Viktor Frankl | Life Forums

Man’s Search For Meaning

The Forum workshops are based on the work of Dr. Viktor Frankl of Vienna.
Dr. Frankl developed Logotherapy and existential analysis in the 1930’s because of his dissatisfaction with both Freud and Adler, ( Logotherapy is also known as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” ).
Dr. Frankl accepts Sigmund Freud’s concept of unconsciousness, but considers the will to meaning as more fundamental than the will to pleasure. Existential analysis is designed to bring to consciousness the “hidden” meaning or spiritual dimension.

Frankl received training in individual psychology from Adler, and certainly some of the basic concepts of Logotherapy, such as meaning, freedom, and responsibility, bear the imprint of Adler, with the major differences between Logotherapy and Psychoanalysis being that both Freud and Adler focus on the past, while Logotherapy focuses on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled in the future, also, that Logotherapy generally achieves in days what Psychoanalysis does in years.
Logotherapy was put to a severe test in a very personal way between 1942 and 1945, when Dr. Frankl was committed to Nazi concentration camps. His experience and observation supported the main thesis of Logotherapy: ” This was the lesson I had to learn in three years spent in Auschwitz and Dachau: those most apt to survive the camps were those oriented toward the future, toward a meaning to be fulfilled by them in the future “.
His experience in Nazi camps was recorded in his book Man’s Search for Meaning and his personal triumph over unimaginable trauma has been the most compelling testimony to Logotherapy. There are no other psychotherapists whose life and work are as inseperable as Dr. Frankl’s, nonetheless … He is Logotherapy, and vice versa.

The Spiritual Dimension

It is not possible to practise Logotherapy without understanding the human spirit or the spiritual dimension of human existence. According to Frankl’s dimensional ontology, human beings exist in three dimensions, Somatic, Mental and Spiritual. Spirituality is the uniquely human dimension, however, these different dimensions must be understood in their totality, because all people are unity in their complexity.

The Defiant Power of the Human Spirit

One of the major prepositions of Logotherapy is that the human spirit is a healthy core. The human spirit may be blocked by biological or psychological sickness, yet it remains intact. The human spirit does not get sick, even when the psychobiological organism is injured. Part of the human spirit is the unconscious, and when it is blocked or repressed, one experiences existential vacuum or neurosis. Existential analysis seeks to remove these blocks and brings to consciousness the will to meaning. According to Fabry, the noetic dimension or the human spirit, is the “medicine chest” of Logotherapy; it contains love, the will to meaning, purpose, creativity, conscience, the capacity for choice, responsibility, sense of humor, etc.
The defiant power of the human spirit refers to the human capacity to tap into the spiritual part of the self and rise about the negative effects of situations, illness or the past. Logotherapy proposes that it may be more helpful for scientific and therapeutic purposes to conceptualize the human spirit as your inner resources, which can come to your aid in coping with life stress.

The Meaning of Meaning

The Greek word Logos represents the controlling principles of the universe, or meaning. Dr. Frankl translates logos as meaning . Therefore, Logotherapy means healing and health through meaning. But what is this meaning?

Specific vs.Ultimate Meaning

According to Frankl there are two levels of meaning:the present meaning, or meaning of the moment and, the ultimate meaning or super-meaning.
Dr. Frankl believes that it is more productive to address specific meaning of the moment, of the situation, rather than talking about meaning of life in general, this is because ultimate meanings exist in the supra-human dimension, which is “hidden” from us, and each individual must discover the specific meanings of the moment. Only the individual knows the right meaning specific to each moment. The Forum facilitates this quest and guides it’s participants to those areas in which meaning can be found.

Meaning vs. Value

In his earlier writings, Dr. Frankl often used meaning and value interchangeable, although this has been clarified of recent, namely that we create unique relationships and accept unique tasks, face unique sufferings, experience unique guilt feelings and die unique deaths, thus the search for meaning is highly personal and distinct … yet millions of people have gone through situations that were similar enough so they could react in a similar way. Whilst these values are abstract meanings based on the meaning and experiences of many, many individuals, these very values can help guide our search for meaning and simplify our decision-making. For example, life can be made meaningful if we realize values in three categories, Experiential, Creative and Attitudinal.Traditional values are the examples of the accumulation of meaning experiences of many individuals over a long period of time, and these values are threatened by modernization, nonetheless, even if all universal values disappeared, life would remain meaningful, since unique meanings remain untouched by the loss of traditions, thus, every experience of meaning involves the realization of a set of values. These values may lay latent and need to be awakened or cultivated through existential analysis, and this kind of reasoning may explain why the meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, it is detected.

Basic Tenets

The Logotherapeutic credo consists of Freedom of Will; Will to Meaning and … the Meaning of Life, and are the cornerstones of Logotherapy and existential analysis.

Freedom of Will

Human freedom is finite freedom. Man is not free from conditions, nonetheless, he is free to take a stand in regard to them … the conditions do not completely condition us! Although our existence is influenced by instincts, inherited disposition and environment, an area of freedom is always available to us. Everything can be taken from a man, but … the will of human freedom, namely to choose one’s attitude in any a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way, therefore, we always have the freedom to take a stand towards the restrictive conditions and transcend our fate. Freedom of will is possible because of the human capacity for self-distancing or self-detachment: “By virtue of this capacity man is capable of detaching himself not only from a situation, but also from himself. Ultimately man is capable of choosing his attitude toward himself”.

Responsibility and Responsibleness

With freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility without freedom is tyranny, and freedom without responsibility leads to anarchy, which leads to “boredom, anxiety, and neurosis” . Frankl points out that we are responsible not only to something but also to Someone, not only to the task, but also to the Taskmaster. Frankl differentiates between responsibility and responsibleness. The former comes from possessing the freedom of will. The later refers to exercising our freedom to make the right decisions in meeting the demands of each situation. “Existential analysis aims at nothing more and nothing less than leading men to consciousness of their responsibility”.

Will to Meaning

The will to meaning is thus; ” the basic striving of man to find meaning and purpose “. The will to meaning is possible because of the human capacity to transcend one’s immediate circumstances. “Being human is being always directed, and pointing to, something or someone other than oneself: to a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter, a cause to serve or a person to love“. Self-transcendence often makes use of the power of imagination and optimism. Self-transcendence is essential for finding happiness, which is not the end, but the by-product of trying to forget oneself. “Only to the extent to which man fulfills a meaning out there in the world, does he fulfill himself ” .

Meaning of Life

Meaning is unique to each person, and each one has to discover the meaning of each particular situation for him or herself. The Forum guides and challenges participants to areas of meaning around creative, experiential, and attitudinal values.
According to Logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: by creating work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering.
Attitudinal values are especially important in situations of unavoidable suffering. This is why life never ceases to hold meaning, for even a person who is deprived of both creative and experiential values is still challenged by a meaning to fulfil, that is, by the meaning inherent in the right, in an upright way of suffering.

Existential Frustration and Noogenic Neurosis

Suffering and Tragic Triad

Existential frustration is a universal human experience, because the will to meaning can be blocked by external circumstances and internal hindrances. Existential frustration leads to noogenic neurosis or existential vacuum. “Noogenic neuroses have their origin not in the psychological but rather in the ‘noological’, ( from the Greek word noos meaning mind ), dimension of human existence”. Therefore, Logotherapy is uniquely appropriate in dealing with existential neuroses.Existential vacuum refers to general sense of meaninglessness or emptiness, as evidenced by a state of boredom. It is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth and twenty first century, as a result of industrialization …. The loss of traditional values and dehumanisation of individuals. People may experience existential vacuum without developing existential neurosis. Many feel that life has no purpose, no challenge, no obligation and they try to fill their existential vacuum with materials things, pleasure, sex, or power, busy work … and they are misguided. The feeling of meaninglessness not only underlies the mass neurotic triad of today, i.e., depression-addiction-aggression, but also may eventuate in what Logotherapists refer to as ” noogenic neurosis “.
Suffering is not a necessary a condition for finding meaning, yet it tends to trigger the quest for meaning. Frankl observed that people are willing to endure any suffering, if they are convinced that this suffering has meaning. However, suffering without meaning leads to despair.
The Forum does not ask for the reasons for suffering, but guides participants towards the realization of concrete meanings, and choosing the right attitudes. Search for meaning is more likely to be occasioned by three negative facets of human existence: Pain, Guilt and Death. Pain refers to human suffering, Guilt to the awareness of our fallibility and Death to our awareness of the transtoriness of life . These negative experiences make us more aware of our needs for meaning and spiritual aspiration. Neuroses are more likely to originate from our attempt to obscure the reality of Pain, Guilt and Death as existential facts . Logotherapy provides an answer to the tragic triad through attitudinal values and tragic optimism, the four main Logotherapeutic techniques are: Paradoxical Intention, De-Reflection, Modification of Attitudes and Appealing Techniques, all of which are addressed in The Forum workshops.