Logotherapy. Elisabeth Lukas

wordplay, and poetry, and it is not always possible to render these into another language. What is important is to make sure that Frankl’s intentions are respected, that his underlying respect for the human spirit in all its responsibility and freedom is kept in focus.

      Elisabeth Lukas is a student of Frankl who followed very closely in his footsteps, and this classic work illustrates her achievements in developing the practical applications of Frankl’s logotherapeutic methods. To do justice to these methods, and provide a satisfactory reference work for an English-speaking world, we have to be careful that the nuances do not become misleading. To stay on track, we simply need to recall that meaning is always there to be found, and that we have, inalienably, within ourselves, everything we need to find it.

      A note on the many Frankl quotations in this book. Most of these have been cited from German originals, and in these cases the translations are all mine. In many cases there is no English translation available, and even where there is, we often felt that a new translation was better suited to the needs of Lukas’ text.

       Dr. David Nolland

      LOGOTHERAPY’S

      CONCEPT OF MAN

      Classification of Logotherapy

      Logotherapy was founded by the Viennese psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997). It can be categorized amongst the many therapeutic approaches existing today by noting to two main points of view:

      1. According to W. Soucek, logotherapy is the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy”, where Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis is the “First Viennese School of Psychotherapy” and Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology is the ”Second Viennese School of Psychotherapy”. There is a simple rule of thumb to help us remember the emphases of these three approaches: Sigmund Freud focused on the “will to pleasure”, Alfred Adler on the “will to power”, and Viktor E. Frankl on the “will to meaning”. Naturally these are only simplified descriptions, which cannot claim to do full justice to the corresponding schools of psychotherapy. They merely characterise typical areas of research. Freud’s comprehensive theories focus on human drives – in particular the gratification of the sexual drive – which, if suppressed, become a source of psychic disorder. Adler examined the relationship of the individual to the social environment and derived the theory that deepseated feelings of inferiority lead to compensatory striving for power. Frankl ultimately saw human beings as entities who want to shape life in a meaningful way, and who can become psychically ill when their will to meaning is frustrated.

      2. In American textbooks logotherapy is considered a “third force” in psychotherapy, a third approach, though in a somewhat different sense than for Soucek. In the USA, psychoanalysis is regarded (purely historically) as the ‘first force’, behavioural therapy is regarded as the “second force” and so-called existential psychiatry, which became well-known in Europe through Charlotte Bühler’s concept of “humanistic psychology”, is regarded as the ‘third force’. Logotherapy is seen as part of this third force, although Frankl’s concepts differ in one important respect from the ideas of humanistic psychology. In logotherapy, self-actualization is not recognized as the highest goal of human existence, as is the case for all of the many versions of humanistic psychology. In logotherapy, self-actualisation is not recognized as the highest goal of human existence, as is the case for all of the many versions of humanistic psychology. In logotherapy, the self-transcendence of human beings rates higher than self-actualisation. What this means will be explained below. Here it must only be established that in the American context logotherapy is assigned to the third force of psychotherapy, even though its content goes beyond it.

      “People who set themselves an objective such as selfactualisation overlook and forget that ultimately human beings can actualise themselves only to the extent to which they fulfil a meaning in the external world, not within themselves. In other words, self-actualization evades being defined as an objective insofar as it occurs as a side-effect of other objectives. This is what I call the ‘self-transcendence’ of human existence.”¹

      Again, there is a simple rule of thumb for distinguishing the emphases of these three major groups of psychotherapy according to the American classification. This is what it says: Psychoanalysis sees humans as “abreacting beings”; behavioural therapy sees humans as “reacting beings”; logotherapy sees humans as “acting beings”. These are also simplified descriptions, whose memonics are a play on words: each time a prefix is deleted. Ab-re-acting represents the drive dynamic which is the brainchild of psychoanalysis. Re-acting represents the conditioning and learning processes which are the focus of behavioural therapy. And the capacity for acting in freedom emphasises human freedom of will, which is highly regarded in logotherapy.

      Giambattista Torello once asserted that logotherapy is the last complete system in the history of psychotherapy. What he meant by “complete” is that logotherapy as a therapeutic approach is based on a finely honed concept of human beings and of the world. He was not mistaken, for the edifice of logotherapeutic thought is supported by three “pillars”, which Viktor E. Frankl designated as

       freedom of will – will to meaning – meaning of life

      The two outside pillars are axioms which elude scientific proof, as many thinkers and philosophers before Frankl had already established. The middle pillar, the will to meaning, can and has been proven by experimental psychological studies to be a primary motivating force for human beings. Let us look at the three pillars in detail:

       Pillar 1

      The question of how “free” or “unfree” humans really are has been asked throughout history. According to logotherapy, every human being has freedom of will, at least potentially. This potential freedom of will can be constrained at times by illness, immaturity, or senility, or can even be overridden, but this does not affect its fundamental existence. Logotherapy is a “non-deterministic” psychology.

      “Logotherapy’s concept of man is based on three pillars, the freedom of will, the will to meaning, and the meaning of life. The first of them, the freedom of will, is opposed to a principle that characterises most current approaches to man, namely, determinism. Really, however, it is only opposed to what I am used to calling pan-determinism, because speaking of the freedom of will does not in any way imply any a priori indeterminism. After all, the freedom of will means the freedom of human will, and human will is the will of a finite being. Man’s freedom is no freedom from conditions but rather freedom to take a stand on whatever conditions might confront him.”²

       Pillar 2

      The motivational concept of will to meaning means that every human is animated by a striving and yearning for meaning. The fulfilment of meaning is the meeting of two complimentary parts: an “internal” part – this striving and yearning for meaning – and an “external” part, the meaning offered by a situation. If the will to meaning in human beings is constrained by illness, immaturity or senility, which does sometimes happen, then this is an impairment in the perception of the external part and not an attrition of the internal part, which remains a proof of humanness even in the case of serious disorders. Logotherapy is meaning-centred psychotherapy.

      “Meaning is something objective, and that is not just an expression of my own private and personal worldview, but something which has been verified by psychological research. Max Wertheimer, one of the founders of gestalt psychology, explicitly pointed out that every situation possesses the character of a demand, namely ‘the meaning’ that the person who is facing the situation has to fulfil. ‘The demands of the situation’ are to be responded to as ‘objective qualities’. What I call the will to meaning seems to lead to something like a gestalt concept. James Crumbaugh and Leonard T. Maholick describe the will to meaning as the specifically human ability to discover objective meaning not only in the actual, but also in the possible.”³

       Pillar 3

      The postulate of meaningfulness of life expresses the logotherapeutic conviction that life has an unconditional meaning which