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Logotherapy was developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, on a concept based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life. It is considered the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" along with Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology.
Logotherapy is based on an existential analysis focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning as opposed to Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure.
Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded upon the belief
that striving to find meaning in life is the primary, most powerful
motivating and driving force in humans. A short introduction to this system is given in Frankl's most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he outlines how his theories helped him to survive his Holocaust experience and how that experience further developed and reinforced his theories. Presently, there are a number of logotherapy institutes around the world.
Basic principles
The notion of Logotherapy was created with the Greek word logos
("reason"). Frankl’s concept is based on the premise that the primary
motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life. The
following list of tenets represents basic principles of logotherapy:
- 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.
The human spirit is referred to in several of the assumptions of
logotherapy, but the use of the term spirit is not "spiritual" or
"religious". In Frankl's view, the spirit is the will of the human
being. The emphasis, therefore, is on the search for meaning, which is
not necessarily the search for God or any other supernatural being. Frankl also noted the barriers to humanity's quest for meaning in life. He warns against "...affluence, hedonism, [and] materialism..." in the search for meaning.
Purpose in life and meaning in life constructs appeared in Frankl's logotherapy writings with relation to existential vacuum and will to meaning, as well as others who have theorized about and defined positive psychological
functioning. Frankl observed that it may be psychologically damaging
when a person's search for meaning is blocked. Positive life purpose and
meaning was associated with strong religious beliefs, membership in
groups, dedication to a cause, life values, and clear goals. Adult
development and maturity
theories include the purpose in life concept. Maturity emphasizes a
clear comprehension of life's purpose, directedness, and intentionality
which contributes to the feeling that life is meaningful.
Frankl's ideas were operationalized by Crumbaugh and Maholick's
Purpose in Life (PIL) test, which measures an individual's meaning and
purpose in life. With the test, investigators found that meaning in life mediated the relationships between religiosity and well-being; uncontrollable stress and substance use; depression and self-derogation. Crumbaugh found that the Seeking of Noetic
Goals Test (SONG) is a complementary measure of the PIL. While the PIL
measures the presence of meaning, the SONG measures orientation towards
meaning. A low score in the PIL but a high score in the SONG, would
predict a better outcome in the application of Logotherapy.
Discovering meaning
According
to Frankl, "We can discover this meaning in life in three different
ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing
something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take
toward unavoidable suffering" and that "everything can be taken from a
man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's
attitude in any given set of circumstances". On the meaning of suffering, Frankl gives the following example:
"Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now how could I help him? What should I tell him? I refrained from telling him anything, but instead confronted him with a question, "What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive without you?:" "Oh," he said, "for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!" Whereupon I replied, "You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it is you who have spared her this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her." He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left the office.
Frankl emphasized that realizing the value of suffering is meaningful
only when the first two creative possibilities are not available (for
example, in a concentration camp) and only when such suffering is
inevitable – he was not proposing that people suffer unnecessarily.
Philosophical basis of logotherapy
Frankl described the meta-clinical implications of logotherapy in his book The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy.
He believed that there is no psychotherapy apart from the theory of
man. As an existential psychologist, he inherently disagreed with the
“machine model” or “rat model”, as it undermines the human quality of
humans. As a neurologist and psychiatrist, Frankl developed a unique
view of determinism
to coexist with the three basic pillars of logotherapy (the freedom of
will). Though Frankl admitted that man can never be free from every
condition, such as, biological, sociological, or psychological
determinants, based on his experience during his life in the Nazi
concentration camps, he believed that man is “capable of resisting and
braving even the worst conditions”. In doing such, man can detach from
situations, himself, choose an attitude about himself, determine his own
determinants, thus shaping his own character and becoming responsible
for himself.
Logotherapeutic views and treatment
Overcoming anxiety
By recognizing the purpose of our circumstances, one can master anxiety. Anecdotes about this use of logotherapy are given by New York Times
writer Tim Sanders, who explained how he uses its concept to relieve
the stress of fellow airline travelers by asking them the purpose of
their journey. When he does this, no matter how miserable they are,
their whole demeanor changes, and they remain happy throughout the
flight.
Overall, Frankl believed that the anxious individual does not
understand that his anxiety is the result of dealing with a sense of
“unfulfilled responsibility” and ultimately a lack of meaning.
Treatment of neurosis
Frankl
cites two neurotic pathogens: hyper-intention, a forced intention
toward some end which makes that end unattainable; and hyper-reflection,
an excessive attention to oneself which stifles attempts to avoid the neurosis to which one thinks oneself predisposed. Frankl identified anticipatory anxiety,
a fear of a given outcome which makes that outcome more likely. To
relieve the anticipatory anxiety and treat the resulting neuroses,
logotherapy offers paradoxical intention, wherein the patient intends to do the opposite of their hyper-intended goal.
A person, then, who fears (i.e. experiences anticipatory anxiety
over) not getting a good night's sleep may try too hard (that is,
hyper-intend) to fall asleep, and this would hinder their ability to do
so. A logotherapist would recommend, then, that the person go to bed and
intentionally try not to fall asleep. This would relieve the
anticipatory anxiety which kept the person awake in the first place,
thus allowing them to fall asleep in an acceptable amount of time.
Depression
Viktor Frankl believed depression occurred at the psychological, physiological, and spiritual levels.
At the psychological level, he believed that feelings of inadequacy
stem from undertaking tasks beyond our abilities. At the physiological
level, he recognized a “vital low”, which he defined as a “diminishment
of physical energy”.
Finally, Frankl believed that at the spiritual level, the depressed man
faces tension between who he actually is in relation to what he should
be. Frankl refers to this as the gaping abyss.
Finally Frankl suggests that if goals seem unreachable, an individual
loses a sense of future and thus meaning resulting in depression. Thus logotherapy aims “to change the patient’s attitude toward their disease as well as toward their life as a task”.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Frankl
believed that those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder lack
the sense of completion that most other individuals possess.
Instead of fighting the tendencies to repeat thoughts or actions, or
focusing on changing the individual symptoms of the disease, the
therapist should focus on “transform[ing] the neurotic’s attitude toward
their neurosis”.
Therefore, it is important to recognize that the patient is “not
responsible for his obsessional ideas”, but that “he is certainly
responsible for his attitude toward these ideas”.
Frankl suggested that it is important for the patient to recognize his
inclinations toward perfection as fate, and therefore, must learn to
accept some degrees of uncertainty.
Ultimately, following the premise of logotherapy, the patient must
eventually ignore his obsessional thoughts and find meaning in his life
despite such thoughts.
Schizophrenia
Though
logotherapy wasn’t intended to deal with severe disorders, Frankl
believed that logotherapy could benefit even those suffering from
schizophrenia. He recognized the roots of schizophrenia in physiological dysfunction. In this dysfunction, the person with schizophrenia “experiences himself as an object” rather than as a subject.
Frankl suggested that a person with schizophrenia could be helped by
logotherapy by first being taught to ignore voices and to end persistent
self-observation.
Then, during this same period, the person with schizophrenia must be
led toward meaningful activity, as “even for the schizophrenic there
remains that residue of freedom toward fate and toward the disease which
man always possesses, no matter how ill he may be, in all situations
and at every moment of life, to the very last”.
Terminally ill patients
In
1977, Terry Zuehlke and John Watkins conducted a study analyzing the
effectiveness of logotherapy in treating terminally ill patients. The
study’s design used 20 male Veterans Administration volunteers who were
randomly assigned to one of two possible treatments – (1) group that
received 8-45 minute sessions over a 2 week period and (2) group used as
control that received delayed treatment. Each group was tested on 5
scales – the MMPI K Scale,
MMPI L Scale, Death Anxiety Scale, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and
the Purpose of Life Test. The results showed an overall significant
difference between the control and treatment groups. While the
univariate analyses showed that there were significant group differences
in 3/5 of the dependent measures. These results confirm the idea that
terminally ill patients can benefit from logotherapy in coping with
death.
Controversy
Authoritarianism
In 1969 Rollo May argued that logotherapy is, in essence, authoritarian.
He suggested that Frankl’s therapy presents a plain solution to all of
life’s problems, an assertion that would seem to undermine the
complexity of human life itself. May contended that if a patient could
not find his own meaning, Frankl would provide a goal for his patient.
In effect, this would negate the patient’s personal responsibility, thus
“diminish[ing] the patient as a person”. Frankl explicitly replied to May’s arguments through a written dialogue, sparked by Rabbi Reuven Bulka’s article “Is Logotherapy Authoritarian?”.
Frankl responded that he combined the prescription of medication, if
necessary, with logotherapy, to deal with the person's psychological and
emotional reaction to the illness, and highlighted areas of freedom and
responsibility, where the person is free to search and to find meaning.
Religiousness
Critical
views of the life of logotherapy's founder and his work assume that
Frankl's religious background and experience of suffering guided his
conception of meaning within the boundaries of the person and therefore that logotherapy is founded on Viktor Frankl's worldview.
Frankl openly spoke and wrote on religion and psychiatry, throughout his life, and specifically in his last book, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning
(1997). He asserted that every person has a spiritual unconscious,
independently of religious views or beliefs, yet Frankl's conception of
the spiritual unconscious does not necessarily entail religiosity. In
Frankl's words: “It is true, Logotherapy, deals with the Logos; it deals
with Meaning. Specifically, I see Logotherapy in helping others to see
meaning in life. But we cannot “give” meaning to the life of others. And
if this is true of meaning per se, how much does it hold for Ultimate
Meaning?” The American Psychiatric Association awarded Viktor Frankl the 1985 Oskar Pfister Award (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry).
Origins
On
Frankl's doctrine that one must instill meaning in the events in ones
life, that work and suffering to find meaning, will ultimately lead to
fulfillment and happiness. In 1982 the highly cited scholar and
holocaust analyst Lawrence L. Langer, who while also critical of Frankl's distortions on the true experience of those at Auschwitz,
and Frankl's amoral focus on "meaning" that could just as equally be
applied to Nazis "finding meaning in making the world free from Jews",
Langer would go on to write: "If this [logotherapy] doctrine had been
more succinctly worded, the Nazis might have substituted it for the
cruel mockery of Arbeit Macht Frei [the sign chosen to be placed over the entry to Auschwitz]".
A biographer of Frankl would later remark on the penetrating
insight of Langer's reading of Frankl's holocaust testimony, with
Langer's criticism published in 1982 before the biographer's research,
the former had thus drawn the controversial parallels, or accommodations
in ideology without the knowledge that Victor Frankl was an
advocate/"embraced" the key ideas of the Nazi psychotherapy movement ("will and responsibility") as a form of therapy in the late 1930s. When at that time Frankl would submit a paper and contributed to the Göring institute
in Vienna 1937 and again in early 1938 connecting the logotherapy focus
on "world-view" to the "work of some of the leading Nazi
psychotherapists", both at a time before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.
The origins of logotherapy, as described by Frankl, were
therefore a major issue of continuity that Biographer Pytell argues were
potentially problematic for Frankl because he had laid out the main
elements of logotherapy while working for/contributing to the
Nazi-affiliated Göring Institute. Principally Frankl's 1937 paper, that
was published by the institute. This association, as a source of controversy, that logotherapy was palatable to National Socialism
is the reason Pytell suggests, Frankl took two different stances on how
the concentration-camp experience affected the course of his
psychotherapy theory. Namely, that within the original English edition
of Frankl's most well known book, Man's Search for Meaning, the
suggestion is made and still largely held that logotherapy was itself
derived from his camp experience, with the claim as it appears in the
original edition, that this form of psychotherapy was "not concocted in
the philosopher's armchair nor at the analyst's couch; it took shape in
the hard school of air-raid shelters and bomb craters; in concentration
camps and prisoner of war camps." Frankl's statements however to this
effect would be deleted from later editions, though in the 1963 edition,
a similar statement again appeared on the back of the book jacket of Man's Search for Meaning.
Frankl over the years would switch between the claim that
logotherapy took shape in the camps to the claim that the camps merely
justified his already preconceived theories, as the definitive word on
the matter, in 1977 Frankl himself began to clarify the controversy
stating "People think I came out of Auschwitz with a brand-new
psychotherapy. This is not the case."
Recent developments
Since the 1990s, logotherapy has evolved into meaning therapy. Wong
attempted to translate logotherapy into psychological mechanisms in
order to make it more relevant to the wider psychology community. This extension not only integrates meaning therapy with cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychotherapy, but also connects meaning therapy with the positive psychology research on meaning. Another new development is the application of logotherapy to palliative care.
These recent developments introduce Viktor Frankl's logotherapy to a
new generation and extend its impact to new areas of research.
Locations
A number of logotherapeutic institutes have opened up in various countries around the world and include:
Africa
- Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy South Africa
Asia
- The Viktor Frankl Center for Logotherapy in Israel
Europe
- Viktor Frankl Institute - Vienna, Austria
- Viktor Frankl Institute of Ireland
- Logotherapy Institute of Finland
- Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy - Prague, Czech Republic
North America
- Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy - New York City
- Institute of Logotherapy, Berkeley, CA
- Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy - Abilene, Texas
- Arizona Institute of Logotherapy
- Canadian Institute of Logotherapy - Ottawa, Canada
