Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att mot bakgrund av Viktor Frankls teori kring existentiell mening undersöka diakoners erfarenheter av hur människor de möter upplever existentiell mening samt på vilket sätt existentiell mening kan relateras till det socialpedagogiska fältet. Detta eftersom vi under vår utbildning samt i yrkeserfarenheter från fältet upplevt att det existentiella perspektivet saknats. Empirin har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med diakoner från Svenska Kyrkan. Studiens resultat visade att det finns stora likheter mellan det diakonala och socialpedagogiska fältet. Resultatet visade även att de människor diakonin möter har spörsmål av existentiell karaktär, men att dessa är särskilt framträdande då människor befinner sig i en utsatt eller svår livssituation. Samt att diakonin ofta får träda in när samhällets resurser brister och informanterna efterfrågar ett större samhälleligt ansvar vad gäller att kunna möta människors existentiella spörsmål.

This case study attempts to examine how students of Religionswissenschaft at Södertörns University reflect about their philosophy of life and if their studies have some impact on their tendency to reflect. Also what aspects the students tend to reflect over will be investigated. In this study the term “philosophy of life” includes humans thought and conceptions of the world and their outlook on mankind. To answer these question an interview study with 6 students took place, and the transcriptions produced 5 categories; “The philosophy of life, to believe or not believe”, “Development of concepts”, “Outlook on mankind”, “The founding of meaning” and “Understanding and progress”. The outcome of the study is that all the students tend to reflect upon their philosophy of life, and the those aspects with most meaning for the students were about their outlook on mankind and the question about if they believed that Gods existence or not. is possible or not. Two students also tend to create new conceptions about what was meaningful for them, and four students tend to evolve their ideas and understanding of certain concepts as “religion” and “God”. It seems that study of Religionswissenschaft could have an impact on the studentss tendency to reflect on their philosophy of life.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how to clarify and emphasize the relationship between emotions and meaning. I have explored how to make an adequate conceptualization of the role of emotions in the experience of existential meaning. To do that I have used a theory of emotion by Martha Nussbaum and an phenomenological theory of meaning by Martin Holmberg. To form an adequate conceptualization I have raised four analytical questions to the choosen material and I have also analyzed the material based to embrace the theories. The theories are the basis for the essay. The four questions I have chosen is; (1) What is emotion and meaning?, (2) What are the conditions for meaning and emotions?, (3) When do emotions arise that are involved in creating meaning and why?, (4) What role can religious emotions play?  Based on the questions and the theories I have come up with a model I consider to be adequate for the role of emotions in the experience of meaning.