I tell them to prepare for Dennis, the group's counseling supervisor, by thinking about what they want, what they really want. The other four want to know the meaning of their lives. No one in the group asks for power. P owerful presuppositions about the nature of man are implicit within all psychotherapeutic theories and practices. Freudian theory and psychoanalysis view pleasure as our master.
Adlerian psychology disagrees fundamentally, saying power rules.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist specializing in human behavior and a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp, believes that humankind's need to understand is our primary motivational factor in life. I n keeping with Frankl's theory, SUWS presupposes that children are born with the need to have meaning and purpose in their lives. Being connected or disconnected from life's meaning can cause either emotional growth or disintegration. Connecting adolescents mentally, emotionally and physically to their own sense of life's meaning requires more than just intellectual and counseling interaction. Our experience has shown that through experiential learning, powerful experiences instill insight into life's meaning for each student.