emotional, physical, or spiritual proportions, as well as a combination of these different areas of self-experience. It is as if the rug is pulled out from such a person and the experience of free falling holds sway.

During my years of working with gay men who were dying from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), I discovered the importance of working with different areas of self-experience in a way that matched the life of the person suffering a profound existential crisis. As each person's disease progressed, we cultivated an awareness of the ways that he lived his life had meaning, both for himself and for the world in terms of the unique contributions he had made.

In working through times of crises and transitions, the focus is on the experience a person is having and the ways this experience is influencing and informing one's life. Finding the meaning in such experiences often comes from feeling one's way into the experience of what is happening and making the space for this into the overall sense of self.