The Existential Dispatch, Issue No. 52

A Word from the Founding Director

This issue keeps returning to evidence and honesty. A carefully designed trial of a meaning-making intervention found no effect, while a culturally adapted approach for caregivers looks promising, and both results deserve the same attention. Alongside them, nurses in Massachusetts and Nigeria describe the violence that follows understaffing and grief, and a poet asks the question that sits beneath all of it.

Existential Thinker of the Issue

Mary Oliver

“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” House of Light (1990) (poets.org)

Oliver, who shared more than forty years with the photographer Molly Malone Cook, reaches her question only after a whole poem about paying attention to a grasshopper. Mortality comes in quietly, as a reason to look closely. In serious illness, the question of what to do with a life is often asked too late or too abstractly; Oliver suggests it is answered in small acts of attention, which clinicians can protect by slowing down, asking what matters today, and making space for the people and places that hold it.

In Academia

A null result worth reading closely. In a three-arm randomised trial of 239 people newly diagnosed with advanced cancer, published in Psycho-Oncology, the Meaning-Making intervention did not improve meaning in life or secondary outcomes compared with attention control or usual care; the authors call for work on targeting, dose and timing. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Online meaning-centred psychotherapy for caregivers. A pilot trial in Psycho-Oncology culturally adapted Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Chinese caregivers of people with advanced cancer; 80% of 46 participants completed it, with improvements in depression, anxiety, meaning, peace and self-esteem at three months. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

In Film, Literature and Culture

The Revolution Against Death. Joshua Oppenheimer’s short documentary, set at a longevity conference where “fear is in the air — of illness, of invisibility, of dying alone,” has been acquired by New York Times Op-Docs for a global release with MUBI in early December. deadline.com

Death Becomes Us: And Hands Are With Us. Chris Farina’s final film, made after his 2022 ALS diagnosis, premieres at the Virginia Film Festival on October 25 with hospice workers and funeral staff as guides, followed by a discussion with palliative care clinicians. virginiafilmfestival.org

In Healthcare (Global)

Massachusetts legislation on health care workplace violence. An act announced by the Massachusetts General Court on October 21 requires health care employers to develop prevention and response programmes and to report all workplace violence incidents annually, with statewide data to be published; nearly seven in ten Massachusetts nurses report having been assaulted at work. malegislature.gov

Nurses strike after an assault on a paediatric ward in Nigeria. At Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, a nurse was allegedly strangled by a relative after the death of a child with end-stage neuroblastoma while both nurses on duty attended cardiac arrests; staff are demanding an investigation, night security and psychological support. thenationonlineng.net

Funding and Grant Opportunities

KWF Exploration Call 2027-1. The Dutch Cancer Society’s final project-based Exploration Call explicitly includes the psychosocial mechanisms that shape cancer’s impact; pre-proposals from Dutch institutions close November 3, 2026, at noon. kwf.nl

World Cancer Research Fund INSPIRE Research Challenge. Open worldwide to researchers 2 to 7 years after their PhD, with priorities that include supportive-care interventions and psychological stress; letters of intent close November 13, 2026. wcrf.org

Conferences and Events

“Death, Grieving and How We Care About One Another,” Park City, October 24. The inaugural Park City Film Festival hosts a panel with a thanatologist, a funeral director and the team behind The Life We Leave, after the documentary opens the festival on October 23. parkrecord.com

Frontiers Research Topic on family-centred care in paediatric oncology and palliative contexts. Manuscripts on psychological interventions and family-centred care are due November 6, 2026. frontiersin.org

Startup and Innovation Watch

Solace Care (Stockholm). Founded in 2025, this end-of-life platform raised a €2.1 million pre-seed round in August to help people record wishes and documents and to guide families through the administration that follows a death; it covers more than 25,000 lives across Sweden, Finland and Norway and is entering the UK and the Netherlands. bebeez.eu

To Close: An Existential Joke

A poet, a Stoic and an existentialist were asked how they planned to spend their one wild and precious life. The poet said, “Paying attention.” The Stoic said, “Being good.” The existentialist said, “I am still deciding, which I believe is the point.”