Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
logotherapy and psychoanalysis
LOGOTHERAPY case study
the importance of logotherapy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: logotherapy and psychoanalysis
In September of 1942, Viktor Frankl was arrested in Vienna and taken to one of the many Nazi death camps. Frankl was working on a manuscript which was confiscated from him in a move to Auschwitz. In this manuscript entitled, The Doctor and the Soul, Frankl had began his work on a theory he would later call logotherapy. The term logotherapy is derived from the Greek word logos, which means meaning. According to logotherapy, the striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man (Frankl 121). Frankl’s theory and therapy generated and grew through his experiences in the concentration camps. 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). Once Viktor Frankl was liberated in April of 1945, he set to work on piecing together the manuscript that he had lost. He began to further develop his idea of logotherapy. This idea is based on three philosophical and psychological components: the freedom of will, will to meaning, and the meaning in life. The freedom of will, according to logotherapy, is that humans posses the freedom of choice and are not fully subjected to their conditions. The will of meaning is not only saying that humans have freedom of choice but also the ability to fulfill goals a... ... middle of paper ... ...ng what to do with their new found leisure time. Boredom ultimately results in the existential vacuum and has been found as an underlying factor in depression, aggression, and addiction. Throughout Viktor Frankl’s life and struggles he discovered and developed his theory of logotherapy. Frankl has helped many patients find meaning in their lives by having them create a work, finding the meaning in love, or by finding the meaning behind hopeless suffering. He has helped people discover these by using different techniques like paradoxical intention, dereflexion, or Socratic dialogue. Thus, to choose one’s attitude in any circumstance allows one to choose one’s way. This saying if a man cannot find meaning in his suffering, then it is easy for him to lose hope or faith. According to Viktor Frankl, man’s deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose in one’s life.
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.
Elie Wiesel spent thirteen years of his life seeking God through prayer, study, and examination of the goodness of those around him. In a few short months, Adolf Hitler managed to destroy all of things that made up the foundation of Elie’s life. The physical scars, the hunger, the sickness all healed with time, but Wiesel still is missing the most important pieces that were taken from him during his stay in Nazi concentration camps – his faith in his Lord, his trust in father and friend, and his knowledge of the essential goodness of humankind.
Stierlin, Helm. "Existentialism Meets Psychotherapy." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24 (1963): 215-39. Jstor. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.
In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the holocaust. The Jews were enslaved in concentration camps, where they have experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment. Such pain has noticeable physical effects, but also shows psychological changes on those unfortunate enough to experience it.These mutations of their characters and mortality showed weaknesses of the Jews’ spirit and mentality, leading them to act vigorously and being treated like animals. However, these actions proved to Jews that the primary key to surviving their tortures was to work selfishly towards one another.
The lines are neither optimistic or pessimistic, demonstrating that the victims of the Holocaust were emotionally drained to the point where they only felt hunger. Fear itself lost its meaning in the camp, as they were constantly living in the shadow of the crematory smoke stacks. Death became the only staples in their lives, “I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He’s only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people,” (77). In this phrase, the reader realizes that the camps destroyed victim 's emotions to the point where they only relied on death and destruction. Wiesel’s dialogue on faith and humanity portrays the mentality of the victims of the Holocaust, “Where is God now? … Where is he? Here he is - He is hanging here on this gallows…” (62). Many stories from the Holocaust depict stories of victims maintaining their faith throughout their time in the camps. However, Wiesel depicts a much more relatable image through his dialogue; an image of destruction in emotional, spiritual, and physical
As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.
In Viktor Frankl’s essay “Man’s Search For Meaning,” he recounts his experiences surviving the holocaust. Frankl shows how traumatic experiences shape people and force them to change in accordance with what is happening to them. Furthermore, he argues that adaptation was the only way he could survive. To prove this, he describes how he learned to shut himself off from certain aspects of his life and pay more attention to aspects of life that gave him hope, such as nature. Similarly, adaptation is also an important concern of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. In Beloved, Morrison explores Frankl’s idea about how people adapt differently to trauma, some love more than they previously had because they are finally free to do so, some try to find a shaky balance between independence and love and others rely too heavily on the love of a few.
Existentialists believe that “to live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering”. Despite all the horrific experiences in the concentration, Viktor Frankl is determined to not lose the significance of his life and succumb to the cruelty of his situation. With the use of three literary techniques- argumentation, rhetoric, and style- Frankl gives his proposition warrant that a man will not find meaning in his life by searching for it; he must give his life significance by answering questions life asks him.
Viktor Frankl, the author of the novel Man’s Search For Meaning, a holocaust survivor and also known for his theory of locotherapy, explains the hardships that the holocaust brings while living in a concentration camp. Throughout his experience, he confesses that it is hard to have hope and faith in order to live. He gave strongly worded advice to other inmates and was also a doctor to the victims. He is seen as a powerful, bold, and courageous character towards everyone he meets. His stories and incidents that occur throughout the novel portray locotherapy, which is described as the search for meaning in life. By setting goals and looking toward the future can help to push through hardships such as the holocaust.
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...
Man has free will acts as the second aspect of logotherapy. Viktor Frankl states, " Man's freedom is no freedom from conditions but rather freedom to take a stand on whatever conditions might confront him"(371) Holden Caulfield sometimes shows free will, "∦I couldn't think of a room or a house or anything to describe∦So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allies baseball mitt."(38) This shows he can think for himself and that he does not just do what people tell him to do.
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...
“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
Humanistic and Existential Psychology are influential of each other, both include the “meaning of our existence, the role of free will, and the uniqueness of each human” (Burger, 2015) This paper will review three articles written by influential psychologists of their time, Maslow, Rogers, and Frankl. The review of each will include a summary, how well the contents connects to the humanistic or existential psychology, and if their ideas still have a relevant application in today’s environment.
Frankl endured much suffering during his time in the concentration camp. All of his possessions were taken away, including his manuscript in which he recorded all of his life's work. He went through rough manual labor, marching through freezing temperatures, and little or no food. To add to this, he didn't even know if his wife was alive or if she had been killed when they were separated. However, throughout all this, Frankl was able to keep his hopes alive, and still care for his fellow man. This is due to his philosophy of person. He figured that the key to surviving in those horrible conditions was to find a meaning in his life. Once there is a meaning to live for, there will be a will to live.