3. Young People and Their Search for Meaning: Many young people are struggling with the question of meaning. Victor Frankl, a psychotherapist who survived Auschwitz, explored the power of the search for meaning. He suggested this is more powerful for a person than the search for pleasure or power (Frankl, 2006). He had observed that those in Nazi prison camps who had given up on purpose and a sense of future were less likely to survive than those who did have a strong commitment to a positive future. He developed an approach to help people find meaning called 'Logotherapy'. This involved three basic themes:

• Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
• Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
• We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stance we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.

Many young people appear to have little sense of or connection with their spirituality. In developed countries like Canada the evidence shows the following challenges;

• Across the world, some 46% of young people find school a stressful place. In Canada this figure is 63%. Schools make young people stressed and unhappy.
• An estimated 1.5 million Canadian children and youth (aged 5-24) are affected by mental health issues and are not receiving access to appropriate support, treatment or care, with as many as 70% of young adults living with mental health problems or illnesses reporting that symptoms started in childhood. Approximately 6% of young people experience anxiety disorder serious enough to warrant treatment.
• Youth are among the highest risk populations for suicide. In Canada suicide accounts for 24% of all deaths among 15-24 year olds. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Canadians between the ages of 10 and 24. Teen suicide is growing, especially amongst First Nations and disadvantaged youth. One way of committing suicide is to use opioids. Opioid abuse is rising as are deaths amongst young people. Some 4,000 people died from opioid overdose in 2017, with many of these being young people. In the US, opioid deaths now exceed those from lung cancer.

While stress, anxiety, depression, suicide and mental health have a variety of causes, four keys to all these causes are 'meaning' 'purpose' and 'identity' and 'spirituality'. Many of the underlying causes come back to the fundamental questions- 'does my life have meaning and a sense of purpose? What gives my life meaning? Who am I and is my life of value?'