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Logotherapy
Logotherapy, practiced and described by Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, is a form of psychotherapy that requires individuals to assume responsibility for their own existence to search for meaning. Dr. Frankl, himself a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, developed this psychotherapeutic method as a means to endure the horror and suffering he witnessed and endured in the camp. Dr. Frankl believed that no matter what degree of human suffering he witnessed in the camp, one lost everything except, “the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Ironically, this same ultimate freedom is recognized by the ancient Stoics and has vivid significance in Dr. Frankl’s story. I, too, like the Stoics, believe that once we come to know what we and the world around us are really like, we can and will be utterly transformed; our destiny embodies the will of the universe. I believe that both Logotherapy and Stoicism are synonymous with patience and long-suffering. However, once a person attained moral and intellectual perfection, he would never undergo fear again.
Largely, Dr. Frankl observed that those prisoners who allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by despair, who gave up their freedom to choose, often descended into paralytic apathy and depression. Furthermore, he believed that the key to helping people that are in a state of hopelessness is to help them find meaning even in the face of the unimaginable horrors of the world. Meaning may be something as simple as holding on to pleasant memories, much like Dr. Frankl did while he was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps. In other words, an individual will not understand the meaning of his suffering if he loses the power to understand what the future holds. Subsequently, he will lose the capacity to survive since he no longer understands the meaning of his suffering.
With this in mind, one can see how easy it is to lose hope or give up if the means of the suffering is not worthy of the suffering.
The insight of Frankl’s ideas and meaning, have helped the other inmates physically and psychologically survive under the inhumane abuse. This is why the author and main character Viktor Frankl affected me the most during my reading of these torturous experiences. Whether he was curing ones typhus, or causally giving advice to the other prisoners, he was always thinking of others, and was seen as a courageous figure to the other individuals at the camp. For example, on page 58 Frankl talks about how he will be escaping the camp with his friend. He states how he checked on his patients one last time before his freedom and saw the sad look in one of his deathly patients eyes. He felt unsatisfied with leaving his hopeless patients and then began to tell his friend that he could not leave camp. He stated, “I did not know what the following days would bring, but I gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned t...
Intense inner life: I believe that Frankl was constantly in the mindset of the doctor he was. He was continually thinking of ways to keep his mind busy. Helping others, thinking of ways to ration his bread, obtaining medicine for the typhus patients, inspiring others, or hiding comrades Frankl kept his mind busy. Although at times he struggled he found his meaning in life and his inner life kept him motivated to go on. To keep his mind busy he was constantly thinking like a psychologist and analyzing others.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
...ences the individuals dealt through in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes to avoid any personal bias, as he was a prisoner himself and emphasizes the notion that man has the ability to determine what will become of his life, as he himself was able to apply this thought while living three years in captivity. His notion of finding meaning in life becomes a key factor in survival, which was ultimately able to help him and help others under his teachings, to make it out from the camps alive with a positive attitude. The need for hope, gave him a purpose to keep fighting, although others became struck down with the thought of suicide. Though Victor E. Frankl faced many difficulties and challenges while in captivity and days following his release, he comes to the ultimate realization that life will never cease to have meaning, even when under the cruelest conditions.
Frankl realized that the majority of readers will never experience the horrors of the Holocaust, but knowing that everyone experiences tragedies used a man named Jerry Long as an inspiration. Jerry Long, who during his life faced various hardships, one of which led to Long’s paralyzation, demonstrated the strength of a human’s courage to face the unknown. Long showed the reader that attitudes often lead to how a situation or circumstance would affect how anyone deals with hardships. He explained that “I believe that the handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible”(Man’s
Imagine; you are stripped of your identity and obliged to conform to the others of your exact situation. You are continually being monitored in an isolated area. The restrictions placed by your tormentors are precise and harsh and if you do not obey, you are punished beyond the simple yell in the face or slap of the hand. You endure this lifestyle for weeks and weeks, over time you begin to change both physically and mentally. Your weight has drastically plummeted and you have begun to lose hope in an exit. At this point you are desperate for a solution to your problems, resulting is assumably regrettable actions. All of which you have just read was what prisoners during the Holocaust had to face in concentration camps. In the memoir Night,
...raumatic for some, the acknowledgement that you can make a choice in your own environment, which controls who you transform to be, should provide encouragement, although illusionary that choice may be, its effects are not.
Viktor Frankl's concept regarding survival and fully living was developed through his observations and experiences in the concentration camps. He used his psychiatric training to discern the meanings of observations and to help himself become a better person. He uses analysis to develop his own concepts and describes them in steps throughout the book. When the prisoners first arrived at the camp most of them thought they would be spared at the last moment. The prisoners believed they had a chance of surviving, but this belief was eventually eliminated and it was at this time when the prisoners began to learn how to survive by using their internal strength. A sense of humor had emerged among the prisoners. This humor helped to get through some difficult situations they faced. Viktor also observed how much a person could really endure and still live. Even though the prisoners could not clean their teeth and were deprived of warmth and vitamins, they still were able to survive. The sores and abrasions on their hands did not suppurate despite the dirt that gathered on them from the hard labor. The challenge of staying alive under these wretched conditions was to have and maintain strong internal strength. During the time he spent in the camps, Viktor learned what was needed to survive and how to keep his internal strength despite his weakening external strength. During the second stage of Viktor's psychological reaction, prisoners lost their sense of feeling and emotion toward events that would be emotional to people outside the camps. This was a result of the violent environment, which consisted of beatings of prisoners and the death of many others. The prisoners could no longer feel any disgust or horr...
One’s spiritual life can flourish or it can shatter in times of great trials. Elie Wiesel went through one of the world’s most horrific event and he lived to tell the stories of those who did not survive the Holocaust. To say that his faith and even his sanity was tested during his time in the concentration camps would be an understatement. He saw the people he loved suffering and dying for God, whom did not seem to notice their anguish. His relationship with God was broken and then put back together again due the great strain of the atrocity he experienced.
While being held prisoner in the death camps, Frankl began to observe his fellow inmates. He payed close attention to the prisoners who survived and those who did not. Frankl concluded that those who felt they had meaning in life such as hope in seeing loved ones at home, unfinished business or great faith had better chances of survival than those who had no hope. This quickly became the basis of his theory. Frankl extrapolated that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was correct in saying, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” (Frankl 126).
“Century of the Self Part 3: The Policeman in Our Heads” is a documentary about Wilhelm Reich’s new therapy and ideas that opposed those of Sigmund Freud’s. This episode focuses on the development of movements that influenced the people to express their feelings and break away from the socially constructed identities. Several group leaders, founders, researchers, and the daughter of Wilhelm Reich were interviewed. Throughout the 1950s-1970s several movements developed to convince the people to remove the implants placed in their brains by the government and corporations in order to become individuals with control of their own and freedom. Erhard Seminar Training or EST was a form of training to implement change in people founded and developed
Existential therapy is a technique that brings awareness to the power of our choices. “This existential approach has opened the way for a more agentic view of human nature and has taken into consideration some of the most fundamental concerns of humanity, which were previously underappreciated in the field of psychology” (Bartz, 2009, p.70). It has been shown to be successful in a variety of groups. Some of these groups are; children, people who have been adopted, incarcerated youth, and victims or culprits of abuse. One doesn’t have to only use one theory or approach during their practice. When it comes to existential therapy, the person using the approach can adapt their interventions to fit their style and personality. At the end of the day, it’s about what will work for the
Logotherapy was initially developed by Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl whilst he endured the horrors of a concentration camp, as described in his novel Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. At the core of logotherapy is the insistence that man desires to fulfill his life by giving it significance and filli...
Viktor Emil Frankl was born on March, 26th 1905, at Czeringassa 7, in Leopoldstadt, in Vienna Austria, where Sigmund Freud and Alfred Alder also grew up (Klingberg, 2014). He was the middle child out of three children. His older brother, Walter was two and a half years older, and his younger sister, Stella, was four years younger. His mother was Elsa Frankl, was a polish woman from Prague with a gentle manner. His father, Gabriel Frankl, had been a hard working man who was the Director of Social Affairs (Redsand, 2006). By the time Frankl was four years old he knew he wanted to be a doctor and he pursued that interest while into high school. He took classes focused on psychology and philosophy. He began corresponding with Freud when he was 16, sending him letters about his own ideas and each time Freud would respond with a postcard with his thoughts (Redsand, 2006). He sent Freud a paper in 1924 about psychoanalysis on the mimic movements of affirmation and negation which Freud then published it in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis three years later (Frankl, 2006). Frankl graduated in 1925 and went on to study neurology and psychiatry at University of Vienna, the same school his father had attended years earlier, although he had to discontinue his education due to financial difficulties after five years of school (Frankl, 2006). During this year Frankl took more interested in Alders theory and had a psychoanalytic article titled, “Psychotherapy and Weltanschauung", published in Adlers International Journal of Individual Psychology (Pytell, 2003). Frankl graduated in 1930 and specialized in depression and suicide. While he was in school he set up a suicide prevention center for teenagers. He then used his term logotherapy...
The meaning of life, defined by Victor E. Frankl, is the will to find your meaning in life. It is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. He believes that if you are approached with the question of “what is the meaning of my life” or in this case, “life is meaningless,” then you should reverse the question to that person asking the question. For example: What are you bringing to me? What are you as an individual contributing to this life? This forces the person in question to take a look at themselves and to ultimately be responsible. Frankl says that if you are a responsible member of society than the meaning of life transcends from yourself rather from your own psyche. He also says that if we for some reason cannot find meaning within ourselves it has to be from some outside source. This is referred to as service. And an example of this is love. Victor Frankl describes three ways in which we can discover the meaning of life; Creating work-doing a deed, experiencing something-someone, and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.