MEANING OF LIFE AS PERCEIVED BY DRUG-ABUSING PEOPLE

Two different methodologies, Crumbaugh & Maholic's Purpose in Life Tes t and Anderson's Functional Measurement, were used to compare the way meaning of life is perceived by two groups of substance-abusing people : one group consisted of 10 people who successfully completed a six-mo nth withdrawal program based on Frankl's Logotherapy; the other group included 15 people who dropped out at the beginning stages of the prog ram. Most of the comparisons between these groups pointed to a more po sitive existential orientation (in logotherapeutic terms) among those who accomplished successful withdrawal than among the subjects who fai led to complete the program. Therapeutic and methodological implicatio ns of this study's approach to the measurement of the perceptions of s ubstance-abusing people are discussed.