A.
Viktor Emil Frankl and Logotherapy; An Overview
It all
began with an experience in a concentration camp. Viktor E. Frankl established
logotherapy in the midst of human suffering, pain and death. Being a
psychologist attending to the various needs of soldiers and prisoners alike, he
saw how a man underwent misery in the hands of another man. He witnessed, as
well, how the human person is capable of transcending himself from wretchedness
to happiness, from meaninglessness to a meaningful life.[1]
Frankl
instituted logotherapy when the world faced a seeming meaninglessness of life
in the 1930’s, life in the world wars.[2]
He was born on March 26, 1905 in Vienna, Austria. He died in 1997 in the same place
where he first saw the light of the world. His birthplace was the home of the
renowned two psychotherapists; Freud and Adler. Surely these psychotherapists
influenced him a lot in conceptualizing his own school of psychotherapy.
Logotherapy is often called the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, next to
Freud’s Psychoanalysis and Adler’s Individual
Psychology. As a young student, he was able to write and publish an article on
Freud. Such manifested his great interest in psychology at a young age. During
the Second World War, he survived four concentration camps including
Auschwitz in Poland from 1942-45, but
not his wife Tilly Grosser and his parents. Returning to Vienna after the fall of
the Nazis, he published his account of the events inside the concentration
camps in his pioneering book The Doctor and the Soul, which appeared in
English translation in 1959.[3]
As an
attending physician in some concentration camps during the war, Frankl saw the
capacity of man to find meaning in his life. Despite the mental and physical
atrocities afflicted to them by soldiers, some prisoners were able to continue
their lives rather than end their lives. Prisoners who had reasons to continue
living most often survived the camps. Such examples were those who had their
love ones; wives and children, as their motivation to keep on living. In this
way, by having a reason and inspiration, they were able to make their
sufferings more meaningful. They saw their sufferings and pains as suffering
and pain for someone. They were neither agony per se nor for nothing at all.[4]
This fact can be encapsulated in a phrase uttered by Friedrich Nietzsche, “He
who has a why to live for can bear almost anyhow.[5]”
This was often used by Frankl in explicating meaning of life towards healing in
man.
Logotherapy
is an attempt to combine psychology with philosophy.[6]
Its existential aspects stipulate that man is capable of choosing the meaning
of a phenomenon and eventually the meaning of his life, no matter what physical
and natural circumstances man faces. An important aspect of this therapy is
known as the “tragic triad,” pain, guilt, and death.[7]
Frankl’s “Case for a Tragic Optimism” uses this philosophy to demonstrate
“optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential, which at
its best always allows for” turning suffering into human achievement and
accomplishment, deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the
better, and deriving from life’s transitoriness and incentive to take
responsible action.
After the world wars, logotherapy finds itself all the more relevant to man. It the philosophy of life of Frankl. It is used in the field of education, counseling, management, religious ministries and others.[8] In the era of economic depression and meltdown, Cold war and unemployment, logotherapy serves as a beacon of light for man, reminding him of the meaningfulness of life.
After the world wars, logotherapy finds itself all the more relevant to man. It the philosophy of life of Frankl. It is used in the field of education, counseling, management, religious ministries and others.[8] In the era of economic depression and meltdown, Cold war and unemployment, logotherapy serves as a beacon of light for man, reminding him of the meaningfulness of life.
B.
Logotherapy: Its Process
Logotherapy
focuses on the meaning of human existence and the discovery of such a meaning
by man.[9]
The fundamental assumption of logotherapy states that man desires for the
meaning of his life. Man has the will to meaning, in contrast to Freud’s will
to pleasure and Adler’s will to power.[10]
In everything he does, man strives to find the meaning of his life. Power and
pleasure are merely means and effect in man’s existence. Meaning is the end of
it.[11]
But often, man is fixated with the former rather than the latter. Sometimes man
is enamored with power and pleasure and finds himself unsatisfied even after
attaining all the power and pleasure of his world.[12]
Logotherapy
intends to alleviate existential frustration in man. Existential frustration is
the dissatisfaction of man’s will to meaning.[13] Furthermore it causes, noögenic neuroses, which
originates not in the psychological dimension of man but in the dimension of
human existence.[14]
In order to satisfy such frustration it is proper to utilize a therapy that can
penetrate the dimension of human existence. Psychoanalysis and Individual
Psychology cannot do what Logotherapy can.
Logotherapy
is a process of dialogue between the doctor and the patient. Unlike in the case
of other therapies, in logotherapy, the doctor neither dictates nor imposes his
own conceived meaning of a phenomenon to the patient. He merely guides the
patient towards a personal discovery of the meaning of such a phenomenon in his
life.[15]
Jim Lantz of Ohio State University describes the process of logotherapy as
noticing, actualizing and honoring in relation with the future, present and
past.[16]
The existential frustrations of man are varied depending on the events (either
of the future, present or past) he is engaged with, which serve as the object
of logotherapy.
The
therapist, in the process, induces a phenomenological struggle that assists and
guides the patient towards the discovery (noticing) of the meaning potentials
of a phenomenon that can be put into reality. The patient, upon the discovery
of the meaning potentials can either choose to actualize (actualizing) such in
the present or accept (honoring) such in the past.[17]
But the use of phenomenological method imposes a great difficulty on the part
of the patient. Patients suffering existential frustrations often discover
meaning potentials that are “clouded, covered, ignored and repressed reactive
to biochemical and physical problems, network and ecological stress,
developmental problems and family life cycle problems.”[18]
C.
Man’s Freedom and Will to Meaning
Man
takes a central place in logotherapy, being the patient suffering existential
frustrations and the sole person who can satisfy such.[19]
To understand fully the mechanics of logotherapy, it is vital to comprehend
Frankl’s notion of man.
Man is
a self-creating, self-determining being. He is not determined by his
experiences or condition.[20]
He is not a finish product but a project in the making. He alone has the power
to finish such project. He is not fully subject to conditions but is basically
free to decide and capable of taking his stance towards internal
(psychological) and external (biological and social) conditions. This attribute
of man is derived from his freedom; Freedom of (his) Will. Frankl argued that
man has a spiritual core characterized by freedom. Since he has a free core,
man cannot but be a free being.[21] Frankl supported further the argument of
man’s freedom through man’s responsibility. How can man be a responsible being
without being free? Thus freedom is a prerequisite of being responsible.[22]
The logical consequence of man’s freedom is
the activation of his will to meaning.[23]
Freedom is not freedom from but freedom for. In the context of logotherapy,
freedom is to will the meaning of one’s existence.[24]
Man has the freedom to find meaning in what he does, he experiences, and in the
stand he takes when confronted by situation of unchangeable suffering. When man
cannot exercise his will to meaning, he experience abysmal sensation of
meaninglessness and emptiness. He experiences existential vacuity.[25]
This may trigger aggression, addiction, depression and suicidality. It may
engender or increase psychosomatic maladies and neurotic disorders.[26]
In such cases, a patient is guided by a therapist to uncover the meaning
potentials inherent in the phenomenon he experiences.
The meaning of life, however, is not a
created reality. It is not a product of imagination and creativity of the mind
of man.[27]
The meaning of life is an objective reality, inherent to phenomenon. This is in
contrast to the so-called "Occupational and Recreational Therapies"
which are primarily concerned with diverting the patients’ attention from
disturbed or disturbing modes of experience.[28]
Though objective in nature,, the meaning potentials belong to the particular
moment which man experiences. This relationship between the meaning and the
personal experience of man links meaning with man. In a sense, the objective
meaning is made personal not by constituting it but through the fact that it
belongs to a personal experience of man.[29]
Thus meanings can vary from one person to another, in respect to the specific
context and situation it is discovered.[30]
Logotherapy does not offer a general meaning of life. It merely guides man
towards the discovery of the meaning of his own life.
D.
Meaning and Man’s Self- Transcendence
Meaning
belongs to objective reality, free from the biases and delusion of man.[31]
In logotherapy, meaning is the object of
man’s will. It is so important in this therapy that meanings be objective
rather than self-projected. What man feels that he ought to do, or ought to be
could never be effective if it were nothing but an invention of him rather than
a discovery.[32]
If meaning is self-projected, then there is nothing outside the mind of man
that corresponds to it, making such a meaning a total subjectivity,
incommunicable to others. Inauthentic existence is the repercussion of
self-projection; a meaningless existence.[33]
To be human is to exist for someone or something other than self.[34]
Despite the subjectivity contained in man, Frankl argues that it is still
possible to perceive meaning objectively through phenomenological reduction.
The process of discovering the
objective meaning inherent in every phenomenon man experiences takes the form
of a dialogue between the patient and the therapist. But unlike in other schools
of psychotherapy, the patient and the logotherapist speak, and listen to one
another.[35]
The two engage themselves in a so-called Socratic Dialogue; others would
call it the modification of attitudes.[36]
This is a form of inquiry with a set of questions aimed to make the patient
aware of the meaning potentials of the phenomenon and his capacity to actualize
such a meaning.
Every
man has biases and preconceived notions about a particular phenomenon. These
can be effects of his environment, upbringing, or past experiences. These can
be hindrances to man in realizing his will to meaning.[37]
He may find a phenomenon meaningless due to his past experience of the same
type of phenomenon, without even careful and critical analysis of the
phenomenon at hand. The logotherapist in the process leads the patient to
self-transcendence.[38]
This involves detachment from oneself, including from one’s biases and
preconceived notions. It is only through this process that a genuine dialogue
is possible; when one is reaching out toward a being other than oneself. The
logotherapist, on his part, avoids imposing his own meaning upon the
phenomenon. He guides the patient towards the knowledge of his unrealistic and
counterproductive attitude towards the phenomenon. He assists the patient in
developing a new outlook that can better achieve a meaningful life.
Operating
within the Socratic Dialogue is Husserl’s phenomenological method. Frankl
adopted Husserl’s phenomenological method as his methodology to arrive at the
objectivity of meaning.[39] Phenomenological method facilitates a return
to the things themselves. It is comprised by a process of suspending the
empirical subjectivity in order to define pure consciousness in its essentials
and absolute being. This involves the movement from empirical to transcendental
knowledge. This is accomplished through the process of bracketing the empirical
data away from consideration. It is the deferment of judgment regarding the
true nature of reality. The pure ego is able to experience a pure consciousness
of a pure phenomenon.[40]
The phenomenological reduction is defined as the explication of the method
practiced in the examination of phenomena.[41]
Through this adoption of Husserl’s methodology, Frankl was able to propose the
possibility of perceiving meaning potentials objectively. Frankl states,
As we see, the unbiased analysis of
the unbiased man in the street reveals how he actually experiences values
(meanings). Such an analysis is phenomenological, and as such it refrains from
any preconceived patterns of interpretation and abstains from forcing phenomena
into the Procrustean bed of pet concepts along lines of a particular
indoctrination, pet concepts such as ‘underlying psychodynamics’ or ‘operant
conditioning.’[42]
Meaning potentials are those which are perceived
objectively. In effect, they themselves are objective.[43]
They are inherent in the phenomenon being examined. They are found by man as
latent potentialities waiting for an agent to actuate them. They serve as
parameter of the possibilities that a phenomenon may signify. Thus, they
dictate the limitation of what a thing may mean. And consequently, they limit
man’s freedom and define his responsibility.[44]
Meanings are classified in three,
based on the manner by which they are discovered. Meanings are known through
the things one does, by an encounter with someone, and through the stand one
takes towards an unalterable experience, which classify meanings as creative,
experiential, or attitudinal, respectively.[45]
Creativity implies contributing something to the world through the use of man’s
talents expressed in various ways. Experiencing means receiving from something
from the world through nature, culture, relationships, interactions with others
and with one’s environment. Attitudinal is the change of attitude towards an event
or a phenomenon belonging to the past which man cannot change anymore. Nonetheless,
man can change his outlook towards the past. This act of deriving meaning from
the past is characterized by self-transcendence, especially in cases of death,
suffering and guilt.
E.
Choosing and
Healing
With
meaning as his primary motivation in life, man desires for meaning. This moves
him to search for such a meaning. Upon the discovery of meaning potentials in
the phenomenon he experiences at present, the patient faces the task of
choosing what meaning potentials he will actualize among the many possibilities
he discovered from his experience.[46]
It is through this process that healing from existential frustration becomes
possible.[47]
With this, it appears that logotherapy is a dynamic process involving the act
of discovering and choosing meaning to be fulfilled.[48]
This is carried out through the fact that man is capable of self-transcendence
to know a meaning and is free to fulfill a meaning. Frankls states,
Ultimately, man is not subject to
the conditions that confront him; rather, these conditions are subject to his
decision. Wittingly or unwittingly, he decides whether he will face up or give
in, whether or not he will let himself be determined by the conditions. Of
course, it could be objected that such decisions are themselves determined. But
it is obvious that this results in a regressus in infinitum. A statement
by Magda B. Arnold epitomizes this state of affairs and lends itself as an apt
conclusion of the discussion: ‘ All choices are caused but they are caused by
the chooser.’[49]
The
problem of noögenic neurosis is the problem that logotherapy seeks to solve.
Noögenic neurosis occurs in the noölogical dimension of man. Noös can be
translated into English as spirit.[50]
Thus, noögenic neurosis, can be found in the spiritual dimension of man.
However, in the context of logotherapy, the spiritual dimension does not have
any religious definition. Though in general perception, spirit is defined in
relation with religions. The noölogical dimension or the spiritual dimension is
defined as the dimension in which the specifically human phenomena are located.[51]
Neglect
of this dimension is the common mistake committed by other schools of
psychotherapy (Freudian and Adlerian). Such negligence has a repercussion in
the overall view of what man is and human phenomena are.[52]
Human phenomena are downgraded to the psychological level from the noölogical
dimension. This is a obliteration of the noölogical dimension, of the human
dimension.[53]
Man is viewed, in the said schools, through the planes of biological and
psychological planes. This entails the incapacity of man to transcend from
biological and psychological foundations. Furthermore, this means that man is
incapable of living an authentic existence, for to exist authentically is to
transcend oneself from these foundations. Self-transcendence is the essence of
existence. And existence is the human mode of being.[54]
Thus, the proper approach to human existence, with the neuroses involve, is
neither biological nor psychological, but existential, taking into
consideration the noölogical dimension of man.[55] By examining the neuroses in their proper
framework, healing becomes possible in man, enabling him to live an authentic
existence.
[1] MSM,
17.
[2] “What is Logotherapy and Existential Analysis?” http://logotherapy.univie.ac. at/e/institute _wwE.html,
accessed: December 3, 2009.
[3] “Introduction to Viktor Frankl’s
Logotherapy,” http://www.logotherapyinstitute.org/life-and-works.html,
accessed: June 16, 2010.
[4] UCFM,
47.
[5] MSM, 109.
[6] Crowell, Existentialism.
[8] Lantz, Depression. Existential Family Therapy, and Viktor Frankl’s Dimensional
Ontology,19-32.
[9] MSM, 104.
[10] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] The term “existential” may be used in three ways: to
refer to (1) existence itself, i.e., the specifically human mode of
being; (2) the meaning of existence; and (3) the striving to find a
concrete meaning in personal existence, that is to say, the will to
meaning (MSM, 106).
[14] Ibid.
[15] UG,
131.
[17] Ibid. 222.
[18] Ibid. 223.
[19] PAE,
71-74.
[21] UG,
28.
[22] Ponsaran, The Concept of Man in Viktor Frankl’s
Logotherapy, (Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2000), 134.
[23] WTM,
48-49.
[24] UG,
121.
[25] PAE,
73.
[26] “What is Logotherapy and Existential
Analysis?” http://logotherapy.univie.ac.
at/e/institute _wwE.html, accessed: December 3, 2009.
[27] WTM,
64.
[28] Ibid.
[29] UG, 124.
[30] WTM,
54.
[32] UG.
58.
[33] Ponsaran, The Concept of Man in Viktor Frankl’s
Logotherapy. 143.
[34] WTM,
25-26
[35] PAE,
77-78.
[36] “What is Logotherapy and Existential Analysis?” http://logotherapy.univie.ac.
at/e/institute _wwE.html, accessed: December 3, 2009.
[38] PAE,
82-83.
[39] W.F.J. Ryan S.J., “Viktor Frankl’s Notion of
Intentionality.” In Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan, eds., Timothy
F. Fallon SJ and Philip Boo Riley (New York: State University of New York
Press, 1987) 79-93.
[40] Jovi Jim Aguas, “Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology,”
(lecture delivered at Philippine Dominican Center of Institutional Studies,
Quezon City, Philippines, on July 2, 2010); 5-6.
[41] Paul Ricoeur, Husserl: An Analysis of his
Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967); 9-10.
[42] UG,
125.
[43] UCFM,
38.
[44] UG,
129-130.
[46] UCFM,
47.
[47] WTM,
45-46.
[48] Logotherapy is a process less retrospective and less
introspective. It focuses rather on the future, that is to say, on the meanings
to be fulfilled by the patient in his future. Indeed, it is a meaning-centered
psychotherapy. At the same time, it defocuses all the vicious circle formations
and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of
neuroses. Thus, the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up
instead of being continually fostered and reinforced (MSM, 104.).
[49] UCFM,
48.
[50]Marciana Agnes G. Ponsaran, “The Philosophical
Foundations of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy.” Philippiniana Sacra Vol.
XLII No. 125 (2007): 340.
[51] Mat Gelman. “On Viktor Frankl’s
Legacy.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 32
Issues 2 (2001): 307-308. URL:
http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=4&sid=01a55fa8-acf1-4192-9c08-635e188c3e14%40sessionmgr112&vid=43&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#
db=m nh&AN=9588317, accessed July 15, 2010.
[52] WTM,
33-34.
[53] “What is Logotherapy and Existential
Analysis?” http://logotherapy.univie.ac.
at/e/institute _wwE.html, accessed: December 3, 2009.
[54] DAS,
294.
