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Volume 2 • Number 2 Summer-Fall 1979
CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor .............................................................2
The "Ideal" Logotherapist Elisabeth Lukas ............................................................3 The Noetic Unconscious Joseph Fabry ...............................................................8 Logotherapy in Medical Practice George R. Simms .......................................................... 12
Finding Meaning Every Day John M. Quirk ............................................................ 15
Group Applications: In Intergenerational Communication Mignon Eisenberg .........................................................23 In Prisons Didi Sibaja-Makai .........................................................25 For Dyslexic Adolescents Vera Lieban-Kalmar .......................................................28
Applications in Pastoral Psychology Melvin A. Kimble .......................................................... 31
Paradoxical Intention and Autogenic Training Tullio Bazzi ...............................................................35
Case Histories:
Endogenous Depression ........................................................38 Noogenic Neurosis .............................................................39 Comments by Viktor E. Frankl ..............................................40
Paradoxical Intention and Dereflection Jay I. Levinson ............................................................40
The Balance Sheet of Meaning in Work Walter Bockmann .........................................................42
The Place of Logotherapy
in the World Today
Edith Weisskopf-Joelson
Human beings have always attempted to interpret their existence in a way that would bestow significance and fulfillment to their lives.* Their endeavors to develop their own philosophy of life can be viewed as an attempt toward self-healing. Yet, many health professionals disregard the healing effect of a life philosophy. While ministers take it for granted that "psychotherapy" is a philosophical and spiritual enterprise, many secular "healers" -psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and others -are affected by the mechanistic orientation of behaviorism and the biological orientation of psychoanalysis. They tend to view the patient as a person with a broken leg to be fixed, rarely as someone with good legs who does not know in what direction to walk. Patients today often confront the psychotherapist with the burning question "What is the meaning of my life?" but many therapists are not prepared or not willing to deal with this question.
The failure to conceive psychotherapy as a philosophical enterprise goes back to our schools. Rarely do we ask our graduate students in clinical psychology about their own views of human existence, about their own value systems; we pretend these variables are not pertinent to the process of psychotherapy. Clients are being referred to psychotherapists in the same manner in which patients are referred to surgeons: their basic views of what it means to be human are not considered.
Perhaps psychotherapy is seen as a scientific and technological rather than a philosophical enterprise because more prestige is accorded to science and technology than to philosophy. But if we remove the blinders
* The following comments are largely based on num bcrs 8 to 11 in the references.
imposed upon us by the spirit of our times, we shall see that the award of prestige is misplaced. For science. in the absence of a via?le philosophy, has opened doors to the pollut10~ of the environment, as well as to the possibilities of limited energy and unlimited nuclear war.
The Psychotherapist of the Future
The therapists of the future will be persons with a philosophy that enables them to grow, to create, and-in Erich Fromm's phrase-to "relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work "1r.41,11. 7
Let us imagine that in the future much will be known about the kind of life philosophy that is congenial to each person. The psychotherapist, using her superior research training, will then be able to decide to whom she can be of help with her own world view, and whom she should refer to another therapist.
Perhaps such future research will disclose as a fallacy the assumption that different people need different faiths, different philosophies, to attain fulfillment. All great religions resemble each other in their basic tenets. The consistency of basic values is camouflaged by diversity of symbols, metaphors, rituals, and myths. Perhaps there is one faith for all human beings, and perhaps it need not be expressed in religious terminology.
Frankl represents a link between my fantasy and reality. He attempts to give guidance on the road toward fulfillment by offering a philosophy of life which has helped him withstand the most cruel reality a person can encounter. He is offering this philosophy to those who want to accept it. Frankl is a prophet disguised as a psychiatrist who disseminates his message in the language of psychology. He is a pioneer introducing faith into
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the thinking of secular therapists -as a respectable psychotherapeutic tool for the sick and an avenue toward a significant life for the sick and the well.
I have called Frankl a prophet disguised as a psychiatrist. Thus, it is now my task to show that logotherapy is a philosophy of life disguised as a psychotherapeutic school. t I shall do so by discussing logotherapy's tenets on meaning, values, and the passage of time.
Meaning
Among existing philosophies of life logo
therapy shows the closest kinship to Judco
Christian religious philosophies. Our faith in
such philosophies has declined since the
Middle Ages: to paraphrase Nietzsche, God
has been dying a slow death for several
centuries.
Logotherapy has resurrected some aspects
of God under a different name, under the
name of "meaning." Everyone's life possesses
meaning. We cannot arbitrarily assign
meaning to our lives; instead, such meaning is
already present. We cannot invent it; instead,
we have to discover it. Then it will tell us what
to do with our lives, just as God told us "when
he was still alive."
Out ofall the meaning potentials we have to
select the one which we decide to make a
reality. Because we are human we may err but
"the possibility of error does not release us
from the obligation of trying ",r 651. 3
Just as Judaism and Christianity grant
atonement to the sinner who repents his sinful
life, so can "even a wasted life be flooded with
meaning 'retroactively' when its meaningless
ness has been recognized, and by the
meaningful suffering which results from such
recognition" (personal communication).
Thus logotherapy, like Judaism and Christi
anity, mitigates the enormous threat to
mental health of world views which postulate
guilt without the possibility of atonement.
I .ogotherapy is not only compatible with
religious faith but for some people might be
the first step toward adopting such faith. The
+Editor's Note: The work at the Institute of Logothcrapy and the articles submitted to the Forum confirm the author's statement that "logothcrapy is a philosophy disguised as therapy." but they also show that it is a true therapy based on a specific "logophilosophy. "One might say, current research proves that logotherapy is a therapy. with its own methodology. disguised as philosophy.
emphasis on meaning puts the world view of logotherapy in sharp contrast to those of other existentialists. Camus, for example, feels we can live without meaning, just as others feel we can live without God.
The possibility should not be excluded that also a world view which accepts meaninglessness may have a therapeutic effect for some people; that, as Camus says, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy'lr 911 1 -Sisyphus who believes that his life will be meaningless forever. But Camus, the man who accepts meaninglessness, was active in the French underground, and wrote novels like The PlaKue where dedicated people give their lives to the fight against disease. One could almost say that the nihilist Camus lived as ifhe were a follower of Frankl.
Values
Most philosophies propose a set of values to make life worthy and desirable. In this respect, too, logotherapy betrays its kinship to other philosophies.
Logotherapy distinguishes between meaning and values. Meaning is unique: Each individual must discover the meaning of his or her own life, a meaning which will not be identical with the meaning of a neighbor's life. In contrast, values are shared by a group of people. The Ten Commandments convey values rather than meanings. Values are "universal meanings" which help the individual to respond meaningfully in common situations. But logotherapy insists that we have the "defiant power of the human spirit" which allows every individual many ways of materializing common values in a manner fitting to his or her own personality within a particular situation.
Frankl's proposition that we can materialize values through achievements is widely accepted in our culture. His notion that experiencing can be as valuable as achieving is therapeutic because it compensates for our onesided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience. To elevate experiences such as love. joy, sadness. admiration of nature and art, to the position of a positive value is highly beneficial in achievementoriented societies which have eliminated the inner world from their awareness.
By far the most healing value proposed by
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logotherapy is the value of shouldering inescapable suffering courageously. In a country like the lJ nitcd States, where "keep smiling" is almost a moral obligation, a positive view of suffering endows the human individual with enormous strength in a world of tragedy and death.
Time
Logotherapy considers time as a friend although it brings us closer to the horror of death. Many philosophies help us come to terms with our finitudc. Religions may do so by creating faith in immortality. Again, Frankl's images are secular analogies to religious ones. He paints the image of a museum of the past where everything will remain forever, and from which nothing can he stolen since nothing we have done in the past can he undone ,r Ml. 4
Any philosophy which keeps in mind the transitoriness of existence need not be at all pessimistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles the man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who takes life in the sense suggested above is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors ---after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness ~et down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the full. All that is good and beautiful in the past is safely preserved in the past. On the other hand, so long as life remains, all guilt and all evil is still "redeemable." The past-happily-is fixed, is safe, whereas the future-happily --still remains to be shaped; that is, is at the disposal of man's responsibility1rr 11-1s1 . 4
Secular "Evangelism"
Thus far I have attempted to show that logotherapy is a school of therapy not in the usual sense but a religion-like philosophy which, however, may help all people, regardless of their religious or secular orientation, to retain or regain their mental health. I have based my argument on the body of Frankl's teachings. Now I wish to advance a further argument which pertains to the manner in which these teachings are presented rather than to their content.
If a young person wishes to become, for example, a psychoanalyst, his training will include the reading of textbooks teaching the basic principles and techniques of psychoanalysis. These books are meant to be read by the professional. A neurotic will not be healed or improved by reading them. Even popular books on psychoanalysis will not heal. This distinguishes psychoanalytic textbooks from those of logotherapy.
Logothcrapy is a message for the sick and the healthy; it is "preaching" in the best sense of the word. Therefore, most of Frankl's books are "bibliography." They do not teach techniques! to be used by the logothcrapist, but they present the logothera peutic message. They arc not textbooks for future logotherapists, but more akin to secular bibles. The patient and the "healthy" reader can extract the message directly from Frankl's and other books on logothcrapy. Published fragments of logothcrapeutic sesions2 suggest a close resemblance between what Frankl says to his patients and what he says to his professional students or what he writes in his books: The same message is disseminated in each
case.
This method of teaching highlights further
the "evangelistic" nature of logotherapy.
What Accounts for the Success
of Logotherapy?
The ideas of logothcrapy are successful because they meet the needs of our time. In a science-oriented era when people find it difficult to accept the metaphysical tenets of religious teachings, a religion-like philosophy without emphatic metaphysics is welcome to many. At a time when purpose, meaning, and values are downgraded, people thirst for a world view which fills their existential vacuum. Other psychotherapeutic schools are hardly able to do so. Rogers' school is nondirective, and behavior modification is an engineering technique; nor does "psycho
t With the exception of paradoxical intention and dcreflection. But even these t,chniques can be used by lay readers -;,olely on the basis of information gained by reading -to counteract their own symptoms.
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analysis reveal what is worth struggling for, or how much"1p 501.12
By its emphasis on what human beings have in common with animals, psychoanalysis has overlooked what they have not in common: the need for a philosophy of life. Likewise, the focus of psychoanalysis on the family drama has obscured the effect of a life philosophy on our psychological health. A well-knownn psychoanalyst expressed to me the view that student rebellions are caused by the young people's desire for a strong father. But, in an era such as ours, would it not seem more plausible that students rebel because their lives lack purpose and meaning?
A philosophy which views values and convictions as epiphenomena of the Oedipus complex is prone to create an existential vacuum rather than to fill it. It almost seems that the Viennese writer Karl Kraus was right when he said: Psychoanalysis is the disease which it pretends to cure.
Logotherapy was born during a crisis in religious faith, and during a failure of"scientific" approaches to human fulfillment. It was also born into a Germany darkened by deep disillusionment caused by the breakdown of its one overpowering world view~National Socialism. It arose at a time when it was needed. Therefore, it was successful. As Johannes Baptista Torello says in his foreward to the Italian edition of Mans Search for Meaning: "Frankl is the therapist for the sufferings of our century."
Hope for the Future: A Criticism
At this point I should like to express a
critical thought and a hope for the future.
My psychotherapeutic work has convinced
me that individual neuroses are to a large
extent collective neuroses. Similarly, obser
vation of my own life and the lives of my
friends suggests that personal discontent may
be based on shortcomings of society. In a
drastic overstatement used for didactic
reasons I might say that the time for indivi
dual therapy has ended; now it is time for
societal therapy. Collective neuroses require
collective therapy. Here Frankl has done
more than his share by his group therapy dis
guised as lectures and books.
However, Frankl's concept of "meaning" stresses individual rather than collective action: the meaning of every individual life is seen as unique, differing from person to person. This concept is also emphasized subtly by the many examples which Frankl gives of the concrete meaning of individual lives. "Aren't there unborn pieces of art, Anna, waiting to be brought into the world by you? Only you can do it!" Or, "Isn't there a book to be written?" "A retarded son to be raised?" "A beloved relative to be comforted?''** But rarely: "Isn't there pollution to be conquered?" "Woman's rights to be defended?" or "Capital punishment to be abolished?" And, above all, "Isn't there a common, united battle to be fought to insure that there will not be a second Auschwitz?"tt
ls all we have learned from Hitler's horror that we must shoulder suffering courageously? We have learned more. But if we conclude that all united action, all mass movements must be avoided, we have learned the wrong lesson. It must never happen again that the intellectuals permit evil to overpower them because of their quest for a unique meaning rather than a common one. We must pour our personal meanings into a shared vision of a better future.
I can hear Frankl replying that logotherapy does not impose specific meanings on individuals but makes them aware of their yearning for meaning, invoking every person's own conscience to guide the search for meaning of his or her life. But I still maintain that the illustrations used, the atmosphere created, subtly suggest to the conscience that it will find the answer in private rather than in united causes. To my knowledge, logotherapy, with all its emphasis on goal, purpose, and dedication, has not inspired socially significant action. It must become socially significant. It is eminently qualified to be so.
** Needless to say, do not mean to belittle these individual meanings.
+t Editor's Note: J\s early as 1975 Frankl wrote Ir 1401 5 that "as to mankind, there is hope for survival only if mankind is united by a common meaning -in other words, an awareness of a common task." And in his Salzburg University Lectures6 he had the additional remark that "development of a common will to a common meaning is the only warrant that mankind will be spared seeing another Auschwitz."
6
There is a time to be silent. and a time to speak. This is the time to speak. It is my ardent wish that Viktor Frankl's work will lead him to a new upsurge of creativity in a socially significant direction as a crown on his eminently meaningful life.
EDITH WEISSKOPF-JOELSON, Ph.D., is professor of psvchology emerita, University of Georgia.
REFERENCES:
I. Camus, Albert. The Mrth of' Sisrphus and Other Essars. New York. Vintage Books, 1955.
2.
Frankl. Viktor E. "Fragments from the Logotherapeutic Treatment of Four Cases." Modern pq-cfwtherapeutic Practice, Arthur Burton, ed. Palo Alto. California, Science and Behavior Books, 1965.

3.
_____ . The Will /0 Meaning: Foundations and Applications ol Logotherap_i-. Paperback edition. New York. New American Library. 1976.

4. ____ . The Doctor and the Soul: From Psrchotherapr to Logotherapr. Paperback edition, New York, Vintage Books, 1978.
5.
______ . The Unconscious God: Psrchotherap_l' and Theologr. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1978.

6.
_______ "Die Sinnfrage in dcr Thcrapie" in Suche nach Gott. Ansgar Paus and Oscar Schatz, ed. Gra1, Styria, 1978.

7.
Fromm, Erich. The San Societr. Greenwich. Connecticut, Fawcett Publications, 1955.

8.
Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Some Suggestions Concerning Weltanschauung and Psychotherapy." Journal of"Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr, 4S: 601-04, 1953_

9.
______ . "Some Comments on a Viennese School of Psychiatry," Journal of' Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr 5!: 701-03, 1955.

IO.-~--_____ . "Logotherapy and Existential Analysis," A eta Psrclwtherapeutica. Psrchwomatica. and Orthopaedagogirn 6: 193-204.
11.
______ . "Some Suggestions Concerning the Concept of Awareness," Psrchotherap_1·. Theorr Research and Practice S, 2-7, 1971.

12.
Wheelis, Allen. The Quest fi,r !dentitr. New York, Norton. I 958.

Kinship with Adlerian Psychology
Mrs. Ansbacher and I met Dr. Frankl twenty-two years ago at a week-end seminar of his at Endicott House near Boston, sponsored by the Religion in Education Foundation with J. Randolph Sasnett as executive director. We had the good fortune to be invited, Professor Gordon Allport having suggested our names.
This week-end seminar became for us an unforgettable occasion as we listened to Dr. Frankl describe his concentration camp experiences and the ways in which it was at all possible to cope with these conditions. I also had then a long personal discussion with him. Subsequently we followed his writings and have been corresponding with him for years.
We have always regretted that Alfred Adler severed his relations with the young Frankl since we have considered the similarities between the two and their complementarity more important than their differences. Of Dr. Frankl's contributions to methodology we have found the term "paradoxical intention" most apt and used it recently in our book of the writings by Adler on sexual matters, entitled Cooperation Between the Sexes, p.
410. As to the whole conception of logotherapy, it seems to me that the importance of meaning for mental health in general and psychotherapy in particular is being more and more recognized by various quarters although this is not specifically attributed to Dr. Frankl. Also the various personality tests inspired by his theories have made a definite contribution to psychology.
As evidence of our kinship with Dr. Frankl we may mention that during the seventeen years from 1957 to 1973 in which we edited the Journal uf Individual Psychology, published by the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, wc were always glad to accept a contribution by Dr. Frankl, or papers by others dealing with his work. We also considered it one of our important obligations to publish reviews of his books. In view of this we are very pleased that the work which Dr. Frankl initiated has now found a medium of its own in The International Forumfur Lugutherapy, and this writer feels very honored for having been asked to join its editorial Board of Advisors.
H.L. ANSBACHER, professor of psychology, The University of Vermont, Burlington.
7
There is a time to be silent. and a time to speak. This is the time to speak. It is my ardent wish that Viktor Frankl's work will lead him to a new upsurge of creativity in a socially significant direction as a crown on his eminently meaningful life.
EDITH WEISSKOPF-JOELSON, Ph.D., is professor of psvchology emerita, University of Georgia.
REFERENCES:
I. Camus, Albert. The Mrth of' Sisrphus and Other Essars. New York. Vintage Books, 1955.
2.
Frankl. Viktor E. "Fragments from the Logotherapeutic Treatment of Four Cases." Modern pq-cfwtherapeutic Practice, Arthur Burton, ed. Palo Alto. California, Science and Behavior Books, 1965.

3.
_____ . The Will /0 Meaning: Foundations and Applications ol Logotherap_i-. Paperback edition. New York. New American Library. 1976.

6.
_______ "Die Sinnfrage in dcr Thcrapie" in Suche nach Gott. Ansgar Paus and Oscar Schatz, ed. Gra1, Styria, 1978.

7.
Fromm, Erich. The San Societr. Greenwich. Connecticut, Fawcett Publications, 1955.

8.
Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Some Suggestions Concerning Weltanschauung and Psychotherapy." Journal of"Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr, 4S: 601-04, 1953_

9.
______ . "Some Comments on a Viennese School of Psychiatry," Journal of' Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr 5!: 701-03, 1955.

12.
Wheelis, Allen. The Quest fi,r !dentitr. New York, Norton. I 958.

Kinship with Adlerian Psychology
Mrs. Ansbacher and I met Dr. Frankl twenty-two years ago at a week-end seminar of his at Endicott House near Boston, sponsored by the Religion in Education Foundation with J. Randolph Sasnett as executive director. We had the good fortune to be invited, Professor Gordon Allport having suggested our names.
This week-end seminar became for us an unforgettable occasion as we listened to Dr. Frankl describe his concentration camp experiences and the ways in which it was at all possible to cope with these conditions. I also had then a long personal discussion with him. Subsequently we followed his writings and have been corresponding with him for years.
We have always regretted that Alfred Adler severed his relations with the young Frankl since we have considered the similarities between the two and their complementarity more important than their differences. Of Dr. Frankl's contributions to methodology we have found the term "paradoxical intention" most apt and used it recently in our book of the writings by Adler on sexual matters, entitled Cooperation Between the Sexes, p.
410. As to the whole conception of logotherapy, it seems to me that the importance of meaning for mental health in general and psychotherapy in particular is being more and more recognized by various quarters although this is not specifically attributed to Dr. Frankl. Also the various personality tests inspired by his theories have made a definite contribution to psychology.
As evidence of our kinship with Dr. Frankl we may mention that during the seventeen years from 1957 to 1973 in which we edited the Journal uf Individual Psychology, published by the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, wc were always glad to accept a contribution by Dr. Frankl, or papers by others dealing with his work. We also considered it one of our important obligations to publish reviews of his books. In view of this we are very pleased that the work which Dr. Frankl initiated has now found a medium of its own in The International Forumfur Lugutherapy, and this writer feels very honored for having been asked to join its editorial Board of Advisors.
H.L. ANSBACHER, professor of psychology, The University of Vermont, Burlington.
7
Logotherapy and Religion
Hedwig Raskob
The purpose of this article is not to deal with the question of the relationship between logotherapy and religion as such (see references 1,2,5, 18), but with the question: What ~ccounts for the various possible interpretations of logotherapy and religion, or even of the interpretation of logotherapy as religion?
Three Basic Positions
The three basic positions on the relationship between logotherapy and religion are: Logotherapy is a secular system, with no reference to the religious question; logotherapy is a secular system, open to the religious dimension; and logotherapy is a quasi religion; and specified positions in between.
Manuals and encyclopedias in the field of psychiatry and psychology refer to logotherapy as one among other schools and methods of psychotherapy without mentiontioning its stand on the religious question. 3-15
The second position sees logotherapy as "a secular discipline open to the religious dimension"<v-131. 2 Boschemeyer presents the same opinion: "As neurologist and psychiatrist, he [Frankl] experiments with the natural sciences; at the same time he dares to move so far into the area of philosophy that he reaches the borders of theology" IP-123i .1 This is the position of Frankl himself when he defines logotherapy primarily as a form of psychotherapy belonging to the field of medicine and then states that "it leaves the door to reli~ gion open1p 95), 10 and furthermore says that "religion is close to the heart of logotherapy"1p 93). 10
This position is hailed by some and criticized by others who expect logotherapy to be a religious system of healing (most extremely, Schiller17; Tweedi{!(p 111) 18 expresses regret that logotherapy falls short of some theological expectations).

The third position, again supported and attacked, holds that Iogotherapy is a system of healing, essentially based on religious premises, operating with religious means of healing, and pursuing religious goals. The quality of a secular psychotherapeutic system is denied. Frankl is anything but happy with this interpretation. Yet, some of the friends of logotherapy support it, like WeisskopfJoelson <r 2J8) 20 who calls Iogotherapy a "secular religion," listing a number ofcharacteristics of logotherapy to prove her point, such as Frankl's concept of meaning, values, time, and the methods of disseminating his ideas. (See also her article in this issue of the Forum). She courageously puts her critical finger on a personal problem of Frankl when she says: "I have always perceived Frankl as a mixture of prophet, guru and preacher disguised as a psychiatrist who disseminates his message in a language to which men and women of the twentieth century are likely to listen, the language of psychology. But the world, and perhaps the man himself, has taken the disguise too seriously and has become oblivious to the prophetic person who stands behind the psychiatric cloak" <P-240) •20 (I do not share this conclusion. Frankl intended to, and to my mind he did, design a regular medical-psychotherapeutic system which included the human spiritual-existential dimension. But the problem pointed out by Weisskopf-Joelson is a serious one: the relationship of Frankl to his work which has become part of the fate arid future of logotherapy.)
Some encyclopedia articles also give the impression that logotherapy deals with the
8
spiritual dimension only, and that this spiritual dimension is restricted to its transcendent religious quality. Thus we read in the Fischer Lexikon: "After the schools of Freud and Adler which are at home in Vienna, Frankl has founded a 'Third Viennese School' which does not intend to lead the patient to the conscious acceptance of his drive level but to the acceptance of his deepest spiritual Daseins-reality in relationship to the absolute realities"(r 120J. 14 (See also 13, p. 892).
Bulka uses a formulation along these lines, speaking of logotherapy as "a religion for the nonreligious" in a "very definite way'lr 211 . 2 His explanation of this formula, however, is consistent with his basic interpretation of logotherapy as a secular system open to the religious dimension: "For the religious, each faith can fill in the unknown with its own peculiar system of myths and symbols." "For the nonreligious it is the unknown and unknowable"1r. 22i. 2
Fabry does not consider logotherapy to be a religious system as such, but he thinks one should stand up to the fact that logotherapy partially fulfills the same function which all religions have ever wanted to fulfill: "to give man a purpose." In this sense, he says, it is "religiously oriented "1r 1141 •4
A number of interpreters can be counted into this category -the fourth, we might say, which actually falls between the second and the third position: Logotherapy is seen not as an entirely religious system, but as basically secular. In one specific area, however (that of the noetic), logotherapy not only is open to the religious dimension, but is itself dealing with religious realities. Thus Leslie takes it for granted that logotherapy is a "psychological system in the contemporary psychotherapeutic world"1r 1J 16 and "consistent with a basically Christian view of life" 1r. 9) . 16 Ungersma19 works on the same presupposition. Fox also takes it for granted that logotherapy is a secular system, categorizing it as "existential psychology" but "clearly congenial to Christian thought"1r 24oJ. 5 My own opinion agrees with this fourth category. I consider logotherapy to be a psychotherapeutic system. Within its philosophical foundations, the theory of the human being is consistent with that of the socalled philosophical theology (along the lines of Paul Tillich), especially as it defines the human being as one in search for -in the last analysis -ultimate meaning. This view corresponds to logotherapy's teaching of the unconditional meaning of human existence, a teaching which basically is identical with what theology sees in the biblical message.
These theories become relevant in the practical applications so that religious content becomes part of logotherapy's theory and practice. (Further discussions would be needed about finding the level of legitimacy, also with regard to the Hippocratic Oath).
Frankl's Stand
The different basic interpretations of the relationship between logotherapy and religion can be explained, to some extent, by wishful thinking and the total frame of reference of the authors of the various opinions. Some of the difficulties, however, stem from the nature of the subject and from Frankl's personal contributions to the problem.
From an exterior and formal point of view: The mere quantity of religious allusions in the writings of Frankl justifies the assumption that Frankl stands on religious grounds and favors the religious view of life. Furthermore, his broad philosophy of human nature and life with the explicit integration oftheological viewpoints lends itself to judging his work as philosophy and religion. Looking closer at the matter: Frankl appears to be a pastor and theologian at heart with a strong personal belief in a personal God. This is evident in almost all of his writings and he admits it. 1r. 142J 8Yet, Frankl intends to, and does, create a particular school of psychotherapy. The danger therefore exists that his pastoral interests spill over into the secular system. The danger is all the more imminent as it is the purpose of !ogotherapy to integrate the spiritual dimension into its theory and practice. Even though Frankl defines this spiritual dimension as that of the noos and the logos, explicitly excluding the religious connotation<r 111, 8 the problem remains because this dimension in reality includes, according to our western history of philosophy and theology, the question of God or, in contemporary terms, the question of ultimate meaning. The two possible definitions of religion -the older, traditional one, marked by the word God, and the newer, contemporary one, marked by the term ultimate meaning
9
complicate the matter, even more so because Frankl himself wavers between the two definitions. But the expectations from his colleagues and the whole professional world of psychotherapy, where the old definition of religion is used, puts pressure on Frankl to keep religion out of the matter if he wishes to have logotherapy acknowledged as a medical system. Thus the spiritual dimension, the raison d'etre of logotherapy, which gives it its significance in the history of medicine and its strength in the therapeutical practice, turns out to be logotherapy's most vulnerable point. A few references will show Frankl as pastor and theologian in an explicit and traditional sense: "Religion provides man with a spiritual anchor, with a feeling of security which he can find nowhere else"1p 144J.8 Man cannot break the divine world but he can reach out for the ultimate meaning through faith which is mediated by trust in the ultimate being. But God is 'high above all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations, which are uttered in the world' 'lpr 145. 1461. 8 The passage in which Frankl is pondering over the "faith" of a dying atheist, gives testimony to his personal belief, his pastoral concern, and his theological way of thinking"
1r. 150),8 lpp. 94. 95J. 10 In The Will to Meaning
Frankl cites a prophet of the Old Testament "Although the figtree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines ... yet shall i rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God ofmy salvation'lp 157).8 Frankl adds, as the last sentence in the book: "May this be the lesson to learn from my book," the book which is expressly subtitled "Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy." Along the same lines goes the fact that Frankl's first programmatic work (1946) of the "Foundations of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis" is entitled Arztliche See/sarge (i.e. Medical Pastoral Care).6 Even if Frankl has a specific definition of what he means by "pastoral care," namely the medical doctor's care for the person who has an incurable disease (no longer trying to cure the disease), the pastoral meaning of such activity cannot be denied. The theologian Frankl appears distinctly in his writings although he himself condemns here and there, psychologists "dabbling in th; field of theology" and vice versa 1p. 142J,8 1p 102J. 12 Frankl has formal definitions of prayer 1r. 116) , on theology as such 1r o8oJ. 7
9
on miraclescp. 116J 9 and many more distinctly theological concepts and themes including: a new "proof' of the existence of God (p. 66) _11 All this is not discussed from the viewpoint of a psychiatrist, it is discussed per se, which is from a theological point of view.
Implicit Theological Realities
These explicit and unmistakable pastoral and theological passages in Frankl's writings are important for the clarification of the relationship between logotherapy and religion, although they can partially be explained by his personal style. But only partially, because they contain explicit intentions for the system of logotherapy as such. However, incomparably more important to the system are the implicit theological realities within the premises of logotherapy, such as man's will and search for meaning and the assertion (not to say the dogma) of the unconditional meaning of human existence. Frankl accepts having this called "the message of logotherapy" or "kerygma of good news"1p 195l _11
It is a matter ofdefinition to call these realities religious. It must be admitted that the entire meaning of religion, in its historic, sociological, and especially in its institutional and ritual sense, is not exhausted in correlating religious existence with our ultimate search for meaning. Frankl cites Einstein, Tillich, and Wittgenstein, who have formulations to this effect, and he adds: "If we subscribe to this definition of religion we are justified in claiming that man is basically religious'lr 1501. 8 In German versions Frankl says hypothetically: "If it [psychotherapy] thus interprets the phenomenon of faith.. .in a wider sense as faith in the meaning oflife, then it is quite legitimate for it [psychotherapy] to deal with the phenomenon of faith "cp 221). 6
This definition of religion is indeed basically applicable to all human beings. It is different from the generally held concept which restricts religion to specific forms including rites, prayers, dogmas, or certain personal convictions. This restricted concept makes religion relevant only to some people (if we exclude parareligious behavior)*. It
* This refers to the fact that people who do away with religious practices tend to substitute something else for it, such as sports or ideologies. If we broaden the old definition of religion to religion in this parareligious sense, the definition might well apply again, in principle, to all people.
becomes a matter of personal difference.
Religion pertinent to all people is certainly the definition which Frankl needs for his system. Yet, he himself is more at home with the older definition, which makes religion not a matter for everybody. He accepts the newer one only hypothetically, not really integrating it into his theory of religion. Knowing that this older definition is held by the majority today, including his colleagues, and, because he considers logotherapy a part of medicine, Frankl feels bound to deny the religious connotations in the basic concepts of logotherapy and to draw all those sharp lines of demarcation between logotherapy and religion. His occasional denials that certain philosophical and theological passages in his writings have any bearing on logotherapy are made for the same reason1r 142i. 8 1r. JJ9J .9 Here are some examples for the denials and his drawing clear-cut demarcation lines: In the German publications Frankl emphasizes the difference between "Seelenheil" (salvation) as the goal of pastoral endeavor and "seelische Heilung" (mental health) as the goal of psycho-and logotherapeutic work1r 22s1. 6 1r. 911 • 10 (This sharp line between the two is not possible within the context of the newer definition of religion). t He also states that his concept of"supra-meaning" or ultimate meaning has nothing in common with the theological term "supernatural'ir. 911.9 And he writes: "It [the noetic dimension] could be defined as the spiritual dimension as well. However, since in English 'spiritual' has a religious connotation this term must be avoided as much as possible'lr 11i . 8 His writings contain more examples of this kind.
Thus, Frankl denies any religious content within theory and practice of logotherapy (allowing only for a formal openness toward the religious realities) but also brings into the literature of logotherapy explicit treatises of religious questions and pastoral exhortations, and this not only as a testimony to his personal faith but also to build them into the foundations of logotherapy. It is not surprising, therefore, that various interpretations of the relationship between logotherapy and religion should arise. This is even less surpris
t Cf. Heinl Zahrnt. Die Sache mit Gou. Stuttgart: Evang. Buchgemeinde: "Healing is therefore the word which expresses the most important aspect of Christian salvation for today" <r 417).
ing if we consider that the premises of logotherapy -especially the presuppositions of unconditional belief in an unconditional meaning and the human will and search for ultimate meaning -implicitly contain religious realities according to our contemporary definition of religion. Besides, the history of western philosophy does not allow for the discussion of the human spiritual-existential dimension without reference to its transcendent-religious direction. To my mind, a friendly wrestling with Frankl, to "espouse a theological stance'ir 21i 2 is not necessary. It is implicitly and explicitly contained in his writings. If in other ways he denies it again, it happens on the basis of a general view and his own understanding of religiousness and because of his commitment to neutrality toward religion within the framework of a medical system. This, however. is a rather vain attempt to cover up from the outside what should be cleared from within.
IItDWJG RASKOB is a lorotherapist at the Nervenklinik o/' Dr. Schmidt in Gauting, Germany.
REFERENCES:
I. Roschcmeyer. Uwe. Die Sinnfrage in Psrchotherapie and Theo/ogie. Berlin. de Gruyter. 1977.
2. Bulka. Reuven P. "The Ecumenical Ingredient in Logotherapy." Journal of Ecumenical S1udies. XI. 1974.
3.
Condrau. Gion. Einfiihrung in die Psrchotherapie. Miinchen, Kindler. 1974.

4.
Fabry. Joseph B. "Applications of Logothcrapy in Small Sharing Groups." Religion and Healrh. XIII.

1974.
5.
Fox. D.A. "Logotherapy and Religion." Religion in Life, 1965.

6.
Frankl, Viktor E. Ar:.tliche Seelsorge. Wien. Deutickc, 1946.

7. _____. "Grundriss der ExistenLanalyse und Logotherapic." Handhuch der Neurosenlehre und Psi·chotherapie, Ill. Miinchcn. I959.
8_____ The Will to Meaning. New York, The World Publishing Company, 1969.
9.
________ Anlhropologis,·he Grund/agen der Psrchutherapie. Bern. Huber, 1975.

10.
-----~. Das Leiden am sinnlusen Lehen.

Frei burg. Herder. 1977.
11.
_____. Der Wille ::um Sinn. Bern, H ubcr. 1978.

12.
________ . Jo,ef Pieper und Helmut Schoeck. A//es Erlws -Neues Tahu. Koln, Adams, 1974.

13. Hacndler, 0. "Tiefenpsychologie" in Die Religion in Geschichre um/ Gegemrnrt.
14. Hofstattcr. P .. ed .. "Tiefenpsychologie" in Das Fischer Lexikon. Frankfurt. 1973.
15. Langen. Dietrich. Psvclwdiagnostik. Psrchothera
1 I
pie. Stuttgart, 1969. Grand Rapids, Baker, 1961.
16.
Leslie, Robert C. Jesus and Logotherapy. Nashville, 19. Ungersmaa, A.J. The Search/or Meaning. PhiladelAbingdon Press, 1965. phia, The Westminster Press, 1961.

17.
Schiller, Karl. "Psychotherapie, Logothcrapic und 20. Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Logotherapy: Science of

der Logos des Evangeliums." Dissertation, UniverFaith?" Psychotherapi•: Theor,v, Research, and sity of Vienna, 1959. Practice, XII, 1975.
18. Tweedie, D.F. Logotherapy andthe Christian Faith.

17.
Schiller, Karl. "Psychotherapie, Logothcrapic und 20. Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Logotherapy: Science of

der Logos des Evangeliums." Dissertation, UniverFaith?" Psychotherapi•: Theor,v, Research, and sity of Vienna, 1959. Practice, XII, 1975.
18. Tweedie, D.F. Logotherapy andthe Christian Faith.

Frankl's Contributions to the Graduate Program at the United States International University
Viktor Frankl first lectured at the United States International University (USIU) in the fall of 1969. The following year he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Logotherapy and for several years performed services on the campus as a full-time professor.
His contributions to the graduate program in the School of Human Behavior focused on the reductionistic emphases of some prevailing psychotherapy concepts; the widespread feeling of mear,inglessncss in our society, and methods of preventing and overcoming it; and post-Freudian concepts in his own school of logotherapy. These concepts as related to, or contrasted with, earlier psychoanalytical systems sharpened the insights of psychotherapy students. His criticism of reductionism in psychotherapy came at a time when other leaders of the Human Potential Movement, such as Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Sidney Jourard, and Everett Shostrom made significant contributions to the USIU School of Human Behavior and its program. Frankl was recognized as another leader of the humanistic movement in California and throughout the United States. During a time when abstract speaking and writing in the humanistic movement declined, logotherapy emphasized practical psychological services in the community.
During Frankl's professorship at USIU students wrote more than one thousand papers relating the concepts of logotherapy to their own experiences. He inspired a number of students to conduct original research which led to doctoral dissertations. Some of this work investigated special aspects of logotherapy, as for instance "Logotherapy, Actualization Therapy or Contextual SelfRealization?" by Berch Randall Offutt. Other students carried on extensive studies that validated the hypothesis of meaninglessness as a social problem, as Jay Irwin Levinson did in his study of thirty widows from the Baltimore-Washington area which led to his "Investigation of Existential Vacuum in Grief via Widowhood." Other studies led into new fields of investigation, as for instance George Andrew Sargent's exploration of "Motivation and Meaning: Frankl's Logo therapy in the Work Situation."
We know from subsequent communications from students that Frankl added a new dimension of ideas and methodology to their careers as counselors, social workers, teachers, ministers, and other fields of the helping professions.
W. RAY TUCKER, Ph.D., dean, School of Human Behavior, United States International University, San Diego, California.
12
Paradoxical Intention Viewed by a
Behavior Therapist
L. Michael Ascher
Paradoxical intention and dereflection, developed by Frankl 11 · 12• as methods of logotherapy, have been of demonstrated success with clinical problems which, before such techniques were used, were resistant to treatment. Since Frankl began to publish information about the dynamics ofparadoxical intention and dereflection and illustrated their use with numerous clinical examples, therapists of other persuasions have incorporated these techniques into their theoretical frameworks and treatment programs.
An example of the acceptance of paradoxical intention and dereflection by nonlogotherapists is the recent history of the treatment of sexual dysfunction. Before Frankl's11 discussion of the use of dereflection for certain sexual difficulties, treatment of these disorders generally lacked direction and, consequently, any consistent success. With some exceptions (e.g., Wolpe),22 this remained true until Masters and Johnson 18 published an effective, systematic program for the treatment of sexual difficulties. Masters and Johnson can be credited with producing a major beneficial change in the treatment of this clinical area. Many components of the programs they prescribed for each sexual disorder were based on data from their own research. However, significant aspects of the therapeutic programs which Masters and Johnson successfully employed with individuals complaining of sexual problems did not originate with them but were in common use, and in the literature, before they began their research. I refer specifically to Wolpe 's22 systematic desensitization, particularly in the in vivo procedure5 and, more pertinent to the focus of the present discussion, to Frankl's11 dereflection. It does not seem unreasonable to
* These were the first publications in English in which these techniques were mentioned. They were first mentioned in German in 1939.10
suggest that these therapeutic components were responsible for much of the clinical success reported by Masters and Johnson. 18 This position is strengthened by the fact that treatments of sexual dysfunction developed by therapists espousing orientations other than those of Masters and Johnson, Wolpe, or Frankl, nevertheless employ in vivo desensitization and dcreflection although their theoretical explanation and the remainder of their supporting therapeutic procedures may be different (e.g., Kaplan). 16
Dereflection and paradoxical intention are flexible techniques useful with many types of procedures within a variety of therapeutic orientations. Recently, behavior therapists have begun to report success with paradoxical intention (e.g., Davison8, Shelton and Ackerman).20 This paper presents a detailed clinical example of the utility of paradoxical intention for behavioral programs. Behavioral procedures were organized around paradoxical intention and applied to a relatively uncommon and resistant behavioral difficulty, i.e., psychogenic urinary detention the inability of individuals to urinate in bathrooms that have, for them, become anxietyprovoking. Typically, such people are able to urinate comfortably in bathrooms in their own home and in the homes ofcertain friends and relatives. They exhibit their greatest difficulty in public restrooms. The major concern is the presence of people in the same restroom, or the threat that someone may enter during the course of urination.21
Patients complaining of urinary retention often experience restrictions as well as physical discomfort resulting from the disorder. For example, those working away from home will restrict food and liquid intake until they return home in the evening. This can pose a problem because many business functions are organized around lunch, dinner, or cocktails.
13
These people may not be able to leave home for more than six or eight hours, thus drastically restricting their mobility. Further, as the time away from home increases, bladder discomfort may grow severely painful.
A number of case studies have reported the successful use of various behavioral procedures with this problem. These include systematic desensitization, 1.9.1 9 in vivo flooding, 17 classical conditioning,7 and aversion relief with assertive training. 6
Psychogenic Urinary Retention
In my experience, a program composed of several behavioral techniques, tailored to the needs of the specific client, is often successful in ameliorating psychogenic urinary retention. However, a small percentage of these cases did not improve to a satisfactory degree notwithstanding extensive therapeutic efforts. Here, a program incorporating para
•1
doxical intention has usually been effective.2
Mr. S., a 38 year old lawyer reported
urinary retention problems for 23 years. He
was able to urinate in bathrooms at home and
in the homes of a select group of his friends
and relatives, as well as in the one-person
bathroom in his office, but not, most of the
time, in any other bathroom. The resulting re
strictions created difficulties for Mr. S. He
visited clients daily, which typically included
business lunches or dinners, and participated
in trials conducted in several parts of the
country. When possible, he would send an
associate, but many times he had to attend in
person. On these occasions he would do his
best to restrict intake of liquid and food, but
this was often not possible. As a result, Mr. S.
would experience anticipatory anxiety before
entering the situation. considerable anxiety
while attending the specific function, and
severe bladder discomfort.
A therapeutic program was developed for
Mr. S. and administered during a three
month period. It included systematic desensi
tization directed toward concerns about
public restrooms in general and specific rest
rooms that Mr. S. might use more frequently
if he were able. Systematic desensitization
was also employed to neutralize thoughts
associated with anticipatory anxiety, e.g.,
"everyone will know something is wrong with
me if I spend too much time in the men's
room." In conjunction with desensitization in imagination, Mr. S. was given in vivo assignments to go to selected restrooms when he felt the need to urinate and attempt to succeed. However, if he became anxious, he was to leave immediately. The program also included extensive assertive training toward fellow professionals and clients.
Mr. S. improved both in his general life adjustment and in his urinary difficulties. He described his professional interactions as more satisfying than in the past. In addition, he could now function in more bathrooms than before. However, he was still uncomfortable when using many public bathrooms although he often succeeded. He felt that he spent too much time planning the strategies necessary for functioning in public restrooms. It was decided to add paradoxical intention to the treatment program.
Before paradoxical intention is administered, clients are provided with an explanation showing that urinary retention is exacerbated by performance anxiety. 3· 4 To reduce this anxiety, they are instructed to enter restrooms which have been associated with difficulty, behave in every detail as though they were going to urinate, but at the crucial time voluntarily retain the urine. That is, they are not, under any circumstances, to urinate. They are required to increase their liquid intake and to go to the restroom only when they feel a bladder distension. They are instructed to rank possible bathrooms in order of anxiety. It is suggested that they begin with a bathroom in which they feel most comfortable and then list the others that arc more anxiety producing. The application of humor is explained to the clients so they do not feel the therapist laughs about them but rather that they themselves see the humor in their behavior.
Interaction
After Mr. S. was instructed, the following interaction occurred between him and the therapist. It is included here verbarim because its content is fairly typical for the application of paradoxical intention.
S. You mean I'm to go to the bathroom but not urinate?
T. Exactly. I want you to enter the bathroom when you feel that you must urinate and walk to a vacant urinal. I don't think that you are quite at the point yet where you
!4
can share one.
S. That's something to look forward to.
T. Yes. So you are to stand in front of the urinal, unzip your pants, perform the appropriate anatomical manipulation, and stand there. Do not urinate under any circumstances.
S. How long should I stand there?
T. About an hour. I want you to really demonstrate what urinary retention is.
S. No, be serious.
T. Well, just as long as you feel comfortable. As long as you can.
S. Then what?
T. Then you readjust your anatomy, zip up, flush as though you had actually urinated, wash your hands, comb your hair, and leave.
S. Suppose I think that I can urinate?
T. That's fine, but your thoughts are irrelevant to this part of the program. The idea is for you not, under any circumstances, to urinate.
S. What should I do if somebody sees that I'm not urinating?
T. Call a cop? If they are in a position to sec that you are standing intimately close to a urinal and not urinating then they must be breaking some kind of law.
S. Do you mean you don't think anyone will be able to tell?
T. Do you think you would know?
S. I don't think so, though I've never looked.
T. There's your answer. No one is interested.
Naturally, the therapist never specifically lifts the prohibition regarding urination. To do this would generate further performance anxiety and would be opposed to paradoxical intention. Typically, because the client is increasing the liquid intake and uses bathroms lower on the anxiety level, he eventually encounters an optimum situation. l'hat is, the client experiences urgency in a bathroom in which he is relatively comfortable and permits himself to violate the prescription against urination. From that point on the behavior usually becomes more manageable.
After three weeks, Mr. S. had violated the prohibition and was urinating with increased comfort. A good deal of cognitive activity which was related to urinating had ceased. After several additional weeks Mr. S. reported that he was urinating without difficulty in all but the most anxiety-provoking restrooms. In these, he was able to produce, but with the necessity for some "planning."
It was the purpose of this discussion to demonstrate the flexibility of paradoxical intention by providing an example of the way in which it could be successfully employed in the context of behavior therapy, a therapeutic program quite unlike the logotherapy background within which Frankl developed the procedure. For more detailed explication and examples of the use of paradoxical intention and dereflection m behavior therapy, see references 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 15.
L. MICHAEL ASCHER, Ph.D., is associate prc1fessor, Department ofPsychiatry, Temple University, Philadelphia, anda psychiatrist in private practice.
REFERENCES:
I. Anderson, L.T. "Desensitization In Vivu for Men Unable to Urinate in a Public Facility." Juurnal 11{ Behavior Therap_i• and Experimental Psychiatrr. 1977, 8, 105-106.
2. Ascher, L.M. "A Paradoxical Program for the Treatment of Urinary Retention." Paper presented at the International Congress of Behavior Therapy, Uppsala. Sweden, August, 1977.
3_________ "Paradoxical Intention in the Treatment of Urinary Retention." Behaviour Research and Therapy. 1979, 17. 267-270.
4.
_______ "Paradoxical Intention." In A. Goldstein and E.B. Foa (eds.) Handhuok of' Behavioural Interventions. New York, John Wiley. in press.

5.
_______and Clifford, R.E. "Behavior Considerations on the Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction." In M. Hersen. R.M. Eisler. and P. M. Miller (eds.) Progress in Behavior l1fodificario11. Vol. 3. New York, Academic Press, 1976.

6.
Barnard, G.W., C.K. Flesher, and R.M. Steinbook, "The Treatment of Urinary Retention by Aversive Stimulus Cessation and Assertive Training." Behm·iur Therapy. 1966, 4. 232-236.

7.
Cooper, A.J. "Conditioning Therapy in Hysterical Retention of Urine." British .!uurnal tJf Psychiatry, 1965, III, 575-577.

8.
Davison, G.C. ·'Counter-Control in Behavior Modification." In L. Hamerlynck, J,. Handy, and E. Mash (eds.) Behavior Change: Methodology, Concepts and Practice. Champaign, Ill., Research Press, 1973.

9.
Elliott, R. "A Case of Inhibition of Micturition: Unsystematic Desensitization." Psrchulogical Record. 1967, 17, 525-530.

10.
Frankl, V.E. "Zur medikamentosen Unterstiitzung der Psychothcrapie bei Neurosen." Schweizer Archi,-fur Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 1939, 42, 2631.

11.
_ "The Pleasure Principle and Sexual Neurosis."

15
International Journal of Sex, 1952, 5, 128-130.
I2. _______ . The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York, Knopf, 1955.
13 ________ "Paradoxical Intention and Dcreflection." Pfychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 1975a, 12, 226-237.
14. _______ "Paradoxical Intention and De-reflection: Two Logothcrapeutic Techniques." In S. Aricti and G. Chrzanowski (eds.) New Dimensions in Aychiatry: A World View. New York, Wiley, 1975.
15 _________ The Unheard Cry/or Meaning. London, Hodden and Stoughton, 1979.
16.
Kaplan, H.S. The New Sex Therapy. New York, Brunner/ Maze!, 1974.

17.
Lamontagne, Y. and Marks, I.M. "Psychogenic

Urinary Retention: Treatment by Prolonged Exposure." Behavior Therapy, 1973, 4, 581-585.
18.
Masters, W.H. and V.E. Johnson, Human Sexual Inadequacy. Boston, Little, Brown, 1970.

19.
Ray, I. and J. Murphy, "Metronome Conditioned Relaxation and Urinary Retention." Canadian Aychiatric Association Journal, 1975, 20. 139-141.

20. Shelton, J.L. and J.M. Ackerman. Homework in Counse/inf? and Psychotherapy: Examples of Systematic Assif?nments for Therapeutic Use by Mental Health Professional. Springfield, Ill. Thomas, 1974.
21.
Williams, G.W. and E.T. Dengenhardt, "Paruresis: A Survey of Disorder of Micturition." Journal of General Psychology, 1954, 5/, 19-20.

22.
Wolpe, J. Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1958.

Dr.Frankl will be one of the four speakers in the symposium on "Four Viewpoints of Psychotherapy of the Neuroses" sponsored hy the annual Temple University Conference on Behavior Therapy, to be held in Philadelphia, March 28 -30. Dr. Joseph Wolpe, director of the Behavior Therapy Unit at
Temple University Medical .S'choo/, has invited Dr. Frankl to speak at the opening session on "Psychotherapy on its Way to Rehumanization."
16
Treatment of Problem Drinkers
James C. Crumbaugh
The causes of alcoholism are complex and debatable but many problem drinkers have adopted the habit as an escape from the realities of a life that lacks meaning and purpose. Thus the needs of these problem drinkers are those that logotherapy seeks to meet.
For more than a decade I have conducted group logotherapy with patients in an Alcoholism Treatment and Rehabilitation Program. This setup is similar to most programs except the "behavior modification" units: It assumes that the goal must be complete abstinence for problem drinkers. Whether alcoholism is considered a disease, or the result of poor adjustment to emotional conflict, both views agree that taking thatfirst drink is under the voluntary control of, and therefore is the responsibility of, the drinker. Once that first drink is taken, it may be debatable whether a person can stop, but no theory holds that there is in anyone either an inborn or a disease-determined compulsion to take that first drink.
Some authorities fear that assuming alcoholism is a disease (either genetically predisposed or stemming from other causes) will allow problem drinkers to escape responsibility and hide behind the cover of being the poor victims of an illness they cannot control. The sponsors of the disease concept fear just the opposite: that drinkers who assume that alcoholism is not a disease, will consider themselves weak-willed characters who cannot bear up under life's responsibilities, and therefore they won't even try. If on the other hand, they consider alcoholism a disease, they can hold their head up, because everyone gets sick at times with something, and disease is no disgrace. They will therefore take the responsibility of getting treatment and of doing their part to recover.

Thus, regardless of whether alcoholism is considered a disease or not, taking responsibility for their own lives is seen as a big factor in the treatment of problem drinkers. This same responsibility is the cornerstone of logotherapy: people arc free to choose their own meanings and purpose in life, but with this freedom comes the responsibility for their own choices.
Logotherapy charges individuals to accept this responsibility and use it to explore their life experiences for the personal meanings that can create a sense of identity and purpose. Thereby they can prevent the boredom symptomatic of the existential vacuum from which they will try to escape. Alcoholics have learned that the bottle offers such an escape.
The logotherapist guides individuals (alcoholic or otherwise) in the exploratory search for personal meanings, and encourages them to keep going when the search bogs down. In this process the patient-therapist relationship is a key factor.
Logotherapy is not usually considered
psychotherapy. The latter typically probes
unconscious emotional conflicts and mechan
isms of escape from or defense against these
conflicts, and seeks to create insight into these
processes. Logotherapy assumes that if
psychotherapy is necessary (as it is if the indi
vidual has "symptoms" of emotional disorder
in addition to existential vacuum), it is done
by a psychotherapist using standard tech
niques. The clients are then in a position to
pursue with the logotherapist their search for
the meanings that will motivate them to keep
going when the going gets tough, rather than
to avoid problems by either psychodynamic
mechanisms of escape and defense or by drugs
or alcohol.,
17
Of course, in the major helping professions the therapist may fulfill both roles. The logotherapist is most effective through establishing the same interpersonal relationship with the client as the psychotherapist, which makes logotherapy seem like psychotherapy. But the goals of the relationship are different. Logotherapy adds an essential dimension to usual psychotherapy. Clients may gain from psychotherapy insight into what they are doing to themselves by their unhealthy escape mechanisms-whether escaping by rationalization, projections, or alcohol-and yet they will not stop doing it until they have a reason to function effectively in order to fulfill some life meaning. Logotherapy emphasizes this meaning in a way that most psychotherapies ignore or mm1m1ze.
While many alcoholics do not respond to logotherapy or to any other known treatment, my own experience shows that between 20% and 25% can be helped by logotherapy to a degree that may make the difference between recovery and recidivism. Usually a total treatment program including the complex elements of most alcoholism treatments is needed. Logotherapy does not do the job alone, but it can be a key factor.
Because adequate followup is lacking in most programs, I am unable to assess accurately the recovery rate. Still two studies we did, as well as unsolicited spontaneous "testimonials" from "graduates" of both the threeweeks' crash program of group logotherapy and the total alcoholism-treatment program, suggest that logotherapy adds to the degree of recovery and to the reduction of recidivism among those patients chosen as suitable for this therapeutic technique.
These facts arc reported in Crumbaugh et a/., 1 a book designed to guide alcohol abusers in the search for a meaning in life that will motivate them to withstand pressures without running. My co-authors are a psychiatrist who reports on alcoholism as a psychiatric problem, and a physician-physiologist who writes on the medical and physiological aspects of alcohol abuse. It is our conclusion that logothcrapy is helpful for alcoholism treatment programs and for individuals with drinking problems.
The psychology of alcoholism is essentially the same as that of overeating, smoking, and most other problem habits. That is why many weight-reduction groups use the literature of alcoholism treatment. Thus, logotherapy has more applications than has been generally realized. We have so far seen only the abovewater part of the iceberg: The possibilities of applied logotherapy are only beginning to be recognized.
JAMES C. CRUMBAUGH, Ph.D., is clinical psychologist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Gulfport Division, Biloxi, Mississippi.
REFERENCE:
I. Crumbaugh, James D., W.M. Wood, and W.C. Wood. Logotherapy: New Help for Problem Drinkers. Chicago. Nelson-Hall, 1980.
18
Logotherapy's Contribution to Youth
Helen C. Roberts
Frankl's potentially greatest contribution is the hope logotherapy offers to youth. The optimism of logotherapy says that young persons can detect meaning to their personal existence.
Logotherapy was born when a Viennese youth, age I3, first asked the question, "What meaning does life have?" His high-school teacher's reductionist statement that life is nothing but a process of combustion, an oxidation process, prompted young Frankl to challenge his teacher. It was a challenge also to himself to detect meaning in his own life; he knew, intuitively, meaning existed. This school experience was the first event in Frankl's life during which his theory was formulated and affirmed. This kind of experience is shared today in substance by more and more young people searching for meaning in a world of crumbling traditions and technological and social change.
Logotherapy has taught us much about the urgent questioning of the meaning of life. It is most apt to occur during adolescence.3 The adolescent's preoccupation with this question is not morbid or pathological, but an indication of true human nature. When meaning is not detected, and therefore cannot be fulfilled, the primary motivational force, the "will to meaning," becomes frustrated and an "existential vacuum," or sense of meaninglessness, is experienced. A prolonged frustration of the will to meaning can have the effects ofa noogenic neurosis or, beyond that, lead to depression, addiction, or aggression. Many adolescents become victims of these -effects when they are frustrated in attempts to find meaning in their lives.
The youth guidance centers established by Frankl in Vienna in 1928, were so successful in helping young people find meaning in their lives that, later, youth centers patterned after them were started in other parts of Europe.

It has taken a long time for persons in the United States to see the light about the real source of the depression scene, the drug and alcohol scene, and the aggression scene. But the signs are there and some researchers are providing solid statistical evidence about the malaise of the age, while others, practitioners, are recording experiences that by using logotherapy they can help young people.
Depression
Depression is claiming the lives of increasing numbers of adolescents each year in this country by suicide. In the past decade, among teenagers and young adults, suicide has moved from fourth to second place as a leading cause of death. 19 Frankl8 cites evidence that existential frustration lies at the root of this phenomenon. A study conducted at Idaho State University revealed that 51 of the 60 students who had seriously attempted suidice reported as the reason that "life meant nothing" to them.
The Purpose in Life (PIL) Test, developed by Crumbaugh and Maholick,3 is being employed in research with adolescents to ascertain, by their responses, the strength of their sense of purpose in life and to determine the correlates between their sense of purpose in life and their existential vacuum. Among adolescents significant inverse relationships have been found between a sense of purpose
17 18
in life and drug use 2· · . and alcohol use. 18 Roberts18 has also reported that among high school students, attitude toward school, life plans, drug use,job status, and alcohol use are life-style variables that contribute to prediction of the PIL score and that each of these variables is related significantly with a sense
19
of purpose in life.
In his work with juvenile delinquents, Barber (in Frankl8) found that they nearly always lacked a meaning and purpose in their lives. Familetti5 found a significant difference in the sense of purpose in life between delinquent and nondelinquent adolescent boys, ages 15-18, with the nondelinquents having the stronger sense of purpose. Among adolescents identified as either "constructive" or "destructive," Hatchett 10 found that "constructive" youngsters possessed the significantly higher sense ofpurpose. These studies have shown that the human dimension must be considered if the ailments of today's adolescents are to be ministered to.
Delinquency and Addiction
Barber1 used logotherapy in helping 15-to 18-year old juvenile delinquents reorient themselves toward meaning. Barber's case histories illustrate the use of Frankl's attitudinal categories in providing logical foundations for successful rehabilitation programs.
Fraiser6 compiled an impressive record of success using logotherapeutic methods with drug addicts whose average age was 26.5 and included addicts in the teens. During four years at a California Rehabilitation Center 40% of his clients remained drug-free in the community as compared to 10% of those who were treated in the established manner.
Martin (in Frankl9) reported that, for her, as a high school counselor, logotherapeutic techniques were more successful than behavior modification techniques in working with high school students. Dyslexic adolescents have been helped toward attitudinal changes through planned experiences in the classroom, which coincide with Frankl's teachings.14 Even in high school sports logotherapeutic techniques have been successfully employed by coaches in baseball and in swimmingA. 9
With pre-adolescent children techniques of Iogotherapy also have been successful. The situations are varied. Paradoxical intention has been used effectively to cure destructive behavior in a child of eleven, 16 a fainting phobia in a child of twelve, 16 the refusal of a ten-year-old to come to school,11 the habit of an eleven-year-old of staring at classmates (in Frankl9); suicidal depression in a ten-yearold,15 sleeping problems of a nine-year-old,13 and thumbsucking in children as young as five. 12
It is not surprising that techniques that use aspects of humanness can be employed by those who work with children and by the children themselves. Children are more spontaneous than most adults in displaying their sense of humor, love, creativity, and imagination, all uniquely human forces located in the noetic dimension. Childhood is the time, then, to recognize and encourage in the person the use and refinement of such marvelous inner resources.
This brief review of the literature indicates the far-reaching implications of logotherapy to many facets of young persons' development and to the problems they encounter.
The critical moments ofadolescence will be no less critical because of Frankl. However, instead of leading to frustration and despair, the adolescence period can be experienced a challenge and opportunity for individual growth by detecting and choosing the meaning possibility of each moment, resulting in responsible meaningful living.
Logotherapy's contributions to youth have yet to be fully realized, but there is already evidence enough to show that this dynamic, viable theory and practice can help us understand the adolescents and help them help themselves when they ask, as did young Viktor Frankl, "What meaning does life have?"
HELEN C. ROBERTS, Ed.D., isaregistered psychologist andcounselor in the Valley View Community Unit School District, Romeoville, Illinois.
REFERENCES:
I. Barber, LS. "Juvenile Delinquents." Logotherapy in Action. Fabry, J.B., Bulka, R.P., and Sahakian,
W.S. (eds.) New York, Jason Aronson, 1979. pp. 213-223.
2.
Clark, T. "Relationships Between Drug Usage and Life Purpose of Junior and Senior High School Students." (Doctoral dissertation, United States International University, 1973). Dissertation Abstracts International, 1973, 34, 2763SA-2764A. (University Microfilms No. 73-22, 659).

3.
Crumbaugh, J.C. and Maholick, L.T. "The Purpose in Life Test" and "Manual of Instructions." Indiana, Munster, Psychometric Affiliates, 1969.

4.
Fabry, J.B., Bulka, R.P., and Sahakian, W.S. (eds.) Logotherap)• in Action. New York, Jason Aronson, 1979.

20
5.
Familetti, M.M. "A Comparison of the Meaning and Purpose in Life of Delinquent and Non-Delinquent High School Boys." (Doctoral dissertation, United States International University, 1975). Dissertation Abstracts International, 1975, 36, 1825A. (University Microfilms No. 75-20, 245).

6.
Fraiser, A.R. "Narcotics." l.ogotherapr in Action, fabry, J.B., Bulka, R.P.,and Sahakian. W.S. (eds.) 1'.ew York, Jason Aronson, 1979. pp. 253-261.

7.
Frankl. V.E. The Doc/or and rhe Soul(2nd ed.) New York. Random House, 1973.

8.
________ , The Unconscious God. New York. Simon and Shuster. 1975.

9·------~ , The Unheard Crrf,,r Meaning. New York. Simon and Schuster, 1978.
10.
Hatchett. H.S. "Purpose in Life and Family Adjustment as Related to Adolescent ConstructiveDestructive Behavior." (Doctoral dissertation. Northern Illinois University, I978).

11.
Hirsch, B. "The Boy Who Was Afraid to Come to School." The International Forum for L.ogotherapy. Vol. I, :--;o. l (Winter 1978-Spring 1979) pp. 3132.

12.
Jepsen, CH. "Dentistry." Lof!otherapr in Action. Fabry, J.P., Bulka, R.P., and Sahakian, W.S. (eds.) New York, Jason Aronson, 1979. pp. 123-129.

13.
Kocourek. K. "Dereflection." Logotherapr in Anion. Fabry, J.P., Bulka, R.P., and Sahakian.

W.S. (eds.) New York. Jason Aronson, 1979. pp. 8794.
14. Lieban-Kalmar, V. "Group Processes for Dyslexic Adolescents." The International Forum for Logotherapy. Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer-Fall 1979), pp. 2830.
15. Lunceford, R.D. "Minorities." /.ogotherapy in Action. fabry, J.P., Bulka., R.P., and Sahakian,
W.S. (eds.) New York, Jason Aronson, 1979. pp. 283-289.
16.
Macaruso, M.C. "Treating Emotionally Disturbed Children." l.ogotherapr m Action. Fabry, J.P., Bulka, R.P., and Sahakian, W.S. (eds.) New York, .Jason Aronson, 1979, pp. 225-227.

17.
Padleford. B.L. "Relationship Between Drug Involvement and Purpose in Life." (Doctoral dissertation, United States International University, 1973) Di.,sertation Abstracts International, 1973, 34, 17568-17578. (University Microfilms, no. 73-22, 684).

18.
Roberts, H.C.G. "Purpose in Life Among High School Students: Demographic and Life-Style Correlates. (Doctoral dissertation. Northern Illinois University, 1978). Dissertation Ahstracts International, 1978. 39, 30568. (University Microfilms no. 7823118).

19.
Smith, D.F. "Adolescent Suicide: A Problem for Teachers? Phi Delta Kappan, 1976, 57 (8), 539-542.

The doctor prescribed medicine, codliver oil, eggs, and cold compresses. No wonder that nothing helped. Every healthy life must have a content and a goal.
-Hermann Hesse
To be religious means to ask passionately for the meaning of our life and to be open to all answers even if they deeply upset us. Such an interpretation makes religion into something universally human, even though it deviates from what we usually understand by religion. -Paul Tillich
21
Logotherapy and the College Student
Mignon Eisenberg
From childhood to old age the learning to be human never ceases.
-Confucian Analects
If logotherapy rehumanized psychology, it
can be applied to revitalize education.
The alarming decline in college enroll
ments and the increase in drop-outs is accom
panied by a rising suicide rate among high
school and college students. The cry for "rele
vance" in education is part of "The Unheard
Cry for Meaning" in Western society. The
time has come for a confluent, holistic ap
proach toeducation, supplementing cognitive
learning by the supportive element of affect
and the liberating dimension of the defiant
human spirit.
Frankl sees the mission of education as a
sharpening or refining of the students' indivi
dual conscience, so they can rely on their own
capacity to find the unique meaning in each
life situation. This vision of education could
eventually bring about a profound transfor
mation in the value hierarchy of society. The
frustrating illusion of greatness by destiny
could yield to the viable reality of noogenic
self-determination. The process may be
lengthy and complex, but in the meantime
teachers can experiment with techniques for
their own use.
A Logo-experiment
One such experiment was carried out at
Northwestern University in Chicago. The
courses selected were Humanistic Psychol
ogy, Topics in Contemporary Psychology,
and Cross-Generational Communications.
While preparing the course description and
leafing through Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of
Psychosocial Development, I could see the
analogy with logotherapy.
The struggle for identity versus role confusion in adolescents is tantamount to Frankl's creative-activity values. He adds, however, the concept of responsibility: Identity can be a negative characteristic unless it is balanced by judgment and responsibility. In their fanatic search for identity and peer approval some young people adopt negative identities as gang members or pot heads, mistaking freedom for license.
The intimacy versus isolation period of young adulthood recalls the experiential values: Intimacy is the ability to experience the uniqueness of another human being and one's own by fusing the newly found identity with that of another person. The alternative of isolation is for Frankl the noogenic neurosis of existential ostracism, the inability to believe in the truth, importance, usefulness, or interest-value of any of the things one is engaged in or can imagine doing.
Erikson's final life stages of generativity versus stagnation and ego integrity versus despair evoke Frankl's perhaps highest rung in the meaning ladder of ego transcendence attitudinal values, our response to inevitable suffering that limits our access to activity and experiential values. This ever-present option to change ourselves and transform life's tragedies into personal and human triumphs seemed to me the greatest challenge and message for the students.
To acquaint young people with the existence of their own resources so they could become fountains of power rather than targets of despair, three activities were introduced into all courses:
I. Reading Frankl's Man's Search.for Meaning, followed by class discussions and essays reflecting individual interpretations and responses.
2.
Dividing students into small groups for part of the course, to encounter one another on a personal level and to exchange feelings and thoughts about being and becoming. Weekly reaction papers had to be written following each group meeting.

3.
Assigning students the task of interviewing one older person of their choice over five to eight sessions in one-hour or longer

22
weekly taped conversations and to prepare
an in-depth report of this experience.
Directions as to how best to approach this
life-history-taking were handed out.
The results were encouraging. Students emerged from the readings, informal lectures and logotherapeutic encounter groups with enhanced individual values, feeling worthwhile through making commitments and saying 'yes' to the questions life put to them. The interviews gave students insights into the multitude ofvalidating meanings stored in the memories of the long-living.
Sample Reactions
Below are some reactions to the group experience and quotations taken from the 'lifehistories' conclusions:
"We succeeded in many ways in becoming more genuine, open, warm and caring people who can now interrelate more deeply and more meaningfully with ourselves and with others." R. B.
"The group acted as a psychological chisel, chipping away at you until there was an end product of the real and innermost you and not a shell." R.H.
"It is as if you look through a dirty window at yourself, and the more feedback you get from people the cleaner the window gets."
M.S.
"The group helped me decide again that college was the important factor in my life."
G.D.
"Those who live and create a future in their day-by-day living are the courageous ones. We have to live life passionately, not letting a single day get away from us, and not wasting a moment." P.R.
"The most important thing I learned from this interview was that life is to be lived while you can, and death is to be accepted and honored. When I finished the report I felt accomplished and satisfied, while grandma felt needed and important." LG.
"My relationship (with my aunt) has gotten stronger. The most important section of the interview for me was her philosophy of life and advice for me -to be truthful, honest and willing to help. She put her philosophy to use. I have never known her to worry about herself. She was always too busy helping the person next to her. She raised her sister's child -not for praise or out of guilt, but to help her sister. She gave blood yearly, worked at the church, cared. She always had time to do a favor for someone without expecting it to be returned. I see her as a happy person, enjoying life, even though she has had plenty ofsadness. I hope that I am able to grow old gracefully and learn to accept whatever may come."
G.D.
"Through these interviewing sessions I got closer to Mrs. B. I have become a better person, while at the same time she has helped me resolve some issues in my life. I also learned that life is not fair or just. The biggest thing I learned is that blindness is not a handicap, rather an inconvenience. Being blind docs not make her less ofa human being. If only we will open our eyes and see. Through the contact with Mrs. B. I am more aware that I am the sole determiner of my fate. My own decisions and choices will determine the course I will walk. I am the captain of my destiny. Most of all, I have learned that age is just another part of life we have to accept." F.A. T.
"From everything she has gone through I realize that everyone can go on with life. There seems to be no logical reason why a person should commit suicide. Mrs. F. was around death for years and still came out with the will to live." D. F.
"People who put their loves ones in homes belong in some sort of home themselves. If you show them you care, you'll be rewarded with memories that will never die." L.D.
"It is important to enjoy the doing, the reaching for a goal, which is often more pleasurable than achieving it. First, a sense of usefulness to self; then, a desire to be useful to others. Sometimes, it is necessary to accept what cannot be changed, and go on from there. Amber's vibrancy, flexibility, ability to adapt, her variety of interest and worthwhile endeavors, her friends of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life, her holding love of people as a mandate, her desire to learn, are ways in which I, too, hope to achieve a full life in the years ahead." F. P.
"Learning more about others helps me become a more aware person, not just as an
23
assignment, but as an educating experience. If I can 'plan' a future philosophy of life, it may be similar to that of Ruth: not to lead a useless old age, but to try and stay active, and make your life the best one you can. Although I have known Ruth since I was a little girl, I really never knew what she was all about. It gave me a better insight and lasting impression of how one may look at life at the age of 71." B.S.
"She has a great ~ense of humor, is strong and open, and faces her problems. Never did I see one sign of self-pity.'' .!. W.
"The class has changed my attitude on growing old. I learned that old people. if you really look at them, look the same as they did their whole life. They may have more wrinkles and white hair. but they are basically the same. You can be lonely at any age. Ray is happy and content with his old age because he is happy and content with his past life." R.H.
"She grew up in simple times and enjoys her life to be 'plain.' Shopping, washing, and mending are enough for her. Cooking gives her great pleasure and she prides herseif on how well she bakes (which is true). She was firm in stating that she always had something to do, and she is fulfilled. I was surprised to hear that when someone is old, they think more about the future than their many experiences from the past, but she made this clear... All these aspects of her life give me a more rounded picture of my future because I see what old age is really like." E. D.
"I saw my life in a different perspective. Sometimes I think that so much ofmy life has been a complete waste, that I adopt a pessimistic attitude toward the future. I realize now, since intervicwmg an older person, that there is much time left to do whatever I want to do and to make of myself whatever I want to. It has made my outlook on life more optimistic. I am looking forward to a long happy life. I have learned not to underestimate the capacity for love, understanding, and the older persons' contributions to society." .!. P.J.
"I know now that the most important values arc those that are truly productive.Not money or material objects, but friendship and the belief that life is a time to experience things you really enjoy. My grandfather is a happy man and I don't have any fear of growing old." C.A.
"Her joys, fears, and feelings are not different from my own. I will forever be grateful to her for this experience. l hope that some day l, too, will look back and say that I wouldn't change anything in my life." fl.LB.
''She was forced to deal with death, divorce, alcoholism. I really feel that this aspect of life is paramount for reaching that point where you can learn to live in the here and now. Without these experiences she probably never would have been able to start on her own personal path of spiritual development, finding her path to serenity." R. B.
"Not that my grandmother is 'perfect' by any means, no one is. But in her life she has given of herself to others, not just to her family and children, but to all those whom she has come in contact with, in an extremely unselfish way which has brought a wealth of · beauty, meaning, and importance to her and to those whose lives she touched. I consider myself fortunate to have been one of them. Because of my grandmother's example, I can see the fallacy of believing that aging is something to be dreaded, for to live life as my grandmother does is to truly exercise, in Frankl's words, one's will to meaning." R.H
Incorporating logotherapy as a special course or as a generalized approach into the curriculum of higher learning institutions can be a vital contribution to educating flexible, open, self-reliant, caring, and generative persons, with a genuine quest for learning to be human.
MIGNON EISENBERG teaches psychology and lugotherapy at the city colleges and at Northwestern University, Chicago.
24
The Third Culture of the Young
Eugenio Fizzotti
A "third culture" has emerged in the contemporary fabric of youth, emphasizing spontaneous relationships, nonviolence, selfsacrifice, and the search for meaning.
My work with the young in southern Italy has shown me that a growing minority of youth have formed cultural thoughts of their own that do not tie in with the cultural thoughts of their elders.
These young people live in a period of postconfrontation. The young and the adults can confront each other as long as they belong to the same cultural world, with common feelings, hopes, and experiences. But today the two generations live in two parallel worlds, with different values and convictions. To the adults, the young seem aimless. But the young, facing today's world, react with a feeling of realism all their own. Many have experienced the power of a society opposed to any novelty. In the explosion of the sixties the young had believed everything was possible and could be promptly achieved. They had allowed great freedom to their imagination and continuously created utopias. Now they know that utopias are easy to establish on the level of ideas and slogans but extremely difficult on the level of every-day reality.
As a result, some try to find escape in drugs,
others in extreme activism, left or right. The
majority of the young have become difficult,
showing a dislike for politics, for unions. for
ideologies, distrusting those who try to
regiment them.
Women find themselves in a similar
situation. They are forced by society to find
their identity in relationship to men, just as
the young are forced by society to look to the
adults as a reference point. And they both say
"no." Sometimes the no is noisy, violent,
harsh; more often it is silent, soft, but equally
adamant.
My work has convinced me that there is
more than denial behind that refusal. A new culture is germinating to which the young and the women are especially sensitive, and to which Frankl's anthropology may offer clarification and constructive help.
Every day, as a counselor of young people, I am faced with the usual big questions: What is the meaning of life? ls it possible to plan a less materialistic, more humanized form of existence? Is nonviolence only a utopia? Can love really sustain a life?
Faced with such questions the old concept of Renaissance humanism breaks down, and the image of the human being as the product of industry and technology undergoes a crisis. too. A new culture is emerging which seems open to the ideas of logotherapy, to its search for meaning and the emphasis on interpersonal relationships.
The Currents of Humanism and Science
The current of the first culture is "humanistic," and at its center arc the human being and human values. The basic principle is respect for others, their persons and their belongings. Its virtues include personal effort. competitive spirit, temperance, frugality, the mystique of work, and austerity. These val ucs found expression in the world of peasants at a time when life was hard, and they were promoted by Christianity. A key point is the concept ofthe family, first as patriarchal, then as nuclear, expressing intimacy of the individual, and within the family. Emphasis is placed on the great ideal principles, human values, and the meaning of life, while at the same time the old, rigorous ideas continue about spirit and matter, soul and body, time and eternity, work and leisure.
The current of the second culture is that of the scientist, born during the great explosion of science in the nineteenth century, and carried through by industrialization and urbanization.
While the humanistic culture centers on the individual, the scientific current centers on
25
"relatedness." The question of "What is it?"is replaced by "How does it fucntion?" The central point is no longer the human being, the meanings and values of human existence, but the interrelationships among different elements. One does not ask what the electron is but how it functions in relationship with the other subatomic particles. The science of all sciences is mathematics -the relation of relations. Humans are studied accordingly. One is no longer interested in "what is a human being?" One studies human relationships, the being-with, the being-for. Men and women are seen as sets of relations -economic, social, emotional, linguistic. Nothing and nobody have meaning in themselves, independently from others and from the world. In order to explain a temperament, a character, one used to say: He is a lunatic, she is a depressed person. Now, confronted with a person in difficulties one tries to understand the reasons for his being a 'lunatic' or her being a depressed person in relation to their childhood experiences with parents, siblings, or society.
Scientists say that our profound identity, our soul, our entity, our substance, escape us.
What counts and may reveal our humanness is our relationship with others, with events, with objects.
Both cultures today are in crisis in the western world. The current of humanism lost credibility after the second World War. Too often the solemn proclamation of lofty abstract principles has been contradicted by everyday life. Concrete reality too often has smashed the realm of idealism. The young began to mistrust the great humanistic values as those of "father," or "grandfather," and suspected that beautiful ideas not applied to reality may be a form of hypocrisy to put one's conscience at ease.
Equally in crisis is the scientific culture. After the great optimism that believed science would offer the solution to every problem, science today reveals its enigmatic face: it may be a factor in promoting our humanness but also may turn into a destructive monster.
The tragedy of Hiroshima has left a deeper scar on the unconscious of the young than one may suspect. They do not believe in the essentially progressive character of science and of scientific development. They perceive that science can turn against our humanness and
A Center of Logotherapy in Italy

Frankl (jcJUrth from righl) at !he lnlernational Congress on "/,ogotherapy and Autogenic Training" in Salerno. !talv.
A Center for the Study of Logo therapy was established in 1979 in Salerno, Italy, under the leadership of Professor Tullio Bazzi ofthe University of Rome and Professor Eugenio Fizzotti, leader of the Young Salesian Movement in southern Italy.
The Center is to provide information on logotherapy through symposia, meetings, seminars, and special courses. The first such course was given at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Naples by Professor Colucci d'Amato between February and May 1979. Professor Fizzotti discussed the anthropological aspects of logotherapy and Professor Bazzi its clinical aspects.
The Center also cosponsored the Fourth International Congress of the Italian Center for Psychotherapy, with the theme "Logotherapy and Autogenic Training," held in the historic Opera House in Salerno. The theme was chosen because these two approaches represent a therapeutically significant answer to the problems of the maladjusted and the neurotic. More than three hundred psychiatrists and psychologists from Italy and other European countries attended. The Congress
26
"relatedness." The question of "What is it?"is replaced by "How does it fucntion?" The central point is no longer the human being, the meanings and values of human existence, but the interrelationships among different elements. One does not ask what the electron is but how it functions in relationship with the other subatomic particles. The science of all sciences is mathematics -the relation of relations. Humans are studied accordingly. One is no longer interested in "what is a human being?" One studies human relationships, the being-with, the being-for. Men and women are seen as sets of relations -economic, social, emotional, linguistic. Nothing and nobody have meaning in themselves, independently from others and from the world. In order to explain a temperament, a character, one used to say: He is a lunatic, she is a depressed person. Now, confronted with a person in difficulties one tries to understand the reasons for his being a 'lunatic' or her being a depressed person in relation to their childhood experiences with parents, siblings, or society.
Scientists say that our profound identity, our soul, our entity, our substance, escape us.
What counts and may reveal our humanness is our relationship with others, with events, with objects.
Both cultures today are in crisis in the western world. The current of humanism lost credibility after the second World War. Too often the solemn proclamation of lofty abstract principles has been contradicted by everyday life. Concrete reality too often has smashed the realm of idealism. The young began to mistrust the great humanistic values as those of "father," or "grandfather," and suspected that beautiful ideas not applied to reality may be a form of hypocrisy to put one's conscience at ease.
Equally in crisis is the scientific culture. After the great optimism that believed science would offer the solution to every problem, science today reveals its enigmatic face: it may be a factor in promoting our humanness but also may turn into a destructive monster.
The tragedy of Hiroshima has left a deeper scar on the unconscious of the young than one may suspect. They do not believe in the essentially progressive character of science and of scientific development. They perceive that science can turn against our humanness and
A Center of Logotherapy in Italy

2.
Every human being receives identity from the relationships with others.

In this germinal stage, these seemingly contradictory trends cause doubt, confusion, frustration, and even despair in the young.
Traditional psychotherapy looking for child
hood traumas and past conflicts are not
helpful. The synthesis may come through
logotherapy which combines individualism
(uniqueness, personal will to meaning, the
"defiant power" to take a stand against
societal values) with responsibility and self
transcendence. Furthermore, logotherapy
concentrates on the present and future rather
than on the past -the question is not, "what
made me despairing?" but "how can I over
come despair?"
While the currents of humanism and science share a will to convince and to conquer, the third current is characterized by the will to freedom for every human being, by a search for the differences, and by finding value in these differences. Human beings are individual and social at the same time. Their groups -men, women, the young-are not isolated blocs but related to other groups. Seeing the relationship with "the other" -individual or group -as essential, the third culture will not use violence or pressure on anyone. In contrast to the absolutism and the emphasis on usefulness which dominates our society, the third culture proposes the true pluralism
was presided by Professor Giuseppe Campailla of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine, University of Trieste, and Professor Bazzi.
Dr. Frankl, in his main address, presented the areas of neurotic anxiety leading to phobias, obsessions, and sexual dysfunction, and described the specific techniques (paradoxical intention, derctlcction) developed by him to counteract them. He also described the symptoms and treatment of those cases of anxiety that are caused by existential despair and emptiness. Such patients need to be made conscious of their will to meaning which will justify their struggle along the path of hope. Anxiety can lead to frustration and noogenic neuroses which are the special targets oflogotherapy.
After thus dealing with both psychogenic and noogenic anxieties, Frankl then turned to the somatogenic anxieties as underlying endogenous depressions. For the latter logotherapy is applied in a specific way, that is, in an attempt to alleviate the patient's guilt feelings, self-accusations, and sense of worthlessness so typical for endogenous depressions.
Other speakers at the Congress included Professor Ba77i who spoke about paradoxical intention applied to compulsive-obsessive and phobic patients; Professor Luigi Peresson of the University of Trieste who discussed logotherapy and autogenic training; and Professor Fizzotti whose theme was logotherapy as it concerns the anguish and expectations of the young. (See his article in this issue).
The Center for the Study of Logothcrapy offers reassuring but realistic answers to people feeling existential emptiness, and therapy to those slipping into neurotic anxiety. The Center aims to work with other organizations in the world that examine and carry out research into the themes of logotherapy and thus contribute to logotherapy's ultimate aim which Frankl defines as "the rehumanization of psychotherapy."
Editorial note: The Center for the Study of I.ogotherapy can be reached through Professor Tullio Bani, Via Colli Della Farnesina 76, 1-00194 Roma, Italy.
27
and the sense of responsible freedom as a way
of living (see FrankJ2).
Frankl considers experiences and activities as two of the three areas where meaning can be found. (The third, one's attitude, is applicable only in situations where the path to meaning through experiences and activities is blocked). Experience and activity are expressed in love and work. Both have undergone a transformation. Love no longer is seen as a total gift made once and for all, but a slow, patient, relentless search of the relationship between two human beings -a relationship that must be as authentic and sincere as possible in order to realize a reciprocal development. Work loses it absolute character: it is no longer a mystique but a realized reality. One rebels against work which is presented as a common effort but which in reality is so divided and repetitious as to reduce the worker to an appendage of a machine. One questions the meaning of work in which the human being is totally deprived of responsibility. Workers expect real participation in what they are doing.
Against the organizing rationality which is typical of our society and has grown from its humanistic and scientific roots, a creative a_[fectivity is emerging -two words indicating a totally different culture. Against the dualism of, for instance, work and leisure, a new synthesis enables us to avoid alienation. We realize ourselves not in alienating types of work followed by equally alienating ways of spending our leisure ("Sunday neurosis 1) but the humanization of meaningful work and creative leisure.
If we should wish to contrast the values of the first two cultures with that of the third (and logotherapy) we could say: not power but tenderness; not violence but nonviolence; not usefulness but gratuity; not aggression, success, conquest, colonization but spontaneity, compassion, generosity; not oppression but liberation.
The Problem of the Future
The first two cultures have torn us apart. The humanistic approach has separated us from life as it really is, and the scientific approach has separated us from nature, making it a matter to be conquered. A third culture aims for wholeness and believes that the new unity cannot be achieved without keeping communications continuously open. Human problems and values cannot be repressed under the jolt ofimmediate needs and interests, nor can they be treated as if they were already solved in advance by prefabricated principles that one generation hands over to another like money.
The young, and logotherapy, too, are not overly concerned with why things are the way they are but rather with what can be done about the situation. They raise the question about the problems of society's future. It is true that only a minority of the young are concerned with the new values that will emerge as a result of their having used their spiritual resources and found individual meanings which grow into "universal meanings. "3 They are seeking less materialistic values to help overcome the individualism of the humanistic mentality and go beyond the positivistic certainties at which the scientific mentality has stopped.
Logotherapy seems closer to the emerging values of the third culture than other therapies and philosophies. It accentuates wholeness including the human spirit which enables us to respond to the tasks of life, to discover new meanings in old situations, to challenge us to shape the future rather than adjust to it. While our present society emphasizes the realization ofa "plan to have," logotherapy emphasizes the "plan to be" -to strive to live at the humanly highest level, to search for true values capable of filling a life and of sustaining it, especially in moments of fear, weakness, and despair. Logotherapy invites the young to walk with courage along the path of rehumanization and hope.
Translated from the Italian
EUGEN!O F/ZZOTTI, Ph.D., is co-leader of the Center for the Study of Logotherapy, Salerno, Italv, and leader ofthe Young Salesian Movement in southern Italy.
REFERENCES:
I. Frankl, Viktor E. Psrchotherapr and Existentialism. New York, Washington Square Press, 1967. p. 125.
2.
_______ "Beyond Pluralism and Determinism," in Unity 711rough Diversity, William Ray and Nicholas D. Rizzo, eds., New York, Gordon and Breach, 1973.

3.
-------· The Unconscious God. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1975, p. 120.

28
Logotherapy and Education in a PostPetroleum Society
Arthur G. Wirth
Logotherapy has special relevance during this critical transition.
A common theme in futurist projections is that in the 80's and 90's we will have to make fundamental changes to avoid becoming twenty-first century victims of our own selfdestructive tendencies.
For instance: Dennis Hayes, head of Solar Research for the Department of Energy, reminds us that we are at the beginning of a momentous transition from a petroleum to a multi-energy based society. Historically every such fundamental energy transition has affected the quality of human experience. This was true in the shift from wind and water power to coal in the 18th century, and from coal to oil about a hundred years ago. We have 15 to 25 years to make the next major shift.
Glen Seaborg, former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission -not an alarmist -envisages the energy crisis as the forerunner of a number of critical material shortages and failures in technological systems that will force us to turn away from a" 'throw away' affluent society" to a "conserving or recycle society. "5 What we now consider waste and scrap and call "secondary materials" will become our primary resources; and our natural resources will provide supplementary back-up supplies. The shift will occur partly because recycled steel requires 75% less energy than steel made from iron ore, and recycled paper requires 70% less energy than paper made from virgin pulp. Industry in a recycle society, for example, will have to learn to create products that are durable, easily repairable, and have standardized, replaceable parts. In agriculture, by 1995 we shall have to recycle organic material from farm and forest industries so that animal waste will be used in fertilizer and fuel, and protein will be extracted from plants and agricultural products now considered inedible.

Required Changes
A change of this magnitude cannot be made through changes in techniques alone. We will have to transform the fundamental ways in which we relate to nature and to each other.
The changes required of us will include:
•
Shifts from a dominance-exploitation relation toward nature to a symbiotic relation. We will have to learn to see ourselves as living systems within other systems. The health of one depends on the health of others.

•
Shifts in the ways we relate to our human resources. As we make the complex transition to mixed-energy sources we have available the most highly educated work force in history. We have to ask how we can use our human resources to create "good work" with respect to both products and to the persons producing them. "Good work" depends on tapping resources of the wholeness of persons "to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocenteredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence"1p 51) •4

•
Changes in life style from consumptioncentered living to one where people take pride in a life that is "creative, varied, and based on a new degree of ingenuity and innovation. "5

Ervin Laszlor 51 3 of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research reminds us that the habits of our "throw-away" consumerist life style are grounded in a deeper syndrome of attitudes and beliefs which he identifies as "modernism." Modernism has
29
brought us enormous material progress but has become a threat to our lives. It is marked by beliefs that
•it
is each person for him or herself, with the strongest and the most resourceful earning rightful privileges;

•nature
is nothing but a collection of objects to be exploited for endless material growth;

•science
discovers "facts" and they alone count; values are merely subjective and inconsequential;

•true
efficiency is maximum quantitative productivity for each machine, each enterprise, and each human being;

•we
can know all we need to know about people by applying a systems-efficiency, "cost benefit" model to evaluate their performances and behaviors;

•our responsibilities end with assuring our own welfare and that of our country-and we should let the next generation fend for itself as we have had to:
•human happiness consists in having the most sumptuous, powerful products; and consists in building bigger, more mechanized cities, farms, industries and institutions.
The Insights of Logotherapy
To move toward a sustainable world the
young will need to learn alternatives to the
reckless abuse of natural and human re
sources inherent in modernism. The philo
sophy of logotherapy contains essential in
sights for educators who wish to assume the
responsibility to prepare the young for their
future.
Logotherapy identifies two errors in the
contemporary world: ( l) the mistaken notion
that our primary welfare can be secured by
pursuing happiness directly through con
sumerist gratification, and (2) the reductionist
fallacy of defining human beings as nothing
but environmentally determined organisms.
On the positive side, logotherapy's categories
of existential values -creative, experiential,
and attitudinal -provide guidance for moving
toward healthier, more holistic relations with
both nature and other people.
The rape of nature is rooted in the
seventeenth-century model of science that
viewed nature as an external mechanism
which we could dominate through the power
of rationality. It is a short step from there to
the assumption that nature consists ofobjects to be manipulated for human gratification-a source of quick "happiness fixes" through agressive consumer intake.
The bankruptcy of this mechanistic orientation is becoming clear. In Laszlo's words, "the one who survives is the most symbiotic with his fellowmen and with is environment, and not the one who is out to gain immediate selfish ends to the detriment of his milieu(p 16).3
Educators can help students see that the dissolution of an older scientific tradition presents them with rich opportunities to create symbiotic, synergistic alternatives so that life can be sustained on the planet.
A change in our conceptual frame of reference is essential but logotherapy reminds us that health depends on integrating the three-dimensional totality of human experience-body, psyche and spirit. If the young are to discover a new orientation toward nature, educators will have to find occasions for experiential attitudes as well as rationality. And those occasions are all around. For example, the young who are joggers can be taught to let their experience include daily awareness of the interaction of humans with the plant world. We receive oxygen and give plants carbon dioxide. Both parties flourish or falter according to the state of health of the atmosphere on which they together depend.
Access to attitudinal values can also be part of renouncing the ways of the affluent era. The young have been taught that "more is better." They may understandably react with pessimism when confronted with a dawning sense that "the party is over." Knowing that they have access to the power of attitudinal values can help, however, to counter disappointment and despair. Frankl's testing of logotherapy in Auschwitz is a living demonstration that crises can be turned into achievement and meaning. The young can be helped to learn that accepting the reality of a world of limits can free them from the illusion ofhaving dominion over nature. A world with limits beckons them to assess their intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual resources in order to find tasks they can perform to help their fellows. They may even discover that happiness is a side effect offindingconstructive works in crisis situations.
30
The young will, however, be unable to respond unless they are freed from a second error of modernism which logotherapy helped to expose. Frankl, witnessing the rampant sense of meaninglessness, spotted its source in the pernicious doctrine of reductionism: the doctrine that humans are nothing but complex organisms programmed by inner drives and outer environments-a mechanistic image of human nature.
The mechanistic efficiency features of modernism have come to dominate industry and business. In the form of "accountability and competency-based instruction," the technocratic efficiency ideology has entered the schools. The ideology is concerned with the neutral goal of improving learning efficiency defined as increased measurable output. It is based on the assumption that only observable behavior is real, that anything real must be measurable, that learning consists in mastery of separate components, and that the good self is operationally defined by scoring well on expert-designed tests. Education follows the competitive-achievement model aimed to help winners get ahead vocationally in the economic status quo.
In this model, students and teachers both are reduced to pursuing the quantitive accumulation of bits of knowledge-a path well suited to expand the existential vacuum. Educators who resent being partners to the human waste of this model might well heed Frankl's insistence that education today, instead of confining itself to transmitting traditions and knowledge, should see its principal assignment as helping to refine the individual's capacity to find meaning<r 12oi •2
The closed-systems model of learning as transmission of right responses unfortunately cannot grasp the fact that meaning cannot be inserted into human lives by programmed learning packets: Logotherapy has helped us see that meanings are unique and must be won by each person individually.
To counter meaninglessness, teachers can become meaning seekers themselves, with the wholeness of their persons, and engage their students in that process with them. Then students can know that it is possible to live honestly, with commitment-to be authentic as persons. Students have a right to have access to models which demonstrate that possibility. Teachers have a right to demand the opportunity to demonstrate in their work that humans are beings, "reaching out for meanings to fulfill, and other human beings to encounter'lr 78). 2
Teachers have a responsibility to join those who resist the "crazy-making" tendencies of technocratic reductionism. "Crazy" comes from an old Norwegian word, krasa, meaning crushed or fragmented, whereas "whole" comes from the old English ha!, from which we get words like hale, whole, health which imply "being together." Crazy-making institutions arc those which fragment us, keep us out of touch with the wholeness of our persons, out of touch with our consciences which provide us with intuitive insights into the unique tasks or meanings we are equipped to fulfill, and out of touch with what Rene Dubos called our entheos-our God within, or our personal enthusiasms. 1 Crazy-making institutions tie up our energies in ways that deny us authentic communication and community, and that divert us from learning how to develop caring, conserving relations to the world in which we find ourselves.
In Huston Smith's phrase we are "condemned to meaning. "6 Frankl helped us see the basic survival value of the will to meaning. What held true for individuals in the death camps now applies more and more to our planetary human survival--"as to mankind, there is hope for survival only if mankind is united by a common meaning-~in other words, by an awareness of common tasks'lr. 140). 2
If we value our existence the time has come to resist tendencies in both our economic and educational institutions which deny us access to our destined task of finding and creating meamng.
ARTHUR G. WIRTH, Ph.D., is professor of history and philosophy of education at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
REFERENCES:
I. Dubos, Rene. A Cud Within. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972.
2.
Frankl, Viktor E. The Unconscious God: Psvchotherapy and Relition. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1975.

3.
Laszlo, Ervin. The Inner Limits of Mankind. New York. Pergamon Press. 1978.

31
4.
Schumacher, E.F. Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1963.

5.
Seaborg, Glen. "The Recycle Society: From the

Energy Crisis to the I990's." Future Times, September, 1979.
6. Smith, Huston. Condemned to Meaning. New York, Harper and Row, 1965.
Viktor Frankl: A PrecursorforTranspersonal Psychotherapy
Kenneth Kelzer, Frances Vaughan, and Richard Gorringe
"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness ... "
John 1:23
In an age of spiritual barrenness, the contribution of Viktor Frankl to the field of psychotherapy is especially valued by those who share an interest in transpersonal psychology. Today, one generation after the holocaust, we are confronted with a sense of malaise, restlessness, emptiness, and anxiety. It is a general, nonspecific, encompassing anxiety that stems not from the events in our personal lives but from the mere fact that we exist under the present social-political conditions. Frankl terms it "existential anxiety" -stemming directly from existence itself, distinct from anxiety that results from traumatic events of destructive parenting and socialization patterns.
Logotherapy's response to existential anxiety, through its philosophy, has made a significant contribution to psychology, particularly to transpersonal psychology. This paper assumes that human thought is the basic substance out of which all subsequent human actions emerge. This concept is expressed by Frankl:
"I am absolutely convinced that the gas
chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and
Maidanek were ultimately prepared not
in some ministry or other in Berlin, but
rather at the d~sks and in the lecture halls
of nihilistic scientists and philos
ophers"<r xx1). 2
Psychotherapists who appreciate the impact
of this statement must evaluate the influence
that their own philosophy (whether articu
lated or not) will have on their clients.
Transpersonal psychology, in addition to
clinical practice and research, is concerned
32
with spiritual growth. It supports the contention that values and attitudes of therapists affect the therapeutic relationship and its outcome.7 Being nonreductionistic and holistic, and attempting to include all realms of the human potential, transpersonal psychology is concerned with the influence of beliefs on behavior and mental health. It is scientific, nonsectarian, and acknowledges the validity of many methods through personal detachment and self-observation. It is a context for the expansiveness of the human spirit rather tha a content to be grasped. It is not a single theory, but a metatheory that seeks to integrate, synthesize, and expand existing theories of human development. 1 It assumes a sense of reverence for the mysteries of creation, recognizing their ultimate ineffability.
The principal themes of logotherapy are important contributions to transpersonal psychology, and Frankl may be viewed as a precursor of the movement. The burning quality of his books conveys the courage and authenticity for which many people are searching. He was one of the first leading psychiatrists who was willing to speak openly of spiritual matters when many professionals and intellectuals were still faltering behind a mask of "propriety" or the voguishness of a noncommittal stance. The harrowing experiences of the concentration camp altered the consciousness of Frankl forever. Like a modern John the Baptist, he passed through his trial by fire. In true prophetic style his writings reflect that there is no time to waste, and there is little time for lesser concerns. For Frankl, ultimate concerns are the substance of everyday life, and therefore are the essential substance of psychotherapy and education.
Major Contributions
Some specific areas of logotherapy have made a major contribution to transpersonal psychology:
(1) Frankl advocates that psychotherapists discuss spiritual matters with their patients whenever this need is expressed by the patient. Spiritual concerns cover a wide range of possibilities such as feeling alienated from contemporary religious institutions and rituals, doubts about the meaning of life, anxiety about death and the possibility of an afterlife. Frankl criticizes the common assumption that therapists should automatically send their patients back to the priest or minister for spiritual counseling. His view is that therapists need to grapple personally with the ultimate questions of life and to be open to exploring this territory with their patients.
He does not see logotherapy as a separate school of thought competing with existing therapies. Rather, logotherapy is an important supplement to clinical frameworks, expanding them, and providing psychotherapists with a more holistic vision of people.
"A psychotherapy which not only recognizes man's spirit, but actually starts from it may be termed logotherapy. In this connection, logos is intended to signify "the spiritual" and, beyond that, "the meaning."
It is, of course, not the aim of logotherapy to take the place of existing psychotherapy, but only to complement it, thus forming a picture of man in his wholeness -which includes the spiritual dimension"<r x1). 2
(2) Frankl asserts the existence of" a
"spiritual unconscious." He states: "It is the business of existential analytic logotherapy to trace the neurotic mode of being to its ultimate ground. Sometimes the ground of neurotic existence is to be seen in a deficiency, in that a person's relation to transcendence is repressed. But although concealed in 'the transcendent unconscious', repressed transcendence shows up and makes itself noticeable as an 'unrest of the heart' 'irr. 67-08). 2 Frankl adds that many people feel sensitive
about discussing religious impulses and experiences for fear of being misunderstood or having that which they hold as most sacred profaned by others. He found a fear among many patients that a therapist might attempt to unmask what they hold to be a genuine religious experience. They fear that the experience might be conceptually reduced to fit a pre-existing framework, or interpreted as some type of "religious archetype." Frankl calls for openness in seeing spirituality as a genuine human need in itself, needing to be shared or experienced on its own terms, and not explained away by outside systems. Likewise, transpersonal therapists attempt to integrate and validate spiritual experiences rather than discount them or explain them away.
(3) Frankl is critical of" reductionist attitudes. This is a particularly important contribution to transpersonal psychology, because of the widespread reductionistic thinking in psychology today. Reductionism reduces human experience to its component parts, explaining complex phenomena as "nothing but" a single aspect. For example, a dream is viewed as "nothing but" an epiphenomenon of the mind. This attitude tends to close off discussion and investigation rather than encourage openness to further data or new interpretations.
Frankl consistently opposes reductionism. He states that psychotherapy has expansiveness as its goal, and therapists need to view themselves as expanders, rather than "shrinker," exploring all aspects of the patient's humanness.
(4)
Frankl stresses the importance of meaning in human l(f"e. He reports numerous clinical cases and research projects4 that indicate the prevalent contemporary concern about finding meaning in life. He distinguishes between ordinary meaning and ultimate meaning. In essence, he says that religion is humanity's time-honored concern for ultimate meaning, and that unresolved religious questions contribute to existential anxiety. If therapists are to assist patients in coping with this existential anxiety, they must be open to making a place for spiritual concerns within the therapeutic hour.

(5)
Frank values dreams in psychotherapy. In his view dreams are special crossroads in the roadmap of psychological travel

33
ing because they have so much potential, are so full of mystery, and so rich in their possibilities. Frankl suggests that in encountering the dream, we stand at the threshold of the mystery ofconsciousness itself. He affirms the basic spirituality of the dream, reminding us of the important place dreams have held in the spiritual consciousness in most religious traditions. In Judaism and Christianity, traced to their roots, we find an abundance of dreams related in the Bible and used as a source of personal inspiration and revelation5. According to Frankl:
"Dreams are the true creations ofthe un
conscious, and therefore we may expect
that not only elements of the instinctual
unconscious will come to the fore, but
elements of the spiritual unconscious as
well. Thus we use the same method
Freud did when he tracked down the in
stinctual unconscious, but we may use
the method to a different end, the disclos
ure of the spiritual unconscious", ,r 4oi.3
Insofar as dreams provide the link to the
infinite, they are as varied as a consciousness and creation itself. Transpersonal psychologists tend to share this attitude of expansiveness, trying to hear what the dream has to say about our preconceived notions, rather than what our preconceived notions have to say about the dream. In this sense the dream is a perpetual "safety valve," capable at any time of freeing us from the prison of the rational mind into the expansive universe beyond, and ultimately, into the intuitive mode of knowing. Dreams, therefore, foster the spiritual life, teaching each of us to follow our own conscience (consciousness), and to perceive the universe directly, i.e. intuitively, rather than only filtering it through the senses and the rational mind.
(6) Frankl stresses self-transcendence as a psychotherapeutic issue. According to his view, self-transcendence is a uniquely human capacity, and without it life feels ultimately empty and meaningless. This emptiness, along with the usual array of neuroses and conflicts, is often part of what patients bring to the therapist and therefore it needs to be addressed. Frankl defines self-transcendence in these terms:
"Being human is being always directed, and pointing, to something or someone
other than oneself: to a meaning to ful
fill or another human being to encoun
ter, a cause to serve or a person to love.
Only to the extent that someone is living
out this self-transcendence of human
existence, is he truly human or does he
become his true self'<r-Js1.4
A transpersonal approach to psychother
apy also affirms the value of self-transcend
ence.6 However, there is a distinction between
Frankl's self-transcendence -a choice to focus
outward rather than inward -and the view
point held by many transpersonal psycholo
gists, that self-knowledge is essential for en
lightened action in the world. Either way,
transpersonal psychologists would strongly
agree with Frankl that self-transcendence is a
central issue in psychotherapy.
(7) Frankl emphasizes self-detachment. This concept parallels the ascetic traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, in stressing detachment as necessary for health and happiness. This is the third of the Buddha's four noble truths: By giving up craving we can be free of suffering.
Self-detachment, to Frankl, is our ability to stand apart from ourselves, to let go of our concerns and opinions, and to experience the sense of freedom that comes with this 51tate of mind. He calls this attitude "an important coping mechanism'lr 16J 4 and places a special value on "that aspect of self-detachment which is represented by humor'lp 16i.4 Selfdetachment includes the willingness to laugh at ourselves, not to take ourselves too seriously. Here, once again, Frankl has borrowed an ancient spiritual concept, and given it special consideration in the context of psychotherapy.
These seven aspects of logotherapy are also an integral part of transpersonal psychology. Those who affiliate with the transpersonal movement are indebted to Frankl both for his thinking and for his personal courage and outspokenness. He has repeatedly dared to speak the unspeakable, and to address publicly some of our deepest human longings and most vulnerable sensitivities. Whenever we attempt to address our religious concerns we are always faced by a dilemma: we feel irn · pelled to speak about God and the numinous, but sense the futility and limitation of words. And yet, we must speak. If we are, then, so
34
impelled to address this mystery, let us hope that we will always have sensitive and courageous guides such as Frankl to point out the path.
Frankl is a man with a special quality for our age. Following the holocaust, we have been bombarded with the negative, pessimistic despair of the "Angst" philosophers, playwrights, and film directors. Yet Frankl, who probably endured as much personal suffering as any man, has emerged with a message of hope and optimism for humanity. By his example he teaches the central thesis of his writings: that the attitude we bring to any experience will, in the end, determine whether we transcend the experience or are buried beneath it. For Frankl it matters less what life brings to us; it matters most what we bring to life.
Out of the concentration camp has come the clarion. Out of the desert has come a precursor, crying out to a profession in search of the human soul, crying out to an age hungry for the renewal of its spirit.
KENNETH KELZER, M.S. W., is a transpersonal psychotherapist in private practice and instructor at the College ofMarin, Kentfield, California.
FRANCES VAUGHAN, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice, past president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and member ofthefaculty ofthe Cal(fornia Institute for Transpersonal Psychology.
RICHARD GORRINGE, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice and instructor at the College of Notre Dame, Belmont, California.
REFERENCES:
I. Frager. Robert. "What is Transpcrsonal Psychology?" Newsletter ol the Association fi,r Transpersvnal I',ychvlogy. Stanford, Calif., Fall 1979.
2.
Frankl, Viktor E. The Dvctvr and the Soul, New York, Vintage Books, 1955.

3.
_____ The Uncunscivus God. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1975.

4________ The Unheard Cryfor Meaning,
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1978.
5. Kelsey, Morton. /)reams: The Dark Speech ol the Spirit, New York, Doubleday, 1968.
6.
Vaughan, Frances. "Transpersonal Perspectives in Psychotherapy," Journal ol Humanistic Psvchologr, 1977, 17,2, 69-81.

7.
______. "Transpersonal Psychotherapy: Context, Content and Process," Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1979, 11,2, In press.

A Personal Recollection
Dr. Frankl and I were part of a group of friends who often met in Vienna. Viktor joined the scientific meetings, held under the chairmanship of my father, Alfred Adler, and his remarks always were original and gave rise to many discussions.
I particularly enjoyed my personal contact with him. We often went swimming in the Danube, together with a group offriends, and we always had a wonderful time together. I
Alexandra Adler and Frankl al a Heurigen in left Vienna in 1935 and was terribly distressed postwar Vienna. to hear that he had been caught by the Nazis
in New York, a few years ago, when I felt the and thrown in a concentration camp. I read same personal closeness as I did during ourhis books and reports about these years and joyful encounters in Vienna.
find them among the most impressive I have read. ALEXANDRA ADLER, M.D., clinicalpro
It was with great pleasure for me and my fessor of psychiatry, New York University husband to have him as a guest, together with School of Medicine, and medical director of a group of some 20 friends, at my apartment the Alfred Adler Mental Health Clinic.

35
impelled to address this mystery, let us hope that we will always have sensitive and courageous guides such as Frankl to point out the path.
Frankl is a man with a special quality for our age. Following the holocaust, we have been bombarded with the negative, pessimistic despair of the "Angst" philosophers, playwrights, and film directors. Yet Frankl, who probably endured as much personal suffering as any man, has emerged with a message of hope and optimism for humanity. By his example he teaches the central thesis of his writings: that the attitude we bring to any experience will, in the end, determine whether we transcend the experience or are buried beneath it. For Frankl it matters less what life brings to us; it matters most what we bring to life.
Out of the concentration camp has come the clarion. Out of the desert has come a precursor, crying out to a profession in search of the human soul, crying out to an age hungry for the renewal of its spirit.
KENNETH KELZER, M.S. W., is a transpersonal psychotherapist in private practice and instructor at the College ofMarin, Kentfield, California.
FRANCES VAUGHAN, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice, past president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and member ofthefaculty ofthe Cal(fornia Institute for Transpersonal Psychology.
RICHARD GORRINGE, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice and instructor at the College of Notre Dame, Belmont, California.
REFERENCES:
I. Frager. Robert. "What is Transpcrsonal Psychology?" Newsletter ol the Association fi,r Transpersvnal I',ychvlogy. Stanford, Calif., Fall 1979.
2.
Frankl, Viktor E. The Dvctvr and the Soul, New York, Vintage Books, 1955.

3.
_____ The Uncunscivus God. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1975.

7.
______. "Transpersonal Psychotherapy: Context, Content and Process," Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1979, 11,2, In press.

35
Karol Wojtyla and Logotherapy
Kazimierz Popielski
In June 1977 I organized an all-Polish colloquium on Iogotherapy m Lublin, Poland. Participating were psychology theoreticians and practitioners who, in addition to their training in psychology. had also studied biology, philosophy, medicine, sociology, or theology.
The colloquium compared Viktor Frankl's ideas with those of other therapists, (such as Perls, Rogers, Wolfe) and with the philosophical-ethical thoughts of theologians. Among the latter were those of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, at that time professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin, the present Pope John Paul II.
Although both scholars arrived at their thoughts by different routes (philosophy and psychotherapy), their ideas concurred on what essentially it means to be human -on such areas as freedom, responsibility, selftranscendence, but also alienation.
Both scholars see human beings as deciding subjects rather than manipulable objects free, responsible, in continuous develop-ment, and reaching beyond themselves. These characteristics, and the human capacity to function in the three dimensions of body, mind, and spirit, make for their uniqueness of being human. Because many scientific studief tend to neglect these characteristics, such studies often produce a reductionistic picture of the person, diminished by a truly important human dimension -the spirit.

W ojtyla analyzes the concept of the human person in Love and Responsibility1 and The Person and His Acts2, and in a series of articles including "Person and Community".3 In these works he develops a truly personalistic concept of the human being. The real function of philosophy, he says, is a basic understanding of human nature, of human actions and interactions. "Philosophy must help us with basic understandings and ultimate explanations '<P 6l.3 The need for such understandings and explanations, writes W ojtyla, accompanies human existence during everyone's life. In some moments of history, as in crises and confrontations, the need becomes especially strong. Our contemporary situation is such a time -a time ofgreat conflict about the meaning of personal and human existence.
As shown by Frankl, this conflict has more than theoretical-scientific implications. It also plays an important part in the existence of the individual who, feeling isolated spiritually, reacts to the reality of present-day life with a neurosis which characterizes our times and which Frankl calls "noogenic," originating in the spirit. This neurosis may enter a person's "existential vacuum" when he or she has lost direction and cannot find values and meanings. Such patients bring to the psychiatric consulting room not only a philosophical but also a theological-ethical problem. They "function" properly but "feel" bad. Both Wojtyla and Frankl see human nature in more than physical functions and psycho1 ogical reactions. They see human essence only insufficiently explained by facts and the intuitions of philosophers. Both scholars believe that human beings not only "function" on a physio-psychological level but also aspire to fulfill themselves as individuals in the dimension of the spirit. Human beings are seen as more than the sum oftheir parts: Only by considering the totality of all three dimensions can the human being be understood philosophically and ethically (Wojtyla) but also made and kept healthy (Frankl).
The Dual Ethical Principle
Wojtyla formulates a dual ethical principle which is the base of human dignity. The positive principle says, "An individual is of such high value that his proper treatment is only through love'~r 111 . 1 The negative principle states, "An individual is of such a high quality that he must not be used and cannot be treated as an object of use and as a means to an end 'lr i11 . 1 Therefore, a person cannot be an object of use but only an object of love.
Frankl formulates the same idea somewhat differently by regarding it the truly distinctive characteristic of love that it does not take a human being as an object but recognizes -and fully respects -the subject quality of the human person. On the basis of such a personalistic view -which unites Wojtyla's and Frankl's understanding of humanness -is Frankl's call for a "rehumanization of psychotherapy" understandable.
Wojtyla sees the human being as an individual with the full capacity of selfdetermination. This capacity forms the basis for both managing oneself and giving oneself to others. On these grounds also, the I-Thou relationship in the sense of Martin Buber can establish itself. The ability to give of oneself contributes to the discovery of meaning in human existence.
All this is in perfect accordance with Frankl's contention that self-actualization is a by-product of self-transcendence. Since fulfillment cannot occur directly but only through involving oneself in behalf of another person, the dialogical structure of human existence is disclosed -the relationship among human beings, and the relationship between humans and God. In fact, "participation" in the Thou is an essential part of human nature. The "we" is created on the basis of participation. On the other hand, isolation from the "we" deprives a person of self-fulfillment and makes him or her the victim of alienation, the antithesis of participation. This concept also elucidates the kinship between "alienation" and the logotherapeutic idea of the existential vacuum.
Human beings not only exist but act. And acting conversely influences their existence. Or, as Frankl puts it, human beings not only act according to their existence (in the words of Thomas Aquinas: agere sequitur esse acting follows being) but they also "become" according to how they act. In therapy, Frankl uses this insight through "thedefiant power of the human spirit" which enables patients to take a stand against limitations in the physiopsychological dimension -to act within, and often even against, unavoidable handicaps. Similarly, Wojtyla writes, "Human consciousness and freedom, the essence of the human spirit, give human beings, as they grow up, the strength to conquer their somatic and psychic dimensions'ir 101. 3
Both scholars, then, define humans through what they think but primarily through how they act. In their acts they reveal themselves in their truest and deepest reality. When people think, they can lie. When they feel, they can change. But in their acts they show their unique truth about themselves. In their acts they show how they express their freedom, responsibly or irresponsibly, according to their true self or for the sake of achieving an end.
Translated from the Polish bv John Tworek
KAZIMIERZ POPIELSKI, Ph.D., is associate prqfessor ofpsychology at the Institute ofPhilosophy, Catholic University ofLublin, Poland.
REFERENCES:
I. Wojtyla, Karol, Mi/o.\'C i Odpowiedzialnosc. Krakow, 1968.
2. ______ . Osoba i Czrn. Krakow, 1969.
3. _____ . "Osoba: Podmiot: Wspolnota" in Roczniki Filozo(iczne, XXIV (2), 1976.
37
Logotherapy and Social Change
Guillermo Pareja-Herrera
The Department of Human Development of the Universidad lberoamericana in Mexico City offers a general course in logotherapy to graduate students in a variety of fields in addition to psychology, medicine, and counseling. Students in engineering, architecture, economics, political science, and education arc learning about the basic tenets of a world view that is centered on freedom of action within the limits of self-imposed responsibleness, a self-transcending outreach toward others, and an understanding of the person as a biological-psychological-spiritual totality concerned with meanings and values.
The course is offered to classes of up to 25 students, meeting for four months for a total of 64 hours of work, which includes reading and discussing textbooks on logotherapy, and relating the ideas to their experiences. The stated goals are the enrichment of their perspectives in their own lives and their profession, so they can pass on their training to others.
Social Changes in Latin America
Latin America is undergoing deep social changes, as a result of questioning, reorienting, and newly organizing the social system, its institutions, and its hierarchy of values. The social sciences are often criticized because they restrict themselves to levels that merely describe and explain without achieving actual changes.
Logotherapy, as all other human sciences, is vulnerable to this criticism. The fundamental questions the logotherapy course at the Universidad Iberoamericana raises are: What is the social role of logotherapy and what contributions can it make toward a meaningful social change in Latin America?
Logotherapy admits that it does not have
the answer to all social problems. But it is a
vital supplement to be used with other ap
proaches because in all human relationships
the search for meaning is a central motiva
tion. Logotherapy -whether applied as
specific therapy or as a method to promote human development -vitalizes the process of awareness of a person (an individual alone or in groups, organizations, or communities) to make him or her more humanly authentic. This authenticity is achieved by stressing individual uniqueness, freedom and responsibility ofchoice, awareness of the "tragic triad" of human existence -unavoidable suffering, guilt, and death -and self-transcendence toward meaning.
The history of the Latin American continent is a continuous search for its identity based on a synthesis of native and Spanish elements. This search has frequently resulted in confusion, disorientation, and especially frustration.
The existential frustration is more evident when individuals, within their communities or nations, feel that they are not making their own history, when they themselves are not the ones to make decisions motivated by values of their own which they discover in their daily lives.
Although the people in Latin America live under diverse conditions, their common denominator is their intense search for identity and meaning. This search questions the social structures and their values and priorities. Some of the values that have sustained family life, or religious or political life, are in a crisis because these values are seen as not adequate for solving the inner crises of Latin America.
In politics, the individual is torn between two historical currents in most Latin American countries: a military government that relies on nationalistic doctrines and national security leading to emphasis on armaments; and groups that demand a civilian dictatorship. In economics, the trend is toward increasing "consumerism," the consumption of material goods. In the midst of this play of forces, the individual is lost in the confusion and doesn't know in which direction to go.
The alternative to seeking political power
38
or economic material goods is a return to a humanistic orientation centering rather on being more than having more. However, "being more" as a person still requires fulfillment of basic material needs, so the solution of the problem lies in social justice.
Work with Other Human Sciences
Logotherapy, to be effective, has to work with other human sciences to seek solutions of social problems. In other words, logotherapy can help people become conscious of their own humanness through concrete actions in different fields.
In education, understood as a process of learning, discovery and creativity, logotherapy directs attention not to the accumulation of technical data but to the integration of information toward meanings within one's own context of values. One of the tasks of education is to strengthen the students' ability to listen to their conscience to find a direction in their lives, either within the values of their society, or outside -and even opposed to those societal values.
In the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, economics, the promotion of social work), logotherapy can cooperate with their representives to interpret social reality in a way that is non-reductionistic and nondeterministic: to point to the "power of the human spirit" which can take a stand against the overwhelming forces the individual faces today.
In medicine, psychology, and therapy logotherapy offers a unified holistic view of the human being which does not limit itself to the biological and psychological level but reaches into the human dimension of the spirit where the person is free and responsible for making choices and taking on commitments.
In theology, logotherapy can collaborate with the Judea-Christian tradition which sees in human existence a demand to establish positive relationships with other people, to transcend one's personal needs and desires, and to be aware ofa 'suprahuman' dimension.
In philosophy, logotherapy offers an inductive quality of reflection and scientific investigation centering on the unity of the human being. It goes, however, beyond inductive reasoning to the wisdom of the human spirit and its resources, including one's meaning orientation.
Logotherapy defines itself not as a replacement of classic psychotherapy but as its natural and necessary complement by drawing people's attention to what it means to be human. It offers an interdisciplinary dialogue whose objective is the rehumanization of the sciences. The social situation in Latin America requires all manifestations of human wisdom to find answers to the question of selfidentity, not in the direction of political power, economic materialism, and hedonism, but in the direction of meaning.
Translated.from the Spanish hy Flora de la Tour
Mfro. GUILLERMO PAREJA-HERRERA is professor in the Department of" Human Development, Universidad Jberoamericana, Mexico City.

Guillermo Pareia-Herreru with the Frankl.1· in Vienna.
39
Three Faces of Frankl

I know several facets of Viktor Frankl. On his American tours, he is always under pressure from people who want to see him, interview him, confer with him. He is very jealous of time, refuses all chitchat over a drink or a cup of coffee, and does not even take time for a leisurely meal in a restaurant.
In his hometown, Vienna, Frankl is a different man. He still is rushed because he insists on answering his voluminous mail himself, but he takes time out to enjoy life and experiences the meaning of the moment as he sees it. Once, my wife and I walked with him through the strees of Vienna, and he suddenly grabbed our arms and pulled us into a coffee shop. "Smell," he said. "Freshly ground coffee." A few steps later he pulled us into a bakery. "Smell," he said again, "fresh Viennese rolls." He enjoys the continuous stream of logotherapists who visit him. This summer, when we were in Vienna, in one afternoon logotherapists from five countries were assembled in his apartment -from Austria, Germany, Poland, Mexico, and the United States.
A third Viktor Frankl is Frankl on the
mountain top. Every weekend he and his wife
Elly drive two hours to the Rax mountain
where they have their private room in a
mountain inn. There he is surrounded by
mountain guides, other rock climbers, and
guests. Some know who he is but most of
them see only a little old man who insists on
climbing a vertical rock to get to a place which
easily can be reached by a winding but com
fortable foot path. On the mountain, Frankl
is relaxed, jokes around with the guides, and
takes his time eating and chatting with
Joseph Fahry presentinK Frankl with the Alhert Schweitzer A ward at the Festival of' Meaninx, Berkeley, I977.
strangers. Two months ago my wife and I
spent a weekend with the Frankls on that
mountain top. During the midday rush, in the
open-air snack hut where people were drink
ing beer and eating sausages, Frankl helped
the overburdened waiter by clearing the tables
of beer glasses. While he was making his way
to the kitchen with an armful of empty
glasses, a young girl asked for his autograph.
He put down the· glasses and obliged. But
most of the guests don't know him. He told
me, this summer when he was clearing the
tables, one guest asked him to bring him a
beer. Frankl went to the kitchen and brought
the beer. The guest paid him and gave him a
tip. When Frankl hesitated, the guest said,
"Come on, you deserve it, you have such a
nice smile." When Frankl later tried to pass
on the tip to the waiter, the waiter refused.
"You earned it," he said. Frankl did not want
to keep the tip, and neither did the waiter.
They made a deal, and so it happened that the
Institute of Logotherapy received a contri
bution of 35 cents.
But there is still another Frankl, and that is
Frankl the prophet. He is a prophet in the
Biblical sense -a man not to predict the future
but to warn against its horrors. The horror
Frankl is warning against is the horror of a
meaningless life, an empty or frustrated life.
He is not only warning against such a life but
has developed his logotherapy to prevent it.
JOSEPH FABRY, editor ofthe International Forum for Logotherapy. (From his introduction of" Dr. Frankl in Berkeley, November 2, 1979)
40
Frankl's Impact on Jewish Life and Thought
Reuven P. Bulka

The best way to describe the relationship between Frankl and the Jewish community is to call it "paradoxical." This, to be sure, comes without any "intention."
If one compares the number of invitations Frankl receives to address universities and religious groups with invitations to address Jewish groups, the ratio leans astronomically away from exposure to Jewish organizations.
On the other hand -and this may surprise even Frankl himself -his books, especially Man '.s Search for Meaning, have formed the basis for an untold number of sermons by rabbis in their synagogues and perhaps rank among the most popular books being circulated within the religious environment of yeshivot (schools for intensive Jewish learning).
Both rabbis and rabbinical students sec Frankl's thought as remarkably similar to Judaism in many ways. It therefore seems incongruous that invitations to speak to Jewish organizations are so infrequent when what he has to say is so much in tune with Jewish frequency. One could simply explain away the hesitancy of Jewish organizations to invite Frankl with the rationale that he is a nonconformist relative to the psychoanalytical school and therefore should be avoided. But there is more to it. What explains the excitement of many with Frankl's thoughts and the hesitancy of others to partake of it, can be expressed in one simple word, "authenticity."
Authentic Religiousness
Frankl has grasped the essence ofauthentic religiousness and projected it in simple, intelligible terms. I have written many articles and delivered countless lectures showing logotherapy's affinity with Judaism. Frankl himself is aware of the association of meaning with Torah, Jewish law, and Jewish life. Once, he jestingly suggested that the Judaic version to be titled "logo-torah-py."
Judaism shares with logotherapy a refusal to make life complex. The notion of transcendence toward an objective-value world fits well with a lifestyle such as Judaism and its emphasis on orientation around an objective revealed law. The dynamics of transcendence is logotherapy's greatest strength and attractiveness for rabbis and rabbinical students. It may, however, be a little bit too heavy for many Jewish institutions which have either explicit or implicit biases agains the transcendence approach.
Judaism is not a parochial religion. It believes in God as the Creator ofthe universe, not in a localized God of a specific people. Because Judaism is the faith system that projected monotheism as a basic religious norm, it would be expected that it should espouse all that which emanates naturally from the monotheistic ideal. In one simple sentence Frankl eloquently projects the natural extension of monotheism. He asserts that, if monotheism speaks about the unity of God, its natural corollary should be "monanthropism," the unity of humankind.
One fascinating feature of logotherapy is that it is at once permeated with views consistent with Judaic thought and yet eminently adaptable to any faith system (see Bulka1). This adaptability is an ingredient that logotherapy shares with Judaism. After all, the monotheism espoused by Judaism has been adopted and adapted by Christianity and Islam. The natural extension of monotheism into monanthropism has not been accepted, however, by some other religions, so Frankl's
41
monanthropic ideal may even be interpreted as a plea to religions for something more than mere tolerance, namely genuine acceptance.
Implications of the Holocaust
A matter of growing concern within the global Jewish community in the late I 970's, a concern which is certain to flow into the l 980's, evolves around the Holocaust: A concern about the theological implications of the destruction of six million Jews, the implication of survival in the existential sense, and the effects of the Holocaust in terms of a trauma transmitted to survivors and their children. It is also a topic area of concern for Frankl.
Logotherapy, it is wrongfully assumed, was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust. In fact, Frankl had established the tenets of logotherapy long before. However, the Holocaust did serve to hone the principles of logotherapy and to make the world more receptive to logotherapy's message. Frankl is a survivor of four concentration camps. His is an eloquent pen and, as has been pointed out, his thoughts are remarkably consistent with a Judaic world view. Yet, aside from "honorable mention," he is almost totally absent from major books which anthologize literature emanating from the Holocaust. And yet, few books as eloquent as Man'.1-Search for Meaning have appeared on the scene.
To some extent, this has evoked in me the nagging suspicion that there is a conspiracy to stifle the spread of Frankl's thought. One might optimistically counter that anthologies about the Holocaust refrain from reprinting works which have sold in the millions, but the same absence is evident even in works by Jewish philosophers proposing their own views about the Holocaust. All this again can be explained along the lines of that all-important word. "authenticity." Frankl takes an approach to the Holocaust which is totally inconsistent with the type of literature one finds now on book shelves, but which is nevertheless perhaps the most eloquent Jewish reaction. In maintaining an unconditional faith in God and an equally unconditional faith in the meaningfulness of life, Frankl refuses to allow the Holocaust to become a bartering ingredient in faith. Life remains meaningful even after the Holocaust, and of that there can be no question<p. 16). 4
Individual suffering is approached with the same degree of unconditionality as is mass suffering. In line with the famous statement of Rabbe Akiva that one must affirm faith even as God literally is taking away one's life, Frankl affirms his faith even in the face of the mass destruction which he saw and the attempts to reduce human beings to animals. He makes a statement that undoubtedly shocks many a Holocaust theologian: that he would prefer a world in which Hitler is possible to a world where we are all programmed to do good. A world in which evil is possible is a world which freely chooses, so that the free choice toward good is meaningful and expresses a true human act. 3 Programmed goodness is devoid of choice, stripped of all human volition, and therefore, without meaning.
I have shown elsewhere in more detaiJ2 how Frankl's approach is the most authentic Jewish approach to the Holocaust. The problem is that Frankl's approach invalidates much of the pessimistic and even negativistic philosophy which has emanated from the Holocaust. His approach is authentic, but at the same time, also nonconformist when judged against the backdrop of much of the literature on the subject. The suspicion, therefore, of either a calculated ignoring or a deliberate stifling of Frankl's views can be understood, even if not accepted. in the light of this explanation.
I am hopeful that the future relationship between logotherapy and Judaism holds the promise of a more genuine understanding and dialogue. In conversations with those who have been exposed to logotherapy and who have seen some of the comparative articles linking logotherapy and Judaism, I sense an awareness of the impact logotherapy can and should make on Jewish thought.
Personally, I feel that the logotherapeutic system of life and its orientation around meaning can open up new vistas and even elicit a formulation of Jewish philosophy which would be traditional in its base and refreshing and invigorating in its application. At the same time, it would be wrong to suggest that Judaism has any exclusive hold on Frankl. Frankl is too concerned about the global world that his thoughts should be relegated to any one group, be it religious or non
42
religious. This concern for the global picture is ironically, if not paradoxically, a basic ingredient of Judaism itself. Logotherapy, by extending itself to all spheres and all peoples, affirms the universal in a way which is Judaic in spirit and universally congenial in the spiritual.
REUVEN P. BULKA, Ph.D., is rabbi of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa, Canada, and editor ofthe Journal ofPsrchology and Judaism.
REFERENCES:
I. Bulka, Reuven P. 'The Ecumenical Ingredient of Logotherapy." Journal of" Fcumenical S1udies, 11(1). 1974, pp. 13-24.
2. ------·"Logotherapy as a Response to the Holocaust." Tradi1iun. 15 (I and 2). 1975, pp. 89
96.
3. Frankl, Yiktor E. "The Philosophical Foundations of 1.ogotherapy" in Phenomenologl': Pure and Applied, Erwin Strauss, ed. Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press. I 964.
4_______ The Unconscious God. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1975.
Visits to Auschwitz and Dachau
In the Spring of 1961, Dr. Frankl revisited Auschwitz for the first time. When I asked him, as we were driving from Vienna across Czechoslovakia, what it did to him to be going back to Auschwitz, he replied that when you have lived with death everyday for two and one-half years in four different concentration camps, nothing really can touch you.
We saw the ovens, the gas chambers, the medical experimental wards, the very bunk in which Frankl slept in one of the large dormatories. As we left and were driving out of the camp, Frankl asked us to stop, and got out ofthe car to take a picture. He had noticed a smoke stack in a neighboring small industry with smoke pouring out. Between us and the smoke stack was a flowering bush with spring blossoms. He took a picture of the scene, noting that the smoke now coming from the smoke stacks of Auschwitz is no longer from the burning of gassed corpses but is now from a constructive industry. The blossoming bush and the commercial smoke both spoke of new hope and constructive achievement in graphic contrast to the horror of the concentration camp.
*
Late in the Spring of 1961 my wife and I drove Dr. and Mrs. Frankl to revisit one of the outpost camps of Dachau, where Frankl had been imprisoned. Nothing was left of the camp, but Dr. Frankl ideniified the open field where the camp had been by its relationship to railroad tracks and roads. Hidden in the weeds he found the cement platform where the kitchen had stood, and picked up some pieces of barbed wire, one ofwhich we have in the Graduate Theological Union Frankl Library and Memorabilia. As he stood on the cement platform and looked out over the fields he asked me, "Do you see the cross?" I had only seen high tension wires strung on huge supports marching across the fields, but Frankl had seen the shape of the cross in the design of the supports. He saw the cross standing on the ground where suffering and death had been the order of the day. Out of the tragedy of Dachau he saw the hope of the cross.

Rohert Leslie introducing Frankl at the luncheon opening o/ the Viktor t:. Frankl Lihrarr and Memorahilia in Berke/er.
ROBERTC. LESUE, Ph.D., deanandprofessor of pastoral psychology and counseling, Pacific School c1f Religion, Berkeley, Cal!fornia.
43
Logotherapy as a Theory of Culture
Walter Bockmann
The search for meaning as primary motivation has proved to be a tool for psychotherapy and, beyond that, for other areas of human experiences.u This essay explores the influence logotherapeutic theory may have on the establishment of values in a culture.
A.L. Shostrom8 in his Personality Orientation Inventory Test has stated (referring to Maslow, Riesman, Rogers, Perls, and others) that "autonomy of human action" is the goal of all psychotherapeutic efforts, and "selfactualization" the central indicator for this autonomy. It is the accomplishment of logotherapy to have elucidated selfactualization as search for meaning4 which, however, does not take place in a vacuum but within the framework of a social system with recognized values which are learned by the individual.
I should like to argue that logotherapy provides not only insights in individual cases of self-actualization and the finding of personai meanings, but that it also helps interpret the process of cultural development itself, focusing on the search for meaning. This establishes logotherapy as a theory of culture.
According to Frankl's value theory, "values [are] those meaning universals which crystallize in the typical situations a society or even humanity has to face. "5 The individual's search for meaning and meaning fulfillment through value acceptance presupposes a superstructure of a value system which individuals do not create but derive from their culture. The culture also influences their conscience although it does not always give them the strength to follow that part of their conscience that is influenced by their culture.Nor does their culture relieve them of decisionmaking in finding meaning or giving priority to societal values. "Culture is both fulfillment and frustration. "5 So is the search for meamng.
In line with humanistic logotherapy.
culture can be defined as search for meaning and expression of meaning. The representatives of a culture actualize -as the essence of that culture -those values which they have experienced and developed. Values are not suddenly discovered as existing facts, as
Columbus discovered America. In the same way, finding meaning is not a sudden, isolated discovery but a process, and sometimes a long and painful experience.
Culture, like meaning, is not created by revelation, but is the result of living history. Culture evaluates experience, postulates value experiences. and is based on traditional value experiences. Hence, cultural change means change of values, in some cases reevaluation of values. It need not disturb us that what the individual experiences in his search for meaning is shared in a culture by many individuals because in a social setting the same causes, under the same conditions and with the same goals. lead to similar experiences. Of course, even in a homogeneous culture deviant behavior occurs.
We cannot investigate here the many
definitions of culture but some random
samples cry for interpretation in !ogothera
pcutic terms. Kluckhohn and Kelly7 use
Tyler's9 definition of culture as "the sum total
of all knowledge, faith, art, morals, laws,
customs, and all other faculties and habits
which human beings acquire as members of
society." Accordingly, they speak not only of
"social habits" but of "socially assessed
habits." Thus they presume implicitly a value
system because "it is impossible to be indif
ferent toward one's own culture. "7 They point
out that culture means the solving of
problems "according to tradition," that is,
~olving problems "in an acquired way." This
formulation -a most concise definition
means the application of all internalized
values acquired by socialization and educa
tion. These acquired habits are not internal
ized at random but "as the result of histori
44
cally determined choices which direct man's reactions toward internal and external stimuli." In logotherapeutic terms5: Values are "meaning universals which are shared by human beings across society and, even more, throughout history."
But history is more than mere passing of time or past events. In regard to specific individuals, history means their destiny, and the shaping of that destiny is also subject to the science of history. Otherwise historians, in the face of the immensity of events, would be no more than record keepers. What the historian selects from among the experiences of the representatives of a culture, as charactenst1c of that culture, is the specific "meaning" of that culture -its typical interpretation and evaluation ofevents and experiences. What the historian selects -the cultural criteria -are interpretations of what has "historically" developed, interpretations of situations and events that are characteristic for that culture, on the basis of how its individual members, as participants of that culture, tend to interpret these situations and events.
All elements which logotherapy lists as relevant for the personal search for meaning the individual effort, uniqueness, the finding of meaning situation by situation, the attention to values -are also evident in these attempts to understand the mysterious inner working of a culture, its premises as well as its goals.
These connections become particularly apparent in Kluckhohn and Kelly's' question whether "culture is made up in such a way that it is able to meet situations which demonstrably have survival value." "Demonstrably" inplies experience, and "meet situations" implies a response to challenges according to basic patterns that have been learned.2 "Survival value" implies, consciously or unconsciously, two things: First. it means tested behavior patterns for physical survival. Second -and this again is a specifically logo
therapeutic idea -it means criteria which not only help us survive but also criteria for which it is worthwhile to have lived.6 The values we receive from religion and ethics have this double function: lo help us survive, and to find life goals and tasks. When Kluckhohn and Kelly attribute to culture "uniqueness at any given moment," \\-e recogni7c familiar logotherapeutic terminology.
At this time, logotherapy is hardly more than a well--focused ray of light directed at a broad not fully explored subject. Yet, further pursuit of these considerations promises to achieve the same concrete results that have been achieved in other areas, equa{ly broad and unexplored, such as its application in industnal management and labor relations, where logotherapy -apart from its main application, psychotherapy -has proved its value.
Translatedfrom the German by Max Knight.
WAL TFR BOCKAfA N N is mana1;ement rnnsultant and psychotherapist in Bielefeld,
Germanr.
RFFFRFNCES:
I. Bi>d,mann. Waltrr. "The Baiance Sheet of Meaning in Work," Ihe fnrcrnalional F(Jrum _(i,r LoR01herap_l'. 2. 1979.
Holscha/i der Urzeil. Dtis,eldorf, [con Verlag. 1979.
J. Fabry. Joseph. Reuven Hulka aiid William Sahakian, ed. L0Rotherap_1· in Action. New York. .Jason ;\romon. 1979.
4.
Frankl. Viktor F. "Beyond Self-Actualirntion and Self-Expression,,. .Journal u( E,istential Psychiatry. I. 1960.

5.
------· 77ie Will to Meaning. New York and Cleveland. The World Publishing company. 1969.

6.
____. "Survival for What?" U n1quest 6. 1976.

7.
Kluckhohn, Clyde and William Kelly. Das Kon::epr der Kultur. Dusseldorf. Econ Verlag. 1972.

8.
Shostrom. E.L. "The POI-Test." Edits, 1976.

9.
Tylor. Fdward B.. Die C11/turwissen.1chafi. Diisseldorf. Econ Verlag. 1972.

45
The Anthropological Foundations of Logotherapy
Paul Polak
Every psychotherapy is based on its anthro
pological foundation -on its answer to what
human nature essentially is. This answer
holds the clue to what can be expected,
assumed, and demanded of a human being in
particular circumstances.
This anthropological aspect -within the
world of psychological experience -presumes
that human beings are not the helpless victims
of natural laws, even though it cannot be
denied that their reactions to some condi
tions follow a compulsory pattern. If human
beings were completely determined by natural
laws, they would not be what we understand
by being "essentially" human.
All therapies, therefore, are caught in a
field of tension between the premise of the
unique existence of the individual and the
attempt of science to capture this existence in
general laws which determine and explain this
existence and make it manipulable by
therapy.
Freud and Adler
Various schools of psychotherapy have
struggled with this attempt to perceive and
define human nature.
Freud's psychoanalysis interprets human
existence in biological terms. Human destiny
is seen basically as determined by drives.
Whatever the human being sees and experi
ences as tasks, meanings, and life content, is
"demasked" to something that is reduced
below the essentially human. It is seen as a
sublimation or secondary rationalization, a
mere means to an end. And the end, the
essential goal of the human being is drive
satisfaction and the resulting physio
psychological harmony and homeostasis.
Freud's is the model of a biologistic anthro
pology which may have corresponded to a realize that, by generalizing limited experiences, he introduced into psychology the biological perspective as an a priori to all experiences, and that by doing so he added to the picture of the human being what he then analyzed away.

Adler's individual psychology takes in this respect a step forward. Human beings are interpreted, beyond their biological perspective, in their social context. The goal of the individual is to gain power or status within society and through service to society. This service to society-the principle offellowshippresents a why, a meaning orientation, reduced, however, by the individual's main motivation to act "for my own sake." This intention to serve society "for my own sake" makes the meaning orientation a means to an end, namely the physio-psychological wellbeing which is understood as a feeling of social belonging. Thus, in individual psychology, the acts of a person are "essentially" human only in a limited sense-they are performed not for society's sake, but "for my sake," in the expectation that they will retroactively be "useful" to the person who performs them.
The criticism ofanthropology begins in this area where all human deeds are seen as performed for the benefit of the doer. In response to such criticism, Frankl developed his concept of the human being as an essentially self-transcending individual. If human nature is seen through the eyes of natural science, people cannot be credited with intentions which transcend their own interests: they would not do or strive for human type or social group in Freud's times. Human nature is understood as determined by the pleasure principle, and human behavior is attributed to it. Freud did not
46
something which ultimately would not benefit them. But then they lose exactly the quality that makes them essentially human. Neither psychoanalysis nor individual psychology, nor subsequent schools of psychotherapy, go beyond these limits of how a human being is to be understood. In all these schools, in spite of some first steps of a breakthrough, the essence of the human being -the spirit remains unacknowledged.
Humanness in Logotherapy
In contrast, logotherapy focuses the understanding of the human person on this essence: Human strivings and actions have no hidden motives that serve a person's own physical wellbeing or psychological security. Frankl maintains that human beings are selftranscendent unless their essence, that is, their spiritual dimension, is blocked by physical sickness or psychological obstructions such as fear. They are not primarily concerned with their physical or psychological equilibrium, not with pleasure, power, status, security, or self-actualization. Human action, that is, meaning-oriented action, implies that people reach beyond the self and in the last analysis forget their self. It is true that, under certain circumstances -there is no guarantee through an orientation toward something "other than himself" 2 a person may achieve as a by-product what he has not intentionally sought: happiness, status, security, and inner equilibrium. But these goals are reached "per effectum" and not "per intentionem" 4 -by effect rather than by intention. And the less people are concerned with these effects, the more independent are they of success, status, security, and pleasure.
What motivates a human being in Frankl's world is not primarily a will to pleasure, power, or even self-actualization, but a "will to meaning." Meaning is seen as pointing to something objective, something existing outside the self. Meaning has a demand quality -the demand coming from life in general, or from the moment in particular. People select from the score of demands facing them the one to which they, to the best of their knowledge, decide to respond. Meaning is never "given,"always discovered, after a conscientious search, within the Gestalt of a situation. To say it once more: When a person responds to satisfy a drive or even to achieve

Paul Polak (heh ind Frank I per/in111i11g apuncture) in prewar Vienna.
actualization, the essence of humanness is lost and the door is opened to neurosis.
The essence of humanness, according to logothcrapy, also requires that meaning can never be taken for granted; that it must be continuously pursued through search and response; that it is always in danger of being lost through discouraging experiences; and that the will to meaning is exercised through self-transcendence3 by realizing objective values.
Conscience and Love
In the personal search for meaning two phenomena need to be mentioned. One is the conscience which keeps awake the human search and the eventual discovery ofmeaning. Frankl calls the conscience the "organ" that enables humans to "sniff out" the meaning of the moment and thus enables them to respond to it. Seen in this way, conscience is not merely where guilt feelings are fostered but where the pursuit of meaning is demanded. Logotherapy is sometimes accused ofcreating guilt feelings by emphasizing conscience. The opposite is true.5
Guilt is reality. It must not be swept under the carpet by some psychotherapy which proclaims: No guilt feelings at any price -they'll ca use sickness. Guilt is one of the extreme situations of human existence which have to be brought up from the noetic (spiritual) un
47
conscious1 so it can be confronted. The conscience, however, has a much more farreaching function than the facing of guilt. It enables human beings to discover their personal relationship to the totality of life, to find out what they are "demanded" to be and to do -what they are "meant" to be and to do. Conscience helps them find their personal relationship to a certain moment, to a constellation of fate, and to life itself. This process may even free people from guilt that was based on apparent demands (f.i. from traditions and conventions) which may violate, falsify, or suppress the self and thus prevent a
person from responding to the true demands of a situation. Conscience does not suppress and restrict, and never causes sickness. It clarifies, shapes, and liberates.
The second phenomenon is love. Just as the conscience serves the search and the finding of meaning, so love serves the realization of
meaning through action -through self-transcending deeds performed for the sake of a person or a cause. Conscience discovers the demands for meaning. but love helps transact mere meaning possibilities into reality. Love is often misunderstood as having a "for me" quality, a demand that will benefit the lover directly. No so. Through love a person acts for someone else, for a cause, for something outside the self. Love is one channel, perhaps the channel, through which -in the anthropology of logotherapy -selftranscendence finds expression.
Translatedfrom the German by Joseph Fabry
PAUL POLAK Ph.D., is a practicing the rapis! in Vienna. Austria,,and one of' Frankl's oldest collea1;w?s.
RFFFRENCES:
I. Fabry. Joseph B. "The Nnetic Unconscious," 771e International Forum j,;r /,of!,otherap_1·, 2, 1979.
2. Frankl, Viktor E. "Self-Transcendence as a Human Phenomenon," Journal ol Humanistic Psycholog1·, Vl(2), 1966_
_. !)a Wille zum Sinn. Bern, Huher, 1978. _ Ar~tliche See!.,·orf!,c. Tenth edition. Wien. Dcuticke, 1979.
5. Tweedie. Donald F. l.of{otherap_v and the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids. Baker Book !louse, 1972.
Behut Dich Gott
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Viktor Frankl has truly been a soul who touched my path and left its mark. More than three decades ago I stood at the gates of Majdanek, one of the most infamous concentration camps of Nazi Germany. There was a stench in the air, an undefinable, alien smell, distant from anything I had ever experienced before -being a young girl hiking alone from Switzerland, my native country, through Europe doing relief work in war-devastated Europe.
I stared at the watchtowers, the barbed-wire fences, the crematoria where 960,000 children vanished. A trainload of baby shoes, wedding rings, promises, hopes, expectations.
That is when I met Rachel, a young Jewish girl who watched her entire family die. She was left behind. Why me? she asked. Then began her search for meaning.
It began for her as it began for me and for Viktor Frankl in the shadows of death in the concentration camp. It would be many years before I would be able to meet this man whose
48
conscious1 so it can be confronted. The conscience, however, has a much more farreaching function than the facing of guilt. It enables human beings to discover their personal relationship to the totality of life, to find out what they are "demanded" to be and to do -what they are "meant" to be and to do. Conscience helps them find their personal relationship to a certain moment, to a constellation of fate, and to life itself. This process may even free people from guilt that was based on apparent demands (f.i. from traditions and conventions) which may violate, falsify, or suppress the self and thus prevent a
person from responding to the true demands of a situation. Conscience does not suppress and restrict, and never causes sickness. It clarifies, shapes, and liberates.
The second phenomenon is love. Just as the conscience serves the search and the finding of meaning, so love serves the realization of
meaning through action -through self-transcending deeds performed for the sake of a person or a cause. Conscience discovers the demands for meaning. but love helps transact mere meaning possibilities into reality. Love is often misunderstood as having a "for me" quality, a demand that will benefit the lover directly. No so. Through love a person acts for someone else, for a cause, for something outside the self. Love is one channel, perhaps the channel, through which -in the anthropology of logotherapy -selftranscendence finds expression.
Translatedfrom the German by Joseph Fabry
PAUL POLAK Ph.D., is a practicing the rapis! in Vienna. Austria,,and one of' Frankl's oldest collea1;w?s.
RFFFRENCES:
I. Fabry. Joseph B. "The Nnetic Unconscious," 771e International Forum j,;r /,of!,otherap_1·, 2, 1979.
2. Frankl, Viktor E. "Self-Transcendence as a Human Phenomenon," Journal ol Humanistic Psycholog1·, Vl(2), 1966_
_. !)a Wille zum Sinn. Bern, Huher, 1978. _ Ar~tliche See!.,·orf!,c. Tenth edition. Wien. Dcuticke, 1979.
5. Tweedie. Donald F. l.of{otherap_v and the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids. Baker Book !louse, 1972.
Behut Dich Gott
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Viktor Frankl has truly been a soul who touched my path and left its mark. More than three decades ago I stood at the gates of Majdanek, one of the most infamous concentration camps of Nazi Germany. There was a stench in the air, an undefinable, alien smell, distant from anything I had ever experienced before -being a young girl hiking alone from Switzerland, my native country, through Europe doing relief work in war-devastated Europe.
I stared at the watchtowers, the barbed-wire fences, the crematoria where 960,000 children vanished. A trainload of baby shoes, wedding rings, promises, hopes, expectations.
That is when I met Rachel, a young Jewish girl who watched her entire family die. She was left behind. Why me? she asked. Then began her search for meaning.
It began for her as it began for me and for Viktor Frankl in the shadows of death in the concentration camp. It would be many years before I would be able to meet this man whose
48
books I studied and whose life I followed.
Rachel chose not to pass on the negativity she witnessed in Majdanek, but to stay there in the hope that she as a survivor could touch a human life in a loving, accepting, and nonjudgmental manner, thus turning negative experiences into positive energy. It was she who showed me the butterflies carved into the barrack walls, which little children scratched in with fingernails or a piece of rock, showing me that those little ones were aware of their impending freedom and life in a more beautiful form after they passed through the gas chambers to their death of the physical existence, the shedding of the cocoon to the emergence of this immortal spirit.
It was there also where Viktor Frankl became aware of the other dimensions of the human person, where his most beautiful book, Man '.s· Search for Meanini, was conceived.
Rachel's humanity and courage touched thousands of lives because of the hell of Majdanek, and Frankl's book, born from his experiences with human inhumanity, touched thousands of lives and became the catalyst for meamng.
And so has my life been changed, and the pain and awareness of these places of horror led to my work, to my attempts to help those whose lives were at the end.
As Rachel continues now to fight negativity in Israel, Frankl working in Europe and I in the United States and Australia, it seems significant that out of the ashes of one place rays of hope, understanding, and search for meaning and purpose in a constructive way have spread literally all over the world.
A few years ago at the end of one of my lectures in California a man in the audience asked me if I had any unfinished business if I should die soon. Without thinking for an instant I said yes. I did wish to "ee three important people before I died. Professor Dournier of Switzerland, Mother Teresa of India, and Viktor Frankl of Vienna. Less than half an hour later I was talking on the telephone with Frankl who happened to be in San Diego that day. Later we met over some pastry and hot chocolates with whipping cream, our old European heritage, and an old dream came true for me. A few weeks later I had a phone call from Mother Teresa and subsequently met her in Washington.
Frankl was the first European physician, psychiatrist, and scientist to study out-ofbody experiences in the thirties, when it was still in the drawers of the obscure. He studied the time it required for a mountain climber, falling from great heights, to review his life experiences which out of the body can be done in the fragment of a moment as time does not exist.
The Unconscious God is perhaps his truest book, or shall I say, the knowledge and wisdom that is still partially hidden between the lines is approaching the truth of human origin, purpose, and destiny.
Frankl has been a catalyst, a stimulator, an example of humanity at its best.
Behiit dich Gott, Viktor! May God grant you many more years to be with us, to open the last doors of understanding.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS, M.D., author of Death and Dying and other hooks, is president ofthe Board ofDirectors, Shanti Ni/aya, Escondido, Cal(f ornia.

49
Logotherapy in Outplacement
Counseling
Frank Humberger
Since Frankl started to develop logo
therapy in the early thirties, his ideas have
spread to areas which he never expected to
influence. One of these areas is "outplace
ment" counseling -the counseling of
employees, especially executives, who have
been discharged from their positions.
Outplacement counseling must deal with
such emotions as shock, lowered self-esteem,
fear, embarrassment, a sense of injustice, as
well as with family responses, personality
differences, masochism, the question of the
will to meaning, and the haunting emotional
question, "Do I have it?"
Many of these emotions are handled more
effectively through logotherapy (healing
through meaning) than through other
methods of counseling which attempt healing
through analysis. Logotherapy treats the
"beyondness factors," the questions of the
spirit such as "What is life all about?" Such
basic questions often surface when candidates
lose their jobs.
Logotherapy practitioners are trained to
help the candidates (not patients) to get
outside the self, to take a transcendent look at
self rather than getting mired down in the
"whys" or analytical traps of other therapies.
The outplacement candidate is in need ofsuch
lifting. Though some candidates may have
personality problems, few are deeply neur
otic, psychotic, or manic-depressive. They
may suffer from a "noogenic neurosis"-a
neurosis originating in their spirit, not by a
past trauma but by a present "existential
vacuum."
The candidate may awaken in the morning
with some dreaded "what if'anxieties: "What
if I don't ever find a job?" "What if I'm not as
good as I thought?" "What if I can't make
enough to keep my family?" Or some "why"
anxieties: "Why me, with my excellent
resume, my years of experience? Why doesn't
someone want me?" In one extreme case, the
candidate's work ego was so badly debilitated that he, an executive of high rank for 25 years, seriously considered suicide. For such candidates, special application of paradoxical intention and dereflection are appropriate.
When candidates are challenged to stand off from themselves, to take stock, and possibly even to put some humor into that potentially tragic moment, they begin to audit assets and liabilities. They begin building selfesteem by developing lists of achievements.
Persons who respond best to logotherapy are those who have a will to meaning, a will to work on possible dreams. This reaching out toward meaning makes them human. The key factors in helping a person get beyond the self is one's will power, the listening to conscience, one's idealism, a sense of purpose, of world orderliness, of self-transcendence and humility -a sense of fallibility in the midst of beautiful possibilities.
Logotherapy can arouse persons who are
mired down in shock, low self-esteem, dis
traught family emotions, injustice collecting,
peer disrespect, and guilt. Traditional
psychiatry is not the answer if it is attuned
only to psychologizing or "gaining insights."
One candidate had been taught to blame his
early traumatic childhood for his failures. But
once he began believing in his "power of the
human spirit," he began taking responsibility
for himself, saying, "I now feel in between: in
between what I was and what I can be. I can be
a good man, I can stop blaming others, I feel
responsible where l can change things, and
not responsible where I can't." He was able to
look at himself and say, "I am okay and I can
be more than I ever was." Self-esteem charged
through his body flushing out the dependency
that years of psychiatry had seemed to foster.
It was also necessary to teach his wife to stop
taking charge of things as though her husband
were sick. Once he took charge of his life
rather than considering himself a victim of
circumstance he went back into business with
50
self-direction and increased his business each year.
Paradoxical Intention
Daryle, age 40, had been with a small Eastern electronics firm since its establishment. Gradually given more responsibilities he had become operations manager of this 125-person corporation. After some time the management decided that Daryle had been Peter-principled* and should be replaced. An outplacement counselor was called in to take care of this sensitive situation and to enable Daryle to be placed in a new position outside. It soon became apparent that the "Peterprinciple" applied to Daryle's personality, not his skills. He had an ego inflation that would not quit. He had "Peter-principled" himself by his arrogant attitude. No "insight therapy" could get this prideful person into positive relationships with his peers. Furthermore, he had three months' severence pay so that the job-enabling counseling had to move fast.
A logotherapeutic treatment, using humor and a special version of (negative) paradoxical intention, was brought into play. The candidate's tendency to "yes but" reactions was turned against his own views when the counselor made exaggerated statements that seemed to agree with the candidate: "The poor company is going to the dogs now that you 're gone," or "They sure dug their own grave getting rid of you." Daryle half agreed and put the other half of his reflection into a picture of himself as it emerged from his spiritual unconscious. Two weeks later, he volunteered: "You were pulling my leg...I didn't do all that much good-especially with some foremen." Again, with the help of humorous exaggeration, he was able to examine the mistakes he had made in significant managerial relationships. He was quite ready to get off his pedestal down to some common sense about where he might best fit in the job market. Before employing these "negative" paradoxes, however, it was vital for the counselor to build complete trust as a friend. The combination of "friend""paradox" pervaded the counseling process.
Daryle, still aiming for a vice-presidency, but having taken stock of his relationship
*The principle states that people advance until they reach their level of incompetence.
deficiencies, took a top-level operations job that would be more technical in scope for at least two years. He sees it as a training ground for becoming more tactful, more responsive, m preparation for his vice-presidency position.
The negative paradox was successful also with Ben, age 43, an accountant who, because of his efficient methods, had worked himself out of his position as a collections specialist. His corporation of 150 people had no new position for him, and in appreciation of the work he had done they recommended him for outplacement counseling. The counselor employed intentional-anxiety situations in order to alleviate his "what if' anxieties. The counselor would say, "Ben, suppose you don't get a job for five years -what would you do then?" Ben, in spite of his anxieties, knew this was ridiculous. His "yet but" reaction was activated and he pointed to his uniqueness: he was an excellent analyzer, a friendly person, and a politician. His sense of shock and injustice gradually made way for an attitude of confidence. He stopped blaming the corporation and began getting on with the business of life. He shortly discovered a corporate position with larger responsibilities at more income than the previous job. Thanks to some in-depth "what if" counseling that gave Ben new confidence, he and his wife were ready to face any job threat that might come along.

Frank Humberf?er ll'ilh Frankl on the 1/umberf?er yacht "l.of?OS" in the San Francisco Bay.
51
executives, especially between the ages of 35
Dereflection
A special form of dereflection can be used in outplacement counseling by getting the candidate away from brooding over the past, to learn from past mistakes, and to concentrate on a systematic self-evaluation and a survey of job possibilities. These new activities which, to the candidate, seem to be preparatory to getting a job, arc in reality therapeutic for the candidate's selfconfidence.
Mary, a 29 year-old specialist in training, had been discharged because she became bored with her work, apathetic about herjob. This came at the same time the corporation was cutting back in operations. She had been highly respected by her peers; thus, "being-Ietgo" deeply affected her self esteem. She regressed into deep grieving, aggravated by the fact that her male companion decided to leave her. She required some action-oriented work to dereflect her thoughts. The counselor gave her the usual job search tests and encouraged her to explore all possible job areas. She spent hours of library research and interviewed people in 25 different kinds of work. The counselor also role-played with her, using the "act as if" method. "Act as if you can become an accountant, a buyer, a salesperson." During this role play, Mary recalled a dream of years past: ''I'd like to get into selling." She launched into action. She interviewed sales persons in all walks of life, and in the process discovered a uniqueness: not only could she sell but she also had an abiding interest and ability in the mechanical field. She put these two talents together and accepted a position selling technical equipment. She fulfilled a life's dream of selling, discovered an added talent of mechanical aptitude, and obtained a well-paid position in an established corporation. In a letter to her counselor she wrote, 'Tm so excited working in what I like, for a super corporation. Thanks for making me go to work" (and stop brooding).
Life-direction Values
With Frankl's position that abiding values give us clues to our search for meaning, I have employed value clarification exercises with outplacement candidates. These value clarifications extend beyond the professional into the personal life of the candidates. Many and 45, develop uneasiness about the direction of their lives. They want to be successful not only in business but in living. "What is life all about?" is the gnawing question of the executives who have "made it." They can buy everything they want, travel with their family wherever they wish, are active in community and church work but still cannot get rid of the feeling that there is more to life.
Ned, age 43, a marketing vice-president, was released because of a personality clash with the production vice-president. They both had wanted to become president, and Ned had lost the battle. He realized that hidden in this setback was an opportunity. "Now, with a six-month severance pay, I have a chance to work through my values. I really want to find out what my direction of life should be." For weeks he pondered that question and every week came up with a different answer. His first answer was "doing good," so why not go into Christian ministry? Next, it was "pleasure" so why not opt out of the workaday world? Answer by answer, Ned pursued his ideal life direction, researching different job functions, consulting with his family to get their input, doing what he called a "market analysis of my new life direction." After five months of exploration of many values and meanings Ned decided that he had originally, by intuition or natural leanings, chosen the most meaningful work for him: marketing. With this now documented answer to life's direction he made use of his network of friends and within one month landed a much coveted vice-presidency of marketing in a competitive firm at a substantial salary increase. His wife acknowledged his growth through the outplacement process, though during the counseling she had wondered if he would ever find himself. Through value clarification and addressing the question of life's meaning Ned had found his answer for her, and himself.
Sometimes, laughter can help reverse an attitude by revealing its ludicrousness. Earle, age 56, for 30 years with one firm, had worked his way up to financial officer when the department moved out of town. It was decided, because of his age, to outplace Earle rather than move him. This became for Earle an emotional and traumatic time, a breaking of his self esteem, and the presentation of the
52
haunting question: "Do I have it?" Earle became resistive, threatened to write a letter to the president. He did, showed it to friends, was ready to deliver it when the counseling suggested it be postponed. He threatened a class action suit and tried to involve a number of the firm's officers in divisive movements against the corporation. His attitude of being a stubborn, short-sighted, loser-syndrome person had to be changed by the exaggeration of paradoxical intention. He was encouraged to list way of "how to get the president fired." The candidate iaughed and said that he knew he couldn't do this, but that he would get the president some way. "Well, let's make a list to see how badly you can hurt him." Earle began to realize the magnitude of
his task, and after pursuing two or three plans, over a period of as many months, decided to get on with job hunting. But it took the continuing evaluation of his plans to "get the president" and laughing at their ludicrous nature before Earle could get on with his life. After four months of counseling he found a position near his home which gave him an opportunity to be a big fish in a little pond rather than the little fish in the large firm. He now laughed at his firm. They had let a big fish go!
FRANK HUMBERGER, Ph.D., is director of Executive Services Division, Development Services Corporation, Bellevue, Washington.
My \\Second Meeting" with Viktor Frankl
It was in the lobby of a luxury hotel on the Red Sea. I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the airport for the brief flight to Mt. Sinai and the monastery of St. Catherina.
The ski poles attracted my attention. New, small, shiny, glistening in the morning sun. Ski poles in January. Why not? That depends. As unusual as in the Caribbean, arc ski poles in the ever-sunny climate of Eilath in the South of Israel. I could not restrain my mirth and curiosity. "How was the skiing?" I asked the holder of the poles.
"I came to Israel to climb Mt. Sinai. In two days I have to be back in Vienna. And a couple of days later, I have to fly to San Diego." "What are you doing there?" "I am lecturing." "Lecturing on what?" "I am a psychiatrist."
"Oh. You live in Vienna. Could you tell me, is Professor Frankl still active in Vienna?" "Professor Frankl?" "Do you mean to tell me, you are a psychiatrist living in Vienna, and you never heard the name?" "Should I?" And then, clicking his heels in good Austrian fashion, the distinguished looking man, with a twinkle in his eyes, introduced himself. "Frankl."
My delight knew no bounds. I had first met Professor Frankl through his books and was so impressed that for years Man '.s Search for Meaning had become required reading for my psychology students at the university.

53
haunting question: "Do I have it?" Earle became resistive, threatened to write a letter to the president. He did, showed it to friends, was ready to deliver it when the counseling suggested it be postponed. He threatened a class action suit and tried to involve a number of the firm's officers in divisive movements against the corporation. His attitude of being a stubborn, short-sighted, loser-syndrome person had to be changed by the exaggeration of paradoxical intention. He was encouraged to list way of "how to get the president fired." The candidate iaughed and said that he knew he couldn't do this, but that he would get the president some way. "Well, let's make a list to see how badly you can hurt him." Earle began to realize the magnitude of
his task, and after pursuing two or three plans, over a period of as many months, decided to get on with job hunting. But it took the continuing evaluation of his plans to "get the president" and laughing at their ludicrous nature before Earle could get on with his life. After four months of counseling he found a position near his home which gave him an opportunity to be a big fish in a little pond rather than the little fish in the large firm. He now laughed at his firm. They had let a big fish go!

FRANK HUMBERGER, Ph.D., is director of Executive Services Division, Development Services Corporation, Bellevue, Washington.
My \\Second Meeting" with Viktor Frankl
It was in the lobby of a luxury hotel on the Red Sea. I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the airport for the brief flight to Mt. Sinai and the monastery of St. Catherina.
The ski poles attracted my attention. New, small, shiny, glistening in the morning sun. Ski poles in January. Why not? That depends. As unusual as in the Caribbean, arc ski poles in the ever-sunny climate of Eilath in the South of Israel. I could not restrain my mirth and curiosity. "How was the skiing?" I asked the holder of the poles.
"I came to Israel to climb Mt. Sinai. In two days I have to be back in Vienna. And a couple of days later, I have to fly to San Diego." "What are you doing there?" "I am lecturing." "Lecturing on what?" "I am a psychiatrist."
"Oh. You live in Vienna. Could you tell me, is Professor Frankl still active in Vienna?" "Professor Frankl?" "Do you mean to tell me, you are a psychiatrist living in Vienna, and you never heard the name?" "Should I?" And then, clicking his heels in good Austrian fashion, the distinguished looking man, with a twinkle in his eyes, introduced himself. "Frankl."
My delight knew no bounds. I had first met Professor Frankl through his books and was so impressed that for years Man '.s Search for Meaning had become required reading for my psychology students at the university.

53
The next day, on the plane back from Eilath to Tel Aviv, we met again and I received a sample of the psychiatrist as an artist: a pen drawing on a small paper pad ofa nosy camel asking the rider (with Frankl's profile): "You are from Vienna, is Frankl still around?" The rider: "He is even around you!"
M!GlvDl'v' E!SEiVBtRG, logotherapist, Chica!{o.
The Fourth Human Dimension
Hiroshi Takashima
A major contribution by Frankl to the understanding of human health and sickness is the interrelationship of the somatic, psychological, and noetic (spiritual, uniquely human) dimensions. Before Freud, he says, medicine disregarded the human psyche; today it still widely disregards the "noos."
Noos is the Greek word for mind but Frankl uses the term for everything with is uniquely human: the entire area where the human rises above the animal.

Scientists tend to see the activities of the human mind limited to memory and analysis. Thus narrowly conceived, the human mind is nothing but a computer -and an inferior, at that, because in memory and analysis the computer can be superior to the human mind.
But the mind also contains emotion and intuition (stronger in animals than in
54
The next day, on the plane back from Eilath to Tel Aviv, we met again and I received a sample of the psychiatrist as an artist: a pen drawing on a small paper pad ofa nosy camel asking the rider (with Frankl's profile): "You are from Vienna, is Frankl still around?" The rider: "He is even around you!"
M!GlvDl'v' E!SEiVBtRG, logotherapist, Chica!{o.
The Fourth Human Dimension
Hiroshi Takashima
A major contribution by Frankl to the understanding of human health and sickness is the interrelationship of the somatic, psychological, and noetic (spiritual, uniquely human) dimensions. Before Freud, he says, medicine disregarded the human psyche; today it still widely disregards the "noos."
Noos is the Greek word for mind but Frankl uses the term for everything with is uniquely human: the entire area where the human rises above the animal.

One might say that memory and analysis represent "knowledge"; emotion and intuition, "instinct"; and the other components, "wisdom." Knowledge can be given, and instinct develops by itself. Wisdom, however, cannot be given nor does it naturally develop. It requires decisions by the individual.
The results of knowledge and instinct can be studied scientifically -they are objective and can be repeated and measured. This is not true of the results of wisdon: they are subjective, concerned with meanings and values.
Comprehension, value judgment, meaning orientation, free decision, and responsibility belong to the area of philosophy; creativity belongs to the arts; and faith to religion.
Physiologically speaking: memory, analysis, emotion, and intuition are functions of the old cortex, which is part of the human as well as the animal brain, and can be explained as conditioned reflexes, feedback mechanisms, or by cybernetics -although intuition is not satisfactorily explainable yet.
The other components in the list cannot be explained in this manner. They are not automatic functions of the new cortex although it undoubtedly takes part in the process. These components require individual decisions; they are noetic, exclusively human.
The Functional Dimension
An an internist I find this concept of the human mind extremely useful, especially the interrelationship of the three dimension body, psyche, spirit -within the totality of the patient. However, I found additional usefulness in the concept of a fourth dimension which I call "functional." By functional mean the symptoms of a disturbance which plays an intrinsic part in the orchestration of the human being. In fact, the four human dimensions can be explained by the simile of an orchestra.
The instruments of the orchestra can be compared with the somatic dimension, the physical parts of the body. The technical skill of the musicians is comparable with the functional dimension, the visible "symptoms" of the orchestra. The musicians' mind, as they follow the conductor's direction, would be analogous to the psychological dimension not free to make its own decisions but following the dictates of needs and impulses. But if we stop here and try to explain the concert by "nothing but" the results of instruments, skills, and minds of the musicians, we reduce the whole phenomenon of the concert to less than its totality and are guilty of reductionism or "nothing-butness." Only when we include the mind of the conductor do we achieve the value of the concert. He is the "spirit" of the orchestra, free to decide how to play the music within the limits of the score created by the composer. The sound of the instruments can be analyzed scientifically on a material level. The skill (function) and the minds of the musicians can be explained as conditioned reflexes or by cybernetics. But the mind of the conductor cannot be analyzed scientifically because it is free to decide how to play the score in his own style within his responsibility to composer and audience.
Applications in Medicine
The relationship among the four dimensions has to be considered in the diagnosis and the cure of an iliness because it can originate in any dimension and affect any of the other three. For instance, an ulcer can originate in the somatic dimension (A), caused by physical overwork, and affect the functional dimension (B) through the symptoms of heartburn, nausea, or pain. But it can also affect the psychological dimension (C) causing worry and anxiety. In other cases, however, the direction is reversed. The ulcer may originate in the functional area (B) through, say, long-lasting stress, causing worry and anxiety in the psychological (C); or it can originate in the psychological dimension (C) through extensive worry causing
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functional symptoms in (B).
The noetic dimension (D) plays a special part in this process. Illness can also originate there through value conflicts, conflicts of conscience, or lack of meaning and purpose in life, 1 but according to logotherapeutic theory, the noos (spirit) cannot become sick. Spiritbased disease can affect any of the other three areas. In can cause anxiety and depression in the psychological dimension; pain, heart palpitation, fever in the functional; or organic diseases such as heart diseases, apoplexy, or ulcer in the somatic.
D.
Noetic

A.
Somatic
A cure requires a diagnosis where the illness originated and what dimensions are affected. Accordingly, a combination of medication, traditional psychotherapy, and logotherapy has to be prescribed. Logotherapy aims at making patients aware of the resources of their human spirit, their repressed or ignored will to meaning, their decision-making ability, their capacity for self-transcendence, creativity, tasks, commitments, responsibleness, and the power of their human spirit to take a stand. The curative power of the noetic dimension can affect the others: the finding of a new meaningful task may dereflect the patient from his anxiety (dimension C), this may be lessening the functional symptoms (B) and -perhaps with the help of medication reduce or cure the organic disturbances (A). Even where the organic sickness is not curable, arousal of the defiant power of the human spirit can help the patient bear his sickness with courage, find a new attitude to live with his disease, or transcend it by reaching out to other people he cares about, or to causes he strongly believes in.
The noetic dimension can also prevent illness through what Frankl calls "psychonoetic antagonism." For instance, if a person is driven by anxieties he may become neurotic. However, if he is helped to see a purpose in his life and act accordingly, he may overcome his anxiety and avoid becoming neurotic. In this case the noetic power works "antagonistically" to the psychic power.
But the noetic power can also work synergically with the psychic power. For instance, when a person has emotional drives, say, to excel in sports, his sense of responsibility (toward his team mates) or a strong purpose (to help win a championship), can strengthen his emotional drive. I have called this phenomenon "psychonoetic synergism. "2
HIROSHI TAKASHIMA, M.D., is director of Noopsychosomatic Medicine at Central Hospital of Social Health Insurance, consultin1; physician at Maruzen Clinic, and consulting cardiologist at Kaneko Clinic, Tokyo, Japan.
REFERENCES:
I. Frankl, Viktor E. Psychotherapy and Existentialism. New York. Touchstone paperback, 1975.
2. Takashima, Hiroshi. Psvclwsomatic Medicine and logotherapy. Oceanside, N. Y.. Dabor Science Publications. 1977.
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Foundation Formation and the Will to
Meaning
Adrian van Kaam
Viktor Frankl has argued convincingly that the will to meaning is a basic principle of human life. Comparing his logotherapy with the formation theory ofpersonality, a point of contact is Frankl's concept of the "will to meaning."
The Formation Process
Formation starts out from two essential characteristics of human life. The first one is "form-ability," the human ability in some measure to give form to one's life. The second characteristic is the human dynamic ofalways ongoing formation. This formation process is holistic and foundational, giving a basic and unifying form to our life as a whole. Formation gives direction to and creates harmony among our desires, interests, pulsations, impulses, ambitions, aspirations and inspirations. They cannot be directed and unified by instinct, but by our capacity to rise beyond these separate strivings -by our transcendent dimension.
Foundational formation depends on this dimension. It is a dialogue between our transcendent self dimension and the spontaneous biological unfolding of life we share with other living beings. A merely biological view of human formation would see all formation as the result of something like a blueprint laid down in our organism. The environment would merely offer useful matter for this unfolding. Frankl takes the opposite direction. And so does the formation theory of personality: although the innate laws of the organism have a basic influence on the unfolding of the person, they cannot totally explain human formation. If human formation were only the result ofautonomous biological growth, it would be impossible to give any spiritual form to this growth by means of what Frankl would call the "will to meaning." Human beings certainly utilize their environment in service of personal organismic needs. But the environment also contains values. These values experienced as meaningful have a directive influence on our specifically human formation when we will them into our lives. In interaction with biological influences, they become formative of human life in its transcendent as well as vital
potencies.
Ifgrowth were a biological process only, no human formation would be possible. The only meaningful aid to growth would then be the establishment of favorable organic conditions. Such conditions would not change the form the human organism should assume. This form would already be predetermined within the organism itself. In this case the only assistance one could offer the unfolding organism would be that of care, protection, and sustenance of the growth process. This assistance would be accidental and of minor importance; it would remain exterior to this process itself. To the contrary, formation by means of fostering and forming the will to meaning, in Frankl's sense, adds to the care and sustenance -the essential human element of value formation.
Free Will and Meaning
What does formative free will mean in the world of meaning in which we live? The value meanings offered by our culture cannot have a formative influence in our life if our will does not opt for them in freedom. Our will decides freely to limit temporarily this formative influence to certain cultural values that are currently relevant to our unfolding. At the same time the will keeps open to the possibility of introducing other values in our formation. If not, we would become fixated on a few values in our culture, lose potential richness and flexibility, and halt the process of life formation, which implies a growing from current life form to current life form, so as to realize gradually the unique life form
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congenial to us and congruent with our place in culture and history.
Our life starts out with meanings that are not freely chosen. They condition us instead of forming us in a free and spiritual sense. Formative direction, counseling, and therapy evoke and re-create us as a person -a free source of formative meaning. When we become free in our evaluation of what should give form to our life, our behavior may again become conditioned by the new meaning we opt for. However, this conditioning happens as a result of an openness for meanings which do not elude our freedom, but are disclosed by it. Moreover, our increased will to meaning enables us to discover new meanings and to correct or supplant the ones we chose as formative and allowed to condition our behavior.
Certain meanings that conditioned our life in infancy may be ratified by our own will to meaning. From that moment on, we will live them as formative directives by free choice, as in the past we lived them by imposition. Meanings that were previously merely conditioned become formative and open a new way of living them. These meanings are more alive, more solidly rooted in the will to meaning at the core of our life, deeper, less mechanical and peripheral. Their insertion in our free, formative willing makes them participate in the unique, dynamic movement of formation which constitutes us, in our wholeness. As a result, the freely ratified formative meanings of our life are more flexible and in tune with the whole situation with which we interact daily. As long as a meaning, attitude, or habit is not ratified by our will to meaning, it does not fit smoothly and harmoniously into our ongoing process of formation. Rather this meaning remains isolated as if it were a function in its own right without much relationship to the whole formation process of one's life.
The exclusively functional characteristic of past formative meanings not yet ratified may make our behavior disjointed and not embedded in the natural rhythmic flow of our ongoing formation. Making the impersonal become personal, rooting the unrooted, assimilating the unassimilated, ratifying the unratified, therefore, is as much an essential function of the will to meaning as opting for new formative meanings.
The outcome of direction, therapy and counseling should make the counselees become able, without the help of the director or counselor, to grow daily in the will to formative meanings for their lives. It is better that counselees realize a formative meaning in their lives in an awkward and deficient waybut in a freely willed and personal fashionthan to perform such behavior in splendid perfection, which is merely external and the result of suggestion and encouraging approval. Therefore, all counseling is an appeal to the will to meaning in the person; it tries to awaken this dormant will.
I Am My Will
The term "will" has been often misunderstood because our culture tends to objectivate human life into thing-like categories. We tend to think about human life as we think about chemical compounds and dynamic forces in nature. To a degree that is right, but if we do only that, the uniqueness of human life eludes our understanding. We then may conceive our will as an isolated force present in our life like an explosive in a gun chamber; or as a mini-dynamo -a computer controlling the buttons that make us think and move. In these conceptions, the will becomes an autonomous power divorced from the moving totality of our life-in-formation.
In the reality of day-to-day living, I do not have a will, I am my will: I am a willing, unfolding person. In daily life I am not formed through my living, I don't have a "will to meaning" which I use at my discretion. On the contrary, I am moving within the mystery of my formation as a willing participant filling my life with right or wrong meanings that function as conscious or preconscious directives of my life's formation.
If I cut off my will to meaning from the whole of my formation, my life becomes divided between an imagined absolute will power and the rest of my life-in-formation that I fancy I can control arbitrarily by my will power. If we begin to live by this conception, we are no longer guided by the will to meaning that participates in the fullness of our life's unfolding. We have become the victims of deformative "willfulness."
Willfulness
Webster defines willfulness as being "governed by the will, without yielding to
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reason; obstinate, perverse; stubborn; as a willful man or horse." These qualifications describe willfulness as an insulated tyrannical force paying little attention to the richness of meaning that emerges in the open life of unique human beings. Willfulness is not a will to meaning but a will to pre-determined action.
Frankl tells us that the human will is a will to meaning: a fundamental openness to meanings that emerge in our personal formation. Because of our will to meaning, we are a dialogue with values that may be relevant to the disclosure of the unique life form that is congenial to us and congruent with our life situation. This dialectical structure of the will to meaning is basic to human formation even when the dialectic potential of the will is dormant or restrained because of anxiety, neurotic guilt feelings, phobia, or compulsions. Direction, counseling or therapy aims to restore the dialogue of the will with values that may be relevant to the emergence of our life as unique within our concrete life situation.
We may be able to trace the origin of willfulness by considering two functions of the will to meaning: The disclosing and the executive function. The disclosing function is one of openness to the meanings we disclose as relevant to our formation. The executive function is one of implementation of these meanings.
A formative meaning is a summons to transformation. The inspiring voice of meaning invites the will to attune life to the formative value it unveils.
Formation flows from the will to meaning like a stream from its spring. A new river forms its path patiently, slowly transforming the fields that resist its winding way. Indeed it may take a lifetime to implement certain values disclosed to us by the will to meaning. This implementation is the executive function of the will. In this phase the will to meaning becomes the will to give meaningful form to our daily life.
Willfulness is the exclusive concentration of the will in its executive function, while ceasing to function in its primary fashion. The functioning of the will is no longer accompanied by its openness to all nuances of meaning in life. We are willful when we form life too forcefully and too fast, ref using to wait for the messages that the will to meaning keeps conveying. Not heeding these messages delays the emergence ofthe congenial and congruent life form we are invited to live.
Willfulness leads to a strained, tense life. Blind to nuances of meaning, we become insensitive and ill-adapted in our response to people, events and things that weave in and out of our day-to-day situations. Ifwe do not maintain a relaxed readiness to appraise inwardly all shades of meaning, we must find a substitute reality to direct our ongoing formation of life, thought, and action. We have to establish a compulsive code of stilted, fixated reactions to situations we categorize in advance. We then know exactly how to react properly ifwe are supposed to be kind or angry, authoritarian, or "nice." Our blind executive will pushes the right button and we play out our role like puppets on a string.
Willful persons cut off all ties with anything beyond their own willfulness. They assume a dictatorial instead of a dialectical attitude. Compulsive comm:cind replaces formative dialogue. Willfulness is not formative but manipulative. It manipulates all objectivated "things" in life without respect for the subtle complexity of reality. Willfulness tempts people to overpower and distort the true meaning of life. Unable to listen to the subtle message of the mystery of reality, they impose their willful code on others. The relationship of the will to meaning is turned upside down. The executive will posits a priori its own meanings instead of obeying the meanings disclosed by an openness to formative values. Instead of listening to all nuances of meaning in people, things, and events, willful persons become convinced that others should listen to them, to the meanings and values they posit willfully. If they gain power they force their prefabricated categories on others mercilessly.
Viktor Frankl has been the victim of a
regime that forced its fanatic, willful code on
countless people. It seems poetic justice that
in the camps of deformation and degradation
he tested a conception of human life that
made the will to meaning a basic condition for
its free and full unfolding.
ADRIAN VAN KAAM, Ph.D .. is director, Institute a/Formative Spirituality, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Penmylvania.
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THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR LOGOTHERAPY
Journal of Search for Meaning