Meanwhile, we have reached the point where the third basic assump-tion comes in: after discussing freedom of will and will to meaning, meaning itself is now the problem. Well, no Logotherapist “prescribed”
a meaning. But he may well “describe” it. What I mean is: in a purely descriptive way, just describing the way in which man really exists, or in a phenomenological way, he might widen and broaden the visual field of his patient as for meanings and values, making them loom, as it were. In the course of a growing awareness it might then finally turn out that life doesn’t cease to hold and retain a meaning up to the very last moment. This is due to the fact that, as a phenomenologi-cal analysis yields, man not only finds his life meaningful through his deeds, his works, his creativity, but also through his experiences, his encountering what is true, good, and beautiful in the world, and, last but not least, his encounter with another, a fellow human being in his
very uniqueness. The grasping of another person in his uniqueness means loving him; but even in a situation in which man is deprived of both creativity and receptivi ty, he might still fulfill a meaning in his life, since precisely when facing such a fate, when being confront ed with a hopeless situation—precisely then is he given a last opportu-nity to fulfill a meaning, nay, to realize even the highest value, to fulfill even the deepest meaning, and that is the meaning of suffering. It goes without saying that suffering can be meaningful only if the situation cannot be changed—otherwise we would not have to deal with hero-ism but rather masochhero-ism.
Let me summarize: Life can be made meaningful in a threefold way:
First, through what we give to life (in terms of our creative works);
second, by what we take from the world (in terms of our experiencing values, be it in nature, or in culture); and third, through the stand we take toward a fate we no longer can change (an incurable disease, an inoperable cancer or the like). However, even apart from this, man is not spared facing his human condition which includes what I call the tragic triad of human existence, namely, pain, death, and guilt. By pain, I mean suffering; by the two other constituents of the tragic triad, I mean the twofold fact of man’s mortality and fallibility.
Stressing these tragic aspects of man’s life is not as superfluous as it may seem to be at first sight. In particular, the fear of aging and dying is pervasive in the present culture, and Edith Weisskopf-Joelson of Purdue University has claimed that Logotherapy might help counter-act these particularly widespread American anxieties. As a matter of fact, it is my contention, and a tenet of Logotherapy, that life’s transito-riness does not in the least detract from its meaningfulness. The same holds for man’s fallibility. So there is no need to reinforce our patients’
escapism before the tragic triad of existence.
And now let me come back for a moment to suffering. You may have heard the story which I so much like to tell my audiences because it proves to be so helpful in “making the meaning of suffering loom”. An old doctor consulted me in Vienna because he could not get rid of a severe depression caused by the death of his wife. I asked him, “What would have happened if you had died first and your wife would have had to survive you?” Whereupon he said: “This would have been ter-rible for her—how she would have suffered!” I then added, “Well, your wife has been spared this suffering and it was you who spared her. But now, as it were, you have to pay for it, by surviving and mourning her.”
1.7 • PhilosoPhical foundations of logothEraPy 119 The old man suddenly saw his plight in a new light, re-evaluating his suffering in the meaningful terms of a sacrifice for the sake of his wife.
Even if this story is well-known to you, what is unknown is a com-ment which was given by an American psychoanalyst some months ago. After hear ing this account, he stood up and said, “I understand what you mean, Dr. Frankl; however, if we start from the fact that ob-viously your patient had only suffered so deeply from the death of his wife because unconsciously he had hated her all along . . .”
If you are interested in hearing my reaction, here it is: It may well be that after having the patient lie down on your couch for 500 hours, you will have brain-washed and indoctrinated him to the point where he confesses, like the communists behind the iron curtain in the course of what they call self-criticism: “Yes, Doctor, you are right, I have hated my wife all along, I have never loved her at any time...” “But then,” I told my discussant, “you would have succeeded in depriving that old man of the only precious treasure he still possessed, namely, this ideal mari-tal life they had built up, their true love ... while I succeeded, within a minute, in bringing about a significant reversal of his attitude, or let me frankly say: in bringing consolation.”
One‘s will to meaning can only be elicited if meaning itself can be elucidated as something which is essentially more than his mere self-expression. This implies a certain degree of objectiveness, and without a minimum amount of objectiveness meaning would never be found worthwhile to be fulfilled. We do not just attach and attribute meanings to things, but rather find them; we do not invent them, we detect them. (No more than this is meant when I speak of the objec-tiveness of meaning.) On the other hand, however, an unbiased inves-tigation would also reveal a certain subjectiveness inherent in mean-ing. The meaning of life must be conceived in terms of the specific meaning of a personal life in a given situation. Each man is unique, after all, and each man‘s life is singular; no one is replaceable nor is his life repeatable. This twofold uniqueness adds to man‘s responsibleness.
Ultimately, this responsibleness derives from the existential fact that life is a chain of questions which man has to answer by answering for life, to which he has to respond by being responsible, by making deci-sions, by deciding which answers to give to the individual questions.
And I venture to say that each question has only one answer, namely, the right one!
This does not imply that man is always capable of finding the right answer or solution to each problem, of finding the true meaning to his existence! Rather the contrary is true: as a finite being, he is not spared from erring and, therefore, has to take the risk of erring. Again, I must quote Goethe who once said: “We must always aim at the bull’s eye—although we know that we will not always hit it.” Or, as I would say in my prosaic language: we have to try to reach the absolutely best else we shall not even reach the relatively good.
While speaking of the freedom of will, I referred to meaning ori-entation; while speaking of the will to meaning, I referred to meaning confrontation; while speaking of the meaning of life, I now must refer to meaning frustration, or existential frustration. It repre sents the very collective neurosis of our time as I have tried to evidence elsewhere.
The dean of students at one of the major universities of this country has told me that the experience of a total and ultimate meaningless-ness of life, of that inner void and emptimeaningless-ness that I have termed the existential vacuum, is confronting him in his counseling work every day. Moreover, not a few instances of suicide among the students are evidently due to this state of affairs. What seems to be needed, at this time, may well be the installing of a “basis of convictions and beliefs so strong that they lifted individuals clear out of themselves and caused them to live, and die, for some aim nobler and better than themselves”
This quotation came from an address to the Annual Convention of the American Association of School Administrators in which the group was urged to teach the students that “ideals are the very stuff of survival” (The Detroit News, Feb. 20, 1963). The speak er was not a Logotherapist, nor a psychotherapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist, but rather U. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., America’s best known astronaut.
It is, in a symbolic sense, fitting that such a person should issue such a challenge, for I believe that indeed, “height” psychology is going to re-place more and more the ancient and old fashioned ‘depth’ psychology.
ParT ii
PhilosoPhiCal asPeCTs oF logoTheraPy &
exisTenTial analysis
2.1
logoTheraPy & exisTenTialisM
T
he present situation of psychotherapy is characterized by the rise of what is called in the United States existential psychia-try. In fact, Existentialism is one of the major fea tures of pres-ent psychotherapy (Frankl, 1967). However, we have to remain aware that there are as many existentialisms as there are existentialists. Not only has each existenti alist molded his own version, but each has a nomenclature different from the others. Such terms as existence and Dasein have meanings deviating from each other in the writings of Jaspers and Heidegger, for example.Nonetheless, the existential authors in psy chiatry do have some-thing in common. How ever, it is only a favorite phrase which they so often use—and misuse—which reads: “being in the world.” Many authors seem to regard it a sufficient credential of existentialism to apply this phrase time and again. Most of these authors also miscon-ceive Heidegger’s concept of being in the world. They interpret it in the direction of mere subjectivism—as though ‘the world in’ which a human being ‘is’—were nothing but a mere self-expression of the very same being himself.
Reprinted from Psychology: Theory Research and Practice, (4) 3,138–142, 1967
By speaking of ‘being in the world,’ these authors pretend to have overcome the split between object and subject. Yet, a truly phe-nomenological analysis would reveal that there is no such thing as cognition outside the polar field of tension between object and sub-ject. To understand the phrase “being in the world,” properly, one must recognize that being human means being engaged and entangled in a situation, and confronted with a world whose objectivity and reality is in no way de tracted from by the subjectivity of that ‘being’ who is ‘in the world.’ However, misunderstandings in the field of existentialism may easily be understood. Here the terminol ogy is sometimes eso-teric, to say the least.
As to the position of Logotherapy, most of the authors agree that it falls under the cat egory of existential psychiatry. Pertinent statements have been made by Pervin (1960), Kazcanowski (1960; 1965), Un-gersma (1961), Tweedie (1961; 1963), Allport (1962), Crumbaugh and Maholick (1963; 1964) and Leslie (1963; 1965). In fact, as early as in the 1930s I coined the word Ex istenzanalyse as an alternative name for Logotherapy (Frankl, l965a; 1965b)—a term which I had al-ready coined in the twenties. Later on, when American authors started pub lishing in the field of Logotherapy, they intro duced the term ‘ex-istential analysis’ (Polak, 1949; Weisskopf-Joelson, 1958; Birnbaum, 1961) as a translation of Existenzanalyse. Unfortunately, other authors did the same with the word Daseinsanalyse—a term which, in the forties, had been selected by the late Ludwig Binswanger, the great Swiss psychi atrist, to denote his own teachings and hence forth exis-tential analysis became quite an am biguous word. In order not to add to the con fusion, I decided to refrain more and more from using the term existential analysis inso far as my publications in English were con cerned—at the risk, to be sure, of speaking of Logotherapy even in a context where no thera py in the proper sense of the word was in volved. For example, what I call medical min istry forms an impor-tant aspect of the prac tice of Logotherapy but is indicated precisely in those cases where actual therapy is impossi ble—simply because the patient faces an in curable disease. To be sure, in the widest possible sense Logotherapy is treatment even then—it is treatment of the pa-tient’s attitude to ward his unchangeable fate.
Logotherapy has not only been subsumed under the heading of ex-istential psychiatry but also has been acclaimed, within this prov ince, as the only school which has succeeded in developing what one might
2.1 • logothEraPy & ExistEntialism 123 he justified in calling a technique. (This at least is the con tention of such authors as Ungersma, Tweed ie, Leslie, Kazcanowski and Crum-baugh.) This does not imply that we Logotherapists are too proud of this fact. He have long realized that what counts in therapy is not tech-niques but rather the human relation between doctor and patient, or the personal and existential encounter, Again I have used a typically exis tential phrase which has all too often been misused. I had an op-portunity to discuss with Martin Buber the oversimplification of his concept of encounter, particularly on the Amer ican scene.
A purely technological approach to psy chotherapy may block its therapeutic effect. Some time ago I was invited to lecture at an Ameri-can university before a team of psychi atrists who had been assigned the care of evacuees after a hurricane catastrophe. I se lected the title
‘Techniques and Dynamics of Survival’ which obviously pleased the spon sors of my lecture very much. But when I started this lecture I frankly told them that as soon and as long as we actually interpret our assignment merely in terms of techniques and dynamics we have missed the point—and we have missed the hearts of those to whom we wish to offer mental First Aid in their predica ment. Approach-ing human beApproach-ings merely in terms of techniques necessarily implies manip ulating them. Approaching them merely in terms of dynamics implies reifying them, making human beings into mere things.1 And these human beings immediately feel and no tice the manipulative quality of our approach and our tendency to reify them.
When, on the occasion of another lecture tour, I was asked to ad-dress the prisoners at San Quentin, I was assured, afterwards, that in a way it was the first time they had really felt un derstood. I had just taken them as human beings—and not mistaken them as mecha nisms to repair. I had just interpreted them in the same way as they had in-terpreted them selves all along, that is to say, in terms of being free and responsible—and I had not offered them a cheap escape from feel ings of guilt by conceiving of them as victims of biological, psychological or sociological condi tioning processes. Nor had I taken them as helpless pawns on the battleground of Id, Ego and Superego. I had not pro-vided them with an alibi. Guilt had not been taken away from them. I had not explained it away. I had taken them as peers. They learned that 1 A human being is not nothing, but rather no thing. This no-thingness
rather than nothingness is the lesson to learn from existentialism.
it was a prerogative of man to become guilty—and his responsibility to overcome guilt.
What else did I implement when addressing the prisoners at San Quentin if not phenomenology in the truest sense? In fact, phenom-enology is an attempt to describe the way in which man understands himself and interprets his own existence, far from preconceived ex-planations such as are furnished by psychodynamic or socio-eco-nomic hypotheses. In adopting the phenomenological methodology, Logotherapy, as Paul Polak once put it, tries to couch man’s unbiased self-understanding in scientific terms.
Let me again take up the issue of technique versus encounter. Psy-chotherapy is more than technique in that it is art, and goes beyond pure science in that it is wisdom.
But even wisdom is not the last word. In a concentration camp I once saw the body of a woman who had committed suicide. Among the effects was a scrap of paper with the words, “More powerful than fate is the cour age that bears it.” Despite this motto she had taken her life. Wisdom requires the human touch.
Recently I received a telephone call at three in the morning from a lady who told me that she was determined to commit suicide but due to her curiosity wished to hear what I would say. I evolved all the argu-ments speak ing against this resolution and for survival, and I talked to her for 30 minutes—until she finally gave her word that she would not take her life but rather would come to see me in the hos pital. But when she visited me there it turned out that no one of all the argu-ments presented by me had impressed her. The only reason why she had decided not to commit suicide was the fact that, rather than grow-ing angry because of havgrow-ing been disturbed in my sleep in the middle of the night, I had patiently lis tened to her and talked with her for half an hour, and a world, she found, in which this can happen, must be a world worth living in.
In psychotherapy, it is mainly to the credit of the late Ludwig Binswanger that the human being has been reinstated in his hu-manness. More and more the I-Thou relation could be regarded the heart of the matter. Yet another step was due. There was a dimension still to be entered. Because the intentional re ferent (defined below) of the I-Thou relation had not yet been considered. The encounter be-tween I and Thou cannot be the whole story. Due to the essentially self-transcendent quality of human existence man is a being reaching
2.1 • logothEraPy & ExistEntialism 125 out beyond himself. (Frankl, 1966b) Therefore, if Martin Buber along with Ferdi nand Ebner interprets human existence basi cally in terms of a dialogue between I and Thou, we must recognize that this dia-logue defeats itself unless I and Thou transcend themselves.
If you take up those forms which you find in an American office, you may read: From (the desk of) ... to ... R.E: . . . From this you may learn that the true dialogue is more than a mere talk between I and Thou. Speaking from I to Thou always refers to something, and unless this point of reference is not in cluded, the dialogue remains a dialogue with out logos.
In psychotherapy, what encounters one an other is not two monads,
In psychotherapy, what encounters one an other is not two monads,