Such a view is profoundly opposed to those motivational theories which are based on the homeostasis principle. Those theories depict man as if he were a closed system. According to them, man is basically concerned with maintaining or restoring an inner equilibrium and to this end with the reduction of tensions. In the final analysis, this is also assumed to be the goal of gratification of drives and the satisfaction of needs. Logotheapy must remain available to everyone and so must hypnotherapy.
Humans are ultimately self-determining.
What one becomes within limits of endowment and environment, he has made for himself. Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers and he is also that being who entered the gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips. It was Frankl's contention that the pleasure principle of Freud is self-defeating. The more one aims for pleasure, the more his aim is missed.