Narrative review demonstrates improved meaning in life and spiritual well-being with Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy in advanced cancer, highlighting its value for palliative care.
Existential distress and demoralization are common among patients with advanced cancer and are associated with impaired psychological well-being, reduced quality of life and difficulties in end-of-life adjustment. Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP), grounded in Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, was developed to address these existential dimensions of suffering. This narrative review synthesizes evidence from randomized and controlled studies evaluating MCP in adults with advanced cancer and discusses its clinical relevance within supportive and palliative care. Across studies, MCP demonstrated consistent improvements in meaning in life and spiritual well-being, with more modest effects on depressive symptoms and variable effects on anxiety and global quality of life. The available evidence supports MCP as a feasible and clinically relevant intervention for addressing existential distress, demoralization and loss of meaning in advanced cancer. Future research should examine long-term outcomes and implementation within routine oncology care.
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Pappa et al. (2026) studied this question.
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