Logotherapy

I have just completed a book called Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.  Although I must admit that it is not a long book at 165 pages it did not take me long to complete across a few long plane rides and this cold and grey afternoon in Farmville.

Frankl, having died in 1997, was a Jewish Viennese psychiatrist who in the late 1930's early 40's began notes on a book of a psychological therapy he was developing called Logotherapy.  At the beginning of the war, he was offered asylum in the USA and provided with a visa which he let lapse as he felt he must stay in Vienna to assist his elderly parents.  Eventually he was captured and deported to the first of the four prison camps he was interred in.  On being interred, his only possessions were the clothes on his back and the transcript of his book which he hid under his coat.  Unfortunately, he lost the transcript, but was able to recall it and write the book after the war.

However in the mean time, after being liberated from Auschwitz, he wrote Man's Search for Meaning in 9 days!  The book has sold over 12 million copies in over 20 languages.  It was also revealed that having stayed in Vienna to look after his family, he returned to Vienna alone after the war, having lost his mother, father, brother and wife in the prison camps, either from the gas chambers or starvation.  He was never really sure from which each had expired.

So in writing about his experiences in the camp he is giving the basis for his psychological theory known as Logotherapy.  Logos is the Greek word for meaning.  The basic tenant of the book being that those who survived the death camps seemed to be those who had something to live for, or had meaning in their life.  This he states is a general statement as life and death could be quite arbitrary and sometimes survival was a matter of sheer luck.  But perhaps the greater evidence for this theory is in his discussions of those who gave up on life.  He said it was completely obvious who had given up (or no longer found a meaning to live for) as they seemed to be identified from a similar pattern.  One day the individual would wake up in the morning and simply not get out of bed.  They would lay there on the straw, in urine and other soaked floor, and refuse to get up for work detail.  Perhaps having their last cigarette.  Within two days he says, they would be dead.

I found that it was not necessarily the descriptions of the camp which caught my attention as we have heard many of these horrific descriptions before as well as seen them depicted in movies.  For me it was the underlying existential ideas that he was describing which appear to be incredibly powerful. I had not previously heard of Logotherapy and wonder why it has gone by the way side as it does appear effective, especially for suicidal and depressed patients, and especially as it can be a short term therapy as preferred by today's insurance providers.

So the underlying aspect of the theory is that people can be treated by exploring meaning in their lives.  The parallels to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) cannot be ignored, especially where both ideas criticise the 20th and 21st century insistence of society to chaise happiness relentlessly and that there is something wrong with us if we are not happy.  The fact is, happiness is fleeting, it is not sustainable.  We hear a joke that make us laugh and we may be happy, however we will need to hear another joke of similar humour to continue that laughter.  We reach a goal and we are happy but then we need to find another goal to reach.  We win a game and we are happy, but we lose the next and we are not happy.  Happiness is not a valid goal.  As Frankl says, "happiness is to be endured, not pursued".  Therefore happiness is the by-product of living a meaningful/ values based life, which should be a life's goal.

So, a person may seek treatment for some psychological ailment after suffering an existential crisis such as a lack of meaning in their life.  Frankl also refers to this as an existential vacuum.  Conflict within the individual occurs when one comes to a point where there is a gap between what one is and what one should become.  This conflict can cause illness, injury or anxiety.  The conflict is resolved when the "gap between what one is and what one should become" is resolved.  Therefore we are each responsible for working out what our life's meaning is and pursue it relentlessly.  As Frankl says, "therefore man is responsible and must actualise the potential meaning of his life".  Responsibility is another major tenant of existentialism and fits within almost every major school of psychology, which is that we each can only control what we can control in our own lives and nothing more, but we must take responsibility for what we can control, such as how we react to any given situation.  As Frankl also says, "We can choose how to respond to our suffering - it is every persons responsibility to choose the way in which he bares his burden".

So for those of us who have not found our life's meaning, how do we go about finding it?  Well to begin with "A person finds meaning by striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task".  Frankl says we can find meaning through any one of three endeavours:

1)  Creating a work or doing a deed.  For example, volunteering for a cause we are passionate about or having a hobby or doing art.

2)  Experiencing something or somebody.  In other words to fall in love with someone or to love someone, thereby finding meaning in loving that person.  Perhaps it is and ideal that we fall in love with such way of life or even sporting team.

3)  Personal growth (or achievement) through personal suffering.  Frankl refers to this as tragic optimism.  What he means is that through adversity, we can find meaning.  Consider the example he gives of a young man who became a quadraplegic after breaking his neck.  He went on to begin a psychology degree stating "who better to go on to help people in similar circumstances".

Frankl also goes on to say "the human potential, at its best, always allows for":

1) Turning suffering into human achievement and accomplishment, i.e., number 3 above.

2) Deriving from guilt, the opportunity to change oneself for the better, i.e., if we are feeling guilty about something, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, learn from it, fix it if possible and move on.

3) Deriving from life's transitories an incentive to take responsible action, i.e., even in facing death we can go to that place with dignity and humility or in response to disease, illness or injury, we can use that experience to find meaning in our treatment or lifestyle change.

So in answer to what is the meaning of life, the answer lies within each of us.  There is not one collective meaning to life, but that which each of us makes for ourselves.  "It is ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence".  Frankl wrote this quote aged 16 after having an article read and published by Freud!

Frankl was once asked by a class as to what his lifes meaning was.  He wrote it on a piece of paper and asked the class to guess what it might be.  One student had it 100% accurate:

"My life's meaning is to help others find their life's meaning".

What is your life's meaning and are you actively pursuing it every day?

Damien