Logotherapy focuses on the meaning of human existence and man's search for meaning. According to Frankl, the striving to find meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. Determinism is an infectious disease for many psychiatrists, educators and adherents of determinist religion who are seemingly not aware that they are thereby under-minding the very basis of their own convictions. For either man s freedom must be recognized or else psychiatry is a waste of time, religion is a delusion and education is an illusion. The basic striving of human beings is to find and fulfill meaning and purpose.
People reach out to encounter meanings to fulfill.
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.