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Ziegler 1992:522-523). What we get in the SONG-test is a questionnaire that
challenges and confronts the patient's!client's "subjective world." The questions of
thistest are in line with the phenomenological perspective which holds that what is
real to an individual is that which exists within that person's internal frame ofre­
ference. This includes everything in hislher "awareness" at any point in time.
Phenomenologists would agree with the SONG-test's philosophical presuppositions,
namely, that these questions reflect what logotherapists believe; that is that.each of
us, phenomenologically-speaking, responds to events in accordance with how we
subjectively perceive them. Effective reality is not necessarily a "mirror-reflection"
ofthe outside world, but it is reality as it is observed and interpreted bythe reacting
patient/client (lfjelle & Ziegler 1992:496).
Because every person contrues hislher own reality, the SONG-test reflects how the
patient/client sees himseWherselfin the light ofhislher "perceived" reality ofthe
world and hislher position and/or"future" in "his/her constructed world." In other
words, although logotherapists say that the SONG-test actually measures the strength
ofa person's motivation to find meaning in life, it actually measures the present
"psychological reality" ofa person.
It is interesting to note that the 20 questions ofthe SONG-test do not really reflect
Frankl's beliefthat meaning in life may be found in four different ways, namely
through the meaning ofwork, love, suffering. or death (De Vos 1995:246-248). In
other words, Crumbaugh, in drawing up these questions, did not ask questions
dealing with these four (work, love, suffering & death) mentioned issues. It seems,
even ifit is not in line with the original intention with the SONG-test, that the 20
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