Have you asked yourself the question: “Why am I in this world?” The search for meaning leads us to development. This is what distinguishes us from animals. The creator of the method of logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, called this «the desire for meaning.»
The desire for meaning is the main message of logotherapy, which distinguishes the teachings of Viktor Frankl from the teachings of Sigmund Freud, who argued that a person is driven primarily by the desire for pleasure, and from the teachings of Adolf Adler, who believed that a person is driven by his teenage complexes or the desire for power .
Viktor Frankl wrote: «A person should not ask what is the meaning of life, rather he should understand that he himself is the one to whom this question is addressed.» The meaning is individual and unique for each person at every moment of life, it changes from situation to situation. A person can answer these questions only when he takes responsibility for his life. In logotherapy, free choice, awareness and responsibility become the essence of human existence.
Responsibility has become one of the key points in logotherapy. Frankl put it this way: «Live as if you were living a second time and as if you knew about everything that you did wrong the first time, and now you can fix it.»
Logotherapy looks more to the future than to the patient’s past. This method proposes to imagine the future as something that has already happened and to live the present as if we were given a second chance to correct our «past» mistakes. Of all psychotherapeutic methods, logotherapy is less likely to impose the doctor’s value judgments on patients, so it does not allow patients to shift responsibility for their decisions to the doctor. The bottom line is that the patient himself decides what life obligations and tasks he takes on.
Taking on suffering that we can avoid is not heroism, but masochism
To follow Frankl’s metaphor, he presents the logotherapist as an ophthalmologist rather than as an artist. The artist paints the world as he sees it. The task of logotherapy is to show the patient the world as it is, to expand his perception, to show the variety of meanings.
Logotherapy also says that a person must find meaning not within himself or his psyche as a closed system. He must find meaning outside, in the real world, in three ways:
- Engaging in creativity or a specific business;
- Emotional experience of something or love for someone;
- Our behavior in a situation where suffering is inevitable.
The first way is clear. Happy is the person who has found a job to his liking, made a job out of his hobby that people need, for which they are willing to pay.
The second way is related to our emotional experiences of beauty, kindness and justice, the perception of nature or art, as well as the individual we love, with whom we are truly close. Sex is rather a consequence of the common experiences of a man and a woman. It is sacred and appropriate as long as it continues to be an expression of love.
The third way to find meaning is through suffering, which a person cannot avoid. If a person cannot change life circumstances, he can change himself. At the same time, Frankl warns that taking on suffering that we can avoid is not heroism, but masochism.
Frankl believed that a person is free to find and realize the meaning of life, free to take responsibility for his own destiny, even if his freedom is objectively limited. What, in his opinion, was needed to find and realize the meaning of life?
- Self-transcendence — mental going beyond oneself and focusing on something external;
- Self-detachment is a mental way out of any situation and the ability to look at yourself from the outside.
According to Frankl, internal tension and the search for meaning in life is not a pathology, but a path to self-development. If a person cannot define his goals, this leads to depression. And the presence of a goal, on the contrary, helps to overcome this depression.
Sometimes people endure suffering more easily if they can understand its meaning.
The goal of logotherapy is to help the patient find the meaning of life he has lost by actively engaging in the diverse flow of life. Logotherapy methods are based on awareness and work with fears: fear of death, fear of failure, fear of expectations.
Frankl suggested several methods for dealing with fears:
- Method of paradoxical intention for the treatment of phobias and obsessions caused by fear of waiting;
- Dereflexia method for the treatment of sexual neuroses caused by excessive intentions or fear of failure;
- Socratic dialogue method used in the treatment of specific noogenic neuroses.
Frankl believed that even humor allows the patient to distance himself from himself and his problem and can be one of the methods of therapy. He gives an example of a Socratic dialogue with a patient, his colleague, who for several years could not cope with the death of his beloved wife. Viktor Frankl asked him a simple question: «What would happen if you died first?» The answer was, «She would have suffered terribly.» “So you put her out of her misery?” Frankl asked. The patient then shook hands with him and left without saying a word.
Sometimes people endure suffering more easily if they can understand its meaning. “Who a person becomes within the boundaries of heredity and environment depends on himself,” writes Frankl. — In concentration camps, for example, we observed that some behaved like pigs, while others behaved like saints. Man includes both possibilities; which one is realized depends on the decisions made, not on the conditions.