Spaces:
Sleeping
Sleeping
Volume 9(2) Fall/Winter 1986 | |
CONTENTS | |
This issue contains papers read at the Fifth World Congress of Logotherapy. Toronto. June 26-29. 1986. Seventeen other papers read at the Congress are puhlished in Vik tor Frankl'.1· Logotherapy -Personal Conscience and Global Concern, published by the Institute of Logotherapy Press and available from the Institute of Logotherapy Administrative Office. Moorpark Plaza Executive Suite #300. 2444 Moorpark Avenue, San Jose. CA 95128 ($12.95). | |
Personal Conscience and Global Concern Edith Eva Eger ............................................... 68 | |
Youth --A Continuous Search for Meaning Elisabeth Lukas ............................................... 71 | |
Personal Choice and the Nazi State Claire Hirshfield .............................................. 80 | |
A Melanesian Quest for Meaning Wolfgang G. Jilek and Louise .Jilek-Aall .......................... 87 | |
Reasons versus Causes as Explanation for Human Behavior Jerry L. Long. Jr. ............................................. 93 | |
Logos and the Farm Crisis of America Joseph Graca ................................................ 100 | |
The Encounter with Meaninglessness Roberta G. Sands ............................................ 102 | |
Communicating Logotherapy William Blair Gould .......................................... 109 | |
Reviving the Shattered Spirit: The Missing Link in Rehabilitation Patricia E. Haines ............................................ 112 | |
The Ground of Meaning: Logotherapy. Psychotherapy, and Kohlberg's Developmentalism Robert E. Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 | |
Logotherapy: Implications for Personal Goals | |
R. R. Hutzell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 | |
67 | |
On the Meaning of Love* | |
Viktor E. Frankl | |
Dedicated to the memory of Wendv Fabry Banks who was the.first | |
to make her father aware ofloiotherapy by iiving him a copy of | |
Man's Search for Meaning. | |
Unless life in general had a meaning, it would not make sense to speak of the meaning of love in particular. And what is true of love also holds for procreation: if life were meaningless, its procreation would be equally meaningless. | |
But it is the very problem of our time that people are caught by a pervasive feeling of meaninglessness which is the most conspicuous symptom of the collective neurosis ofour time. It is accompanied by a feeling ofemptiness. Since I described and denoted it as the "existential vacuum" in 1955, it has increased and spread literally all over the world. Our industrialized society is out to satisfy all needs, and our consumer society is even out to create needs in order to satisfy them; but the most human of all human needs -the need to sec a meaning in one's life ---remains unsatisfied. People may have enough to live by; but more often than not they do not have anything to live for. This is most perceptible in the young generation, more specifically in the form of a mass neurotic syndrome consisting of depression, aggression, and addiction. There is ample empirical evidence to the effect that suicide proneness, violent behavior and drug dependency are, in fact, due to a lack, or loss, of meaning. | |
Motivational Theories | |
How can we cope with this malaise and frustration of our time? Whenever we want to overcome a frustration, we must first understand the motivation. So let's have a look at what the motivational theories of the two great Viennese psychotherapeutic schools teach us: According to Freud's psychoanalysis, human behavior is ruled by a pleasure principle, and according to Alfred Adler's individual psychology, the human person is dominated by a striving for superiority. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it turns out that the pleasure principle ultimately serves the purpose of maintaining, or restoring, the inner equilibrium, a state without tensions. Thus reads Freud's explicit contention. And according to Adler's conviction, all human beings are originally suffering from an inferiority complex, and throughout their lives aspire to its compensation by attaining a powerful position. As you see, however, both motivation theories depict the human as a being basically concerned with intrapsychic conditions -be it an inner equilibrium or a feeling of inferiority versus a feeling of superiority. But this is not a true human picture. Actually, being human always means reaching out beyond oneself --reaching out for something other than oneself -for something or someone: for a meaning to fulfill, or for another human being to love. In other words, being human always means transcendini oneself, and | |
*Opening lecture at the Ninth International Congress for the Family, Paris, September 11. 1986. | |
unless this self-transcendent quality ofthe human reality is recognized, psycho! | |
ogy degenerates into some sort of monadology. In a word, self-transcendence i | |
the essence of existence. | |
But what about self-actualization? It certainly is a perfectly worthwhile thing; in the final analysis, however, we can arrive at self-actualization only via self-transcendence. And in his diaries, even Abraham Maslow -who made the concept of self-actualization the cornerstone of his "psychology of being" stated that I had "convinced him"1 that self-actualization can best be carried out "via a commitment to an important job."2 In fact, self-actualization -I would say--is a by-product, or side effect, of self-transcendence -and the same holds for pleasure and happiness: "pursuit of happiness," the unalienable right of the Declaration of Independence, is a contradiction in terms because, as I see it, happiness cannot be pursued but must ensue, that is to say, it must establish itself by itself, automatically, as the unintentional effect of our dedication and devotion to a cause to serve, or a person to love. On the other hand, any direct intention of pleasure proves to be self-defeating -as easily can be seen in sexual neurosis: the more a male patient tries to demonstrate his potency, the more likely he will wind up with impotence; and the more a female patient tries to convince herself that she is fully capable ofex pcriencing orgasm, the more she is liable to frigidity. The cue to cure then lies in forgetting oneself by giving oneself. | |
But now let's come back to the issue of meaning: I hope I could show you that man's basic concern is neither the will to power, nor a will to pleasure, but a will to meaning, his search for meaning ---precisely that which is so much being frustrated today! But man needs not only meaning but also something else: he needs the example and model of people who have fulfilled the meaning of their lives, or at least are on the way to do so. And this is precisely the moment at which the issue of the family comes in. For I regard the family as a lifelong opportunity to watch and witness what it means to fulfill meaning in life by living for others, nay, by living for each other: the family, indeed, is an arena where mutual self-transcendence is enacted! | |
Love and Sex | |
By and large. family life is initiated by love -or at least by what is misnamed love while it really is no more than mutual sexual attraction. This brings up the question. what is the relation between love and sex? More specifically, human sex. Well, as far as the latter is concerned. it is truly human only to the extent to which it serves as the expression of something meta-sexual, and that is love. In other words, human sex is always more than mere sex, and it is so to the extent to which it functions as the physical expression of love -or let me say as the "incarnation" of love. | |
However, human sex cannot be human a priori but must become human, and it does so by ever more becoming self-transcendent, thus ever more participating in the intrinsic self-transcendence of human phenomena. Figure I shows the developmental stages of the psychosexual maturation, step by step. First, there is only an interest in what Albert Moll called "detusmescence," i.e., the decrease of tension as it is aroused by the sex drive. There is yet no relation to any partner so we may say that in order to get rid ofsexual tension, masturbation would do -if need be, helped by using a vibrator. Anyway, the goal of sexual activity in the first stage, on the first step, is tension reduction. | |
However, according to a distinction introduced by Sigmund Freud, drives do not only have a goal but also an object. In the case of sexuality, the object is represented by a partner. But the partner is still seen, and used, as a mere tool to satisfy one's own sex drive and, as a mere tool, is interchangeable --a fact that results in promiscuity or, even worse, the partner is anonymous as is the case with prostitutes. That such a relationship still lacks the human characteristic of self-transcendence is laid bare whenever those of our patients who suffer from sexual neurosis speak of ''masturbating on a woman." | |
Only in the third stage of development, on the third step of maturation, the subhuman type of sexual activity is overcome because now the partner is no longer used as an object but seen as a subject, seen as a human being~ a fact that precludes being made a mere tool of drive satisfaction. Let us not forget that there is a second version of Immanuel Kant's famous "categorical imperative," and it reads as follows: A human being must never be taken as a mere means to an end. | |
But the highest level ofour scale is reached where the partner is seen not only in his or her humanness but, in addition, in his or her uniqueness* ~· that uniqueness which constitutes a person as someone incomparable. Only now we have entered the domain of love because it is love alone which empowers us for getting hold of the uniqueness of another human being. And since the loving person alone is enabled to grasp the loved person as someone incomparable and hence irreplaceable, love is the supreme warrant of a monogamous relation which, in turn, is the guarantee of its own durability. | |
Figure 1. The Developmental Stages of Psychosexual Maturation | |
Duns | |
person] | |
Scotus | |
human | |
Immanuel | |
subject- | |
Kant | |
s'igmund Freud | |
Albert | |
Moil | |
object]- | |
sub-human | |
goal | |
Meaning is Unconditional | |
At the outset, we spoke ofthe meaning of love and the meaning oflife. Love is | |
*Duns Scotus. the great medieval thinker, allotted to uniqueness a central place in his scholasticphilosophical system and coined for it the word "haecceitas." | |
certainly one way to meaning; but it is not the only way. In other words, it is in no way a sine qua non, an indispensable prerequisite of finding meaning in life. The same holds for procreation. There is an old Chinese dictum according to which a man in the course of his life -should have written a book, begot a son, and planted a tree. Well. what about myself? I have authored 27 books; but, alas, 1have begot only a daughter rather than a son; and, to make it worse, I have never in my life planted a tree! Should I have lived in vain? Should the meaning of life really be dependent on whether or not one is married and has children? How poor would life be if this were true; actually, life is infinitely rich as to the possibilities to fill it with meaning because -contrary to what the feeling of meaninglessness whispers into our ears -life is even unconditionally meaningful, that is to say, it holds a meaning under each and every condition, including misery and tragedy. Or could you otherwise understand and explain that life still can be found, or made, meaningful if you have been married but have lost your spouse or if you have had children and then have lost them? Let me for the sake of those among you to whom such a possibility sounds unbelievable, invoke the following two dialogues: | |
Once, an old general practitioner showed up in my office. He was severely depressed after his wife whom he had loved above all else, had died. What should I have told him? I didn't tell him anything hut asked him a question: "What would have happened, Doctor, if not your wife but you yourself had died first?" "Oh," he answered, "how terrible this would have been for her -how much she would have suffered!" "Well," 1 reacted, ''your wife has been spared this suffering, hasn't she? And after all, it is you, Doctor, who have spared her the suffering, haven't you? But you have done so at the price that now you have to mourn her ..." At that moment, his suffering was bestowed with a meaning with the meaning of a sacrifice that he owed to his wife. | |
And now the other dialogue which I am going to quote from a book authored by the (ierman Bishop Georg Moser:";\ few years after World War II a doctor examined a Jewish woman who wore a bracelet made of baby teeth mounted in gold. 'A beautiful bracelet,' the doctor remarked. 'Yes,' the woman answered, 'this tooth here belonged to Miriam. this one to Esther, and this one to Samuel | |
..'She mentioned the names of her daughters and sons according to age. 'Nine children,' she added, 'and all of them were taken to the gas chambers.' Shocked, the doctor asked: 'How can you live with such a bracelet?' Quietly, the woman replied: 'I am now in charge of an orphanage in brad."' | |
The widowed doctor had lost his wife, and the Jewish mother had lost her children; but as it is said in !he Song o(Soni{.\, love is as strong as death. | |
i/tATOR f,~ FRANKL M.D.. Ph.D. ispro/essorofneuro/ogyandpsvchiarry at the University of Vienna Medical School. He is ho11orm~1• member of the Austrian Academy o/Sciencl:'s andpresident olthe Austrian Medical Society of Ps1·c/10therap_1·. | |
REFFRENCES | |
I. Lowry, R. J. The .lounwl,· of' Ahraham Maslov.. Lexington. Lewis, I9X2, p. 39. | |
2. Maslow. A.H. Eup.,_l'chian Management: A Journal.Homewood. R. Irwin, 1965, p. 136. | |
Logotherapy: Health Through Meaning | |
Elisabeth Lukas | |
Logotherapy ("health through meaning") provides us with a view of human nature that helps us retain and regain our health. It sees us as creatures who are not only shaped by genes, drives, and environment but who can shape ourselves within --often in spite of -our biological, psychological, and environmental influences. | |
We can do this because our primary motivation is our "will to meaning" and because we have the freedom to find meaning, moment by moment, either by changing a meaningless situation, where this is possible, or by changing our attitude where the situation cannot be changed. | |
This article explores how we can find health through meaning. The approach to health is based on three basic aspects of meaning as logotherapy sees them. | |
Aspects of Meaning | |
The first aspect is that meaning cannot be arbitrarily chosen. What is meaningful for one person at a specific moment is not necessarily so for another. For a farmer, "the meaning of the moment" may be feeding his livestock. For a volunteer fireman, it may be to rush to a fire. For the farmer to go and watch the fire, or for the fireman to feed his pets would mean that both have missed their meaning of the moment. | |
The meaning of the moment thus has an objective component, contained in a situation not created -at least not exclusively -by the client. The counselor must remain aware that meaning is to be discovered by the client and not given or prescribed by the counselor. | |
The second aspect is that we cannot be driven to meaning by conscious or unconscious forces, nor can we find meaning through conditioning. Drives and conditioning are aimed at subjective gains, such as pleasure, avoidance of pain, all kinds of positive feedbacks, and such currently popular goals as selfconfirmation, self-finding, and self-actualization. Here, a certain behavior brings subjective gains as a reward. | |
The objective meaning of a situation lies not in serving the meaning-seeker but another person or a cause. Subjective gain is possible as a by-product. The farmer who feeds his livestock does it for the sake of the animals; the volunteer fireman saves lies and property. Their personal rewards are incidental: more productive animals, possibly savings one's own home from the spreading fire. But personal gain is not the decisive factoL Under certain circumstances the farmer may even risk his animals to save neighbors from fire. | |
This leads to the third aspect: that meaningful actions do result in personal gain, but as a by-product. And often, the gain is greater the less it is intended. One might modify an old Biblical widsom: He who wants to gain his life will lose it. He who is ready to lose it -to give it up to a meaningful task -will gain it. | |
To return to our example: the farmer who disregards all physical, psychological, and environmental handicaps to take care ofhis land and livestock, will gain by feeling deeply rooted in his farm. The fireman who prevents disaster finds fulfillment deepened by the appreciation of others. | |
Obviously such actions are meaningful only if directed toward a goal worth the effort, and not if they are meaningless "sacrifices," results of masochistic tendencies or the inability to say "no." Meaningful actions are subjective responses to the objective meaning of the moment. | |
The Logotherapeutic Approach to Health | |
The logotherapeutic approach is thus based on these three consequences of Frankl's understanding of meaning: it cannot be arbitrarily chosen, we cannot be driven or conditioned to it, and personal gains are by-products of our pursuit of meaning. Logotherapy offers help to the psychologically unstable and sick as well as healthy persons in spiritual distress. It helps clients in their search for meaning----to discover what in their particular life situation is most meaningful. | |
Logotherapy motivates clients to open themselves to meaningful actions and experiences, to entrust themselves to the meaning of the moment, to say yes to what the situation demands. Their recovery, "finding themselves," their inner satisfaction will come as unintended by-products -treasures carried by the current of meaning fulfillment, inaccessible when the current loses strength. | |
Logotherapy's goal: to stimulate the current of meaning fulfillment in patients, to guide them to surrender to the current carrying all that makes life worth living. These goals underlie the practice of logotherapy. | |
How logotherapy works in practice fills whole libraries. In this article I shall limit myself to four polarities in human life, the basis of interpretation and application in all schools of psychotherapy including logotherapy: conscious and unconscious, past and future, positive and negative, the "want" and the "ought." | |
The Conscious and the Unconscious | |
In general, logotherapy focuses on the patients' understanding of consciousness. When something unconscious is lifted into the conscious, it is more often from the unconscious ofspirit, and not so much from the unconscious of psyche. An example will clarify the distinction. | |
Mrs. P suffered from depression. A long psychoanalysis uncovered hidden connections but her depression deepened. She wanted to try a different therapeutic approach. | |
Her problem was age-old: married to a good husband, with a healthy child she loved, she fell in love with another man. In a conflict of conscience she went to a therapist who, in long hours, revealed that she was the victim of a series of projections: she was not really in love with the other man but unconsciously projected on him the secret wishes which neither father nor husband fulfilled. It was this that made the other so attractive and desirable. Were she to live with him, these projections would collapse like a house of cards and she would face bitter disappointment. The therapist advised her to bring up to consciousness all those wishes and needs that father and husband left unfulfilled, to freely vent her anger, and force her father and her husband to fulfill her wishes. | |
In theory, of course, there may be some truth in this interpretation but in practice Mrs. P, in the dimension of her spirit, suffered something like a "loss of values." When she explored the debts her father and her husband owed her for not fulfilling her needs, she experienced a devaluation of her relationships with them, a relationship that had been basically good. And by converting her love for the other man into a fantasy projection, she experienced a devaluation of her genuine feelings for him. What remained was dissatisfaction in every respect resulting in a long-lasting depression. | |
With logotherapy, we chose a different way. I started with her conflict of conscience, between her original "yes" to her husband and the new "yes" to her friend, all seemingly having little to do with her father. She had to make an inner decision, not between her conscious and unconscious wishes but a meaningful decision --meaningful for the persons involved. To help Mrs. P with her decision I asked her to tell me something about these four people husband, child, friend, and herself. My interest was focused on what made each of these persons unique and irreplaceable, what made them especially lovable. | |
lt turned out that she had a lot to say about her husband and child, but hesitated in talking about herself and her friend. She had changed a lot since her affair, she said, and the other man was difficult to describe. She really didn't know much about him. She loved him but wondered if he deserved her love. Suddenly she added, "And neither do 1deserve the love of my husband and my child any longer." | |
"What would be needed to make your friend and yourself deserving of love?" I asked. | |
She replied softly: "If we gave each other up." | |
I was silent, and she remained silent. Then with a faint smile, "Yes," she said, "it suddenly came to me. For all four to remain deserving of love, my friend and I would have to separate while we still loved each other. I'd keep him in good memory, my husband would appreciate me again, it would save my child much grief, and I could face myself. I really think I have to come to an understanding with my friend about this, or none ofus will deserve any love. We'd continuously blame each other." | |
It was not easy for Mrs. P to give up her friend but the depression stopped immediately. My explanation is that her decision, in the dimension of spirit, brought about a "value gain": her family gained value by the renewal of her original "yes," and genuine love for her friend was not devaluated as a fantasy projection but gained value through freely giving it up. | |
In dealing with value conflicts, logotherapists do not transfer their own values to patients. It is true that in every interpersonal communication each partner unavoidably radiates something of his own value system to the other. But logotherapists are protected from such transference because they help their patients weigh conflicting values in relation to the objective "meaning of the moment." To use a simile, one might say that logotherapists free the two balls | |
brought by the patient from all extraneous wrappings until it becomes clear | |
which is lead and which is gold. Therapist and patient face the same set of | |
undeniable facts, just as the meaningfulness ofa situation once it is recognized is | |
also undeniable. The therapist docs not declare one value as the higher. It is not | |
his brush that paints the ball gold; it is the inner core ofthe value itself that is the | |
determining factor enabling the patient to use a given situation in the best | |
possible way. | |
It is true that our Socratic dialogue did lift something from Mrs. P's uncons | |
cious into the conscious: her responsibility toward the three whose lives were | |
significantly influenced by her decision. | |
The Past and the Future | |
On the whole, logotherapy focuses on the possibilities that lie in the future. Introspection, however, is not avoided, for example, in experiences not worked through requiring a more meaningful attitude in the present, or when a life nears its end and needs reflection. What logothcrapy does nnt look for in the past are causes for present unwanted behavior, because logotherapy does not believe human behavior is completely determined by psychosocial or psychophysical causes. In the specifically human dimension we seopt an attitude to all causes that may condition us, and this is an "unconditional" factor not determined but based on free will. | |
For this reason, logotherapy does not regard parental mistakes as sufficient reason for psychological misdcvelopment in children. Mistakes by parents can be corrected by grown children through self-education if they so desire. Neurotics, however, often do not want to correct anything but use their illness to accuse the "guilty" parents. I remember one patient who said triumphantly: "Yes, I could behave normally but if I do that, the brutality of my parents will not show any negative consequences, and I don't want that to happen. The world should see what they did to me, so they will suffer." | |
This patient, with sadistic tendencies, had to be shown the contradiction in her own words. If it was up to her to behave normally or abnormally, as she herself stated, no one but she was responsible for her normal or abnormal behavior. | |
Professionals, too, often get trapped in this contradiction, which shows how difficult it is to distinguish the freedom we have in the dimension of spirit, and the unfreedom ("fate") we experience in body and psyche. This was demonstrated at a drug addiction conference. Many speakers argued that lack of mother love in early childhood, refusal of breast feeding, exclusion of children from family life, lack of body contact, and so on, drive the children later to drugs. An Italian pediatrician pointed out that Italian children receive love from babyhood on and are a close part of the family, yet drug addiction in Italy is especially high. "Our experience in Italy," he concluded, "contradicts all your theories." No one on the panel of experts knew the answer. Logotherapy, at least, has a suggestion. Without underestimating the importance of the past, logotherapy holds that aspects of the future play an equal, perhaps an even greater part. If young persons see no meaningful realistic goals, no ideals, commitments, nothing to achieve in their youthful enthusiasm, nothing keeps them from escaping into artificial meanings, intoxication, and self-destruction. | |
How close this feeling of meaninglessness is to self-destruction I experienced with a young patient. She told me she walked almost daily along railroad tracks. "If I had the courage," she said, "I'd throw myself in front of a train. Then I would be free from all broodings and doubts of what I am here for." | |
I struggled with her in the dimension ofher spirit. "Yes," I said, "you would be free from something but no longer free for something. Throwing yourself in front of a train would free you from feelings of meaninglessness, but you'd no longer be free to make something meaningful of your life. A meaningless death would not enrich your life with meaning. You would have bought your freedom from at the price of your freedom for." | |
I asked her to describe her daily path to the tracks. It passed a crossroad: to the right it led to the railroad, to the left the forest. "Next time you come to the crossroad," I told her, "stop for a moment and taste the freedom you have. You can choose bet ween left and right, yes or no, between the two directions. You can weigh possibilities and choose the meaningful. To have this specifically human freedom makes life worth living. One disastrous step, and you no longer have this freedom to weigh and choose, not even the freedom to take back your step. What requires courage is not the step onto the tracks, but the step into the quiet forest, where you can sit down and think about the tasks awaiting you, including those perhaps only you can fulfill. When you come to the crossroad next time, will you stop and think about this?" | |
She did think about it, and eventually decided to resume training as a children's nurse, interrupted because of domestic trouble. The past of a person has power only where no future is visible. | |
The Positive and the Negative | |
Logotherapy tends to focus on the positive, even in the presence of negative factors. It helps clients see and promote the positive, accentuating achievement over failure. | |
This is obvious even in the diagnostic phase. Here the logotherapist's aim is not to make clients recall painful repressed experiences but rather remember forgotten highlights, to refurbish them to outshine present troubles. | |
The therapeutic phase also emphasizes the positive, and often helps patients find a positive attitude and necessary acceptance in the face ofincurable physical or psychological illnesses. | |
For curahle illness, however, acceptance is neither needed nor desirable because it prevents patients from resisting the illness. This is also true for phobias, obsessive compulsions, and sexual neuroses, all triggered by the mechanism of "anticipatory anxiety," trapping patients in a vicious cycle. | |
Such patients anticipate something negative. and consequently something negative happens, at least in their heads, and often in reality, reenforcing the negative anticipation which brings about whatever is feared. | |
An example is sexual neurosis. People afraid of failure in entering a situation of intimacy have hardly a chance. Anxiety causes physical tension, distracts their attention from the partner, and leads to observing themselves and their sexual performance, which prevents surrender to the partner. But just this self-surrender is necessary to bring about happiness and pleasure as a byproduct. This is also true of surrender to a logos incarnate, as Frankl calls the specifically human love that finds physical expression in the union of two human beings. | |
To help patients escape this neurotic trap, logotherapy has developed methods of paradoxical intention and dereflection. A brief case history illustrates them: | |
Mr. and Mrs. M, both middle-aged, found their harmonious marriage disturbed by her tetanic spasms, increasingly frequent. Whenever he approached her romantically she had an attack which made intimacy difficult, and made him suspect that she used her illness as an excuse to reject him. Mrs. M denied this but he remained sceptical, leading to quarrels. The physicians of Mrs. M were not sure about the causes of the spasms, and used the word "psychosomatic." | |
l explained that the term meant that the illness had a somatic (physical) cause but was triggered by something occurring in the psyche. Tetanic spasms are caused by a shortage of calcium or magnesium in the body, often in connection with an underfunctioning accessory thyroid gland. The shortage shifts the nutritive equilibrium toward the alkaline. This equilibrium can also be disturbed by hyperventilation --cramped jerky breathing in which much carbon dioxide is exhaled, also shifting the nutritive equilibrium toward the alkaline. Hyperventilation is often the result of psychic agitation occurring when one anticipates something negative. | |
Thus when he wants to make love, she has a tetanic spasm caused by a lack of calcium or magnesium. This results in fearfully anticipating a spasm the next time in the same situation. Anticipation triggers hyperventilation, and this, in turn, a spasm which would not have happened for lack ofcalcium or magnesium alone. The vicious cycle of the trap is closed: the husband wants to make love, his approach makes her fear a spasm, anticipatory anxiety triggers the spasm, the spasm confirms the anticipatory fear, and her behavior confirms his suspicion that she "manufactures"spasms when he wants to make love, and he doubts her love. | |
After I explained to the couple the interrelationship between body and psyche, we entered the dimension of spirit where a person, if need be, can say "no"to anxieties and doubts. Using paradoxical intention I recommended to the husband that he show her gentle affection without, however, intention for intercourse. This behavior would reduce her anticipatory anxiety. At the same time I suggested to the wife, using the technique of dereflection, not to think about spasms but about qualities she loved in her husband. She might even try to take the initiative for intercourse, while he showed no intention. We thus reversed roles: she to become the gentle aggressor while he was instructed to refrain from intercourse. | |
They found my suggestions strange but obviously tried because at the next counseling session he admitted with embarrassment to successful intercourse. "I really wanted to apply the brakes," he said, "but then ..." | |
She added: "It really happened the way you said. I concentrated on my husband and remembered when we first met, and that we still loved each other. I forgot my sickness and everything, and suddenly we were in each other's arms, with no tension of spasms. I am happy to know this is still possible." | |
Since then the tctanic attacks have been reduced to a minimum and probably will not require medical or psychotherapeutic help. The marriage is working normally, which proves that the positive is possible even where the negative exists. | |
The "Want" and the "Ought" | |
The "ought" is the ethical postulate, how our personal conscience tells us to act in the response to the meaning of the moment, to make us aware what we deep within us feel is most meaningful. If the "want" is the result of our "will to meaning" it is in accord with the "ought" because both are oriented toward meaning, and no bad consequences will follow. But if the want is the result of another will (to pleasure or power), or the ought is superimposed on us by the outside (parents, peers, society) and does not lead us to respond to the meaning of the moment as we see it, then there is a gap between the ought and the want which may cause considerable psychological conflicts. To bring the ought and the want together is then the task of the therapist. | |
For instance, when parents spoil and overprotect children, the therapist may argue as follows: the most meaningful way to raise children is to do what is best for their physical-psychological-spiritual upbringing. This is the ought. But, for most normal parents, it is also the want. On this basis, the therapist may discuss with the particular parents how much or how little spoiling and overprotecting contribute to the wellbeing of the child. | |
There are also examples demonstrating that a personal want, directed toward a meaningful goal, is at the same time an ought that must not be prevented by outside forces. This is shown by Van Gogh. He committed suicide after his psychiatrist convinced him to give up painting to reduce stress. Painting, however, was the entire meaning content in the life of this sick man. It was the medium through which the healthy core of his spirit manifested itself, not only for his sake but for the sake of the world. When this want was stopped he also refused the ought (to live). When he no longer could do what he, on his deepest level, wanted (to paint), he also refused the ought (to remain alive). | |
The want and the ought of a person can harmonize only if both relate to meaning, even though one demands a decision, and the other is a request. Every want requires a decision in favor of what is wanted (for instance, painting); every ought is a request to refuse what ought not to be (for instance, spoiling a child). Logotherapy deals with both, the want and the ought, and tries to harmonize toward an objective meaning. Herc logotherapy stands in contrast to most other schools of psychotherapy which focus attention on what is wanted, especially in the intrapsychic area of human drives, and less in the area of transsubjective meanmg. | |
Rationality and Emotion | |
In .January 1986 a "meta-analysis," using several statistical methods, com | |
15 | |
pared some 500 empirical studies of various psychotherapies. In their report, Glass and Kliegle wrote in the Journal ofCounseling and Clinical Psychology, 51, 1986: | |
"Most effective proved to be cognitive methods of therapy which were based on rational confrontation with the convictions and thoughts of the patients. Second most effective were methods using hypnosis to bring about changes in the patients' experiences and behavior patterns. Methods in behavior therapy, aimed, for instance, at self-control or training in certain abilities, were third, followed by the treatment of certain phobias through systematic desensibilitation. Other forms of therapy proved to be less effective, such as psychoanalytically oriented therapies, Gestalt-and client-centered therapy. "1 | |
Because this "meta-analysis" was open to criticism for its methods, Klaus Grawe of the University of Bern, Switzerland, checked the effectiveness of the various psychotherapies in a more detailed study. In a still unpublished report he writes: | |
"Preliminary results of a detailed examination of some 1,000 international studies of psychotherapies by the Bern research team found humanistic methods the most effective. These include therapies emphasizing the experience and stimulation of emotions and meaning aspects. Behavior therapy and psychoanalytically oriented treatments followed at a significant distance." | |
These findings are quoted not to put down other psychotherapies but to point out where the effectiveness of logotherapy may lie. According to the "metaanalysis," the most effective methods were "based on rational confrontation with the convictions and thoughts of patients." The Bern research team declared as most effective "humanistic methods ... therapies emphasizing the experience and stimulation of emotions and meaning aspects." Effective methods, therefore, appeal to a rationale confronting the convictions of patients, and also to emotion oriented toward meaning. This is exactly the combination stimulated by logotherapeutic dialogue: rational thinking and acting, not rigid but based on deep-rooted values and ethical convictions, and also on active emotions, not concentrated on self but transcending to persons and causes that are meaningful. | |
Logotherapy is not just a humanistic method, it is possibly the humanistic method because its goal is an appeal to what is "specifically human" in every person: it helps patients regain the "specifically human" as a significant factor regardless of what happened because of illness. Logotherapy enables patients to regain their full human capacities. Professionals in the helping field may find guidance in the words of Munich surgeon K. H. Bauer: "Ifscience is the rock on which we stand, humanity is the star toward which we reach." | |
ELISA BETH LUKAS, Ph.D., is director of the South German Institute of Logotherapy, Geschwister Scholl Platz 8, D-8080 Furstenfeldbruck, West Germany. | |
Schizophrenia and the Existential Vacuum | |
James Lantz and John Belcher | |
Numerous authorities have pointed out that schizophrenia is both a biologi | |
cal and a psychological discasc.M,7 Helping efforts have focused on treatment | |
through a combination of drugs and supportive psychotherapy.3A-6 With few | |
exceptions, the meaning and the noetic component of schizophrenia have been | |
ignored. 1·2·5 | |
This article describes four stages of schizophrenia from a logotherapeutic | |
point of view. It discusses the treatment implications of these stages and the | |
reasons we believe that logothcrapy must be an important element of treatment | |
with this highly disturbed and tragic population. | |
The Symptoms of Schizophrenia | |
The symptoms of schizophrenia often include illusions, hallucinations, delusions, ideas of reference, an affect disturbance, ambivalence, autistic behavior and lost associations.n,8 Symptoms occur on a continuum, with some clients constantly appearing quite bizarre and others usually appearing normal but exhibiting bizarre behavior when under stress. The basic feature of schizophrenia appears to be a thought disorder, believed to be associated with a Dopamine imbalance in the receptor sites of the central nervous system that affects brain system functioning. 3 This imbalance makes it difficult for the schizophrenic to accurately perceive and evaluate communication, stimulation and expressed feelings in the environment. Treatment includes antipsychotic medications to help control the thought disorder and modifying environmental factors to decrease the level of stress and stimulation. The mental-health literature suggests that stress plus vulnerability to the disease results in the schizophrenic symptoms.6·7·8 | |
The experience of schizophrenia is extremely painful. Mental-health workers who cannot tolerate their own pain that develops in the caring relationships with such clients, often avoid work with them and their tragic life. 1•8 The flight of many mental-health workers from this client population indicates that such clients experience more pain than the mental-health community is willing to tolerate. Providing such clients with medication without the provision of sincere empathy may be internally safe for mental-health workers, but it probably has resulted in both inpatient warehousing and outpatient negligence. 1·5·6·8 | |
The Disassociation Stage | |
In the first stage of schizophrenia, the disassociation stage, clients lose their ability to ascribe and utilize commonly understood symbols to describe reality | |
or the meanings embedded in reality. Some authors1•7 call this stage the breakdown of consensual validation stage because the clients are unable to use common reality symbols for effective living. The cause of this first stage of schizophrenia is unknown.3 Most authorities have found Freudian and other psychological explanations inadequate to understand causes of the disassociation stage. Biological and neurological hypotheses have pointed to the most productive direction for current research.3 Such authorities believe that schizophrenia is probably a neurological disease or a vulnerability to a neurological disease which is exacerbated by too much stress. As mentioned, the Dopamine imbalance theory is presently considered important in understanding thought disorders possibility.3-5 | |
Although numerous authors believe that the dissociation stage dramatically disrupts the schizophrenic's ability to function effectively in their psychosocial dimension, few have pointed out that this first stage also disrupts the person's search for meaning. It is our hypothesis that during the disassociation stage, schizophrenics are hampered in their ability to utilize those meaning symbols they used in the past to discover, recognize or accept meaning. Schizophrenic persons are now in the uncomfortable situation of being still aware of the will to meaning, yet unable to use common consensual symbols for the realization of meaning. This sets the stage for the second stage of schizophrenia, the creative stage. | |
The Creative Stage | |
In the creative stage schizophrenics make heroic attempts to create new meaning symbols with those cognitive and perceptual abilities that remain after the breakdown of consensual validation: they search for meaning in symbol forms that are skewed by the thought disorder component of the disease. (Sec the two drawings presented by Kaplan and Sadock3,PP-1 12 •.m to get an idea of the symbol forms often created in this stage of schizophrenia.) Schizophrenics attempt to ascribe meaning symbols to experiences which often appear bizarre, chaotic and illogical to people who do not have the basic schizophrenic thought disorder. | |
Helping professionals are often perplexed and offended by schizophrenic persons' attempts to create new meaning symbols. The apparent bizarre nature of these creative meaning symbols can be easily misunderstood by mental health professionals, and frequently classified as "simply" a symptom of the disease process. This reductionist logic contributes to the existential vacuum experienced by schizophrenic persons.1.2A-8 It rejects their attempt to fight the feelings of emptiness which characterizes their existence. This rejection and lack of appreciation for their creative symbolizations results in a third stage of schizophrenia, the isolatioi1 stage. | |
The Isolation Stage | |
In the isolation stage schizophrenics give up trying to make significant others understand the new meaning symbols they have created to fight off the existential vacuum. Schizophrenic persons have experienced that other people reject such creative symbols as "just pathology," and tell the schizophrenics by word and action that this last remaining tool for realizing meaning is "simply sick" and of "no value." Often schizophrenics accurately realize that empathy for their heroic struggles is not available and that the continued open manifestation of such symbols may well result in punitive forms of mental-health intervention. During the isolation stage, schizophrenic persons continue to use creative symbolization to fight off the existential vacuum, but these symbols are not openly shared with others. On the noetic level the schizophrenics become "all alone." | |
The Existential Vacuum Stage | |
The fourth stage of schizophrenia, the existential vacuum stage, is a reaction to the isolation stage. Because schizophrenics arc alone on the noetic level, their search for meaning no longer is validated through others. This often results in a complete breakdown of human encouragement. Schizophrenics experience being alone on two important levels. They are alone because their meaning symbols are not understood, because they do not experience encouragement for their creative symbolization. At this point many schizophrenics give up and systematically repress the will to meaning. They fully experience the existential vacuum. Those who do not give up hide their search for meaning and are seldom understood as having a noetic or spiritual dimension. This hiding of the spiritual search for meaning from the self or others provides helping professionals with "apparent cvidence"that the client is "too far gone" and should therefore just be "managed," "controlled," and "drugged." Inpatient warehousing and outpatient negligence are all too often the result of the mental health community's failure to see schizophrenic persons as still possessing the will to meaning. | |
Treatment Implications | |
From a loghterapy perspective, it is appropriate to provide the schizophrenic client with medication, supportive psychotherapy, and with environmental modification services. The logotherapist should understand that schizophrenia does have a physical, social and psychological component, and that mental health and psychiatric intervention on these three levels is usually indicated. On the other hand, the logotherapist (more than any other kind of therapist) should remember that the noetic component must never be ignored. As FrankJ2 has consistently pointed out, the noetic component of human existence never becomes ill. It may become hidden, repressed, ignored, or unheard, but it always remains as a healthy part ofthe person. It exists, it remains healthy, and it never loses its importance, even in such a tragic situation as schizophrenia. A therapist immersed in the F ranklian tradition will have a better chance of fighting off the reductionistic trend toward seeing the schizophrenic client as simply a "disease category" that is not open to spiritual growth and self-transcendence. The logotherapist will not try to simply manage the disease but, instead, will attempt to develop a meaningful relationship with a client who is heroically engaged in the search for meaning in spite of a tragic and severe disability. | |
The logotherapist has a particular opportunity and responsibility to insure | |
that the mental health community understands the creative stage of schizophrenia to be much more than a simple manifestation of schizophrenic symptoms. For example, a schizophrenic man who believes that he is God or Jesus could be considered delusional. On the other hand, a therapist who understands the importance of "hearing the clients search for meaning" might also hear, in such delusional manifestations, a sincere desire to be with God or be with Jesus as the client is feeling the terror of the schizophrenic experience. This noetic component of the delusion is not sick and must be heard and respected if the schizophrenic client is to be helped. If the noetic element of the delusion is not heard, accepted and supported, therapists will let the client move into an advanced stage of the illness. The following case illustrates the importance of respecting the meaning or noetic component of delusional and hallucinatory material. This client of the senior author was in danger of moving into the isolation and existential vacuum stages stage of the schizophrenic process. | |
Mary | |
Mary called about six months ago and requested an appointment because she had heard through the "mental health grapevine" that I would not laugh at her "religious thinking." At her first appointment she stated that she was a schizophrenic, had been in the state hospital seven times, and no longer "messed up" on her medications. A while back she had started sleeping with a man and shortly afterwards started hearing strange voices which told her that she was a sinner who should stop sleeping with the man. She had called her psychiatrist who increased her medication. The voices were now softer, less frequent and not so scary. She realized that these strange voices were a part of her illness yet she still believed that they were somehow a "message from God's angels." Her psychiatrist had told her that the voices "simply" represented a "religious preoccupation" that was a part of her illness. She stated that she liked her psychiatrist, that he was helpful to her, but that she felt "alone" in her idea that the voices were "still important." At the time of our first appointment Mary was fairly stable and in partial remission from her illness. She knew a lot about her disease, understood that she needed to continue to see her psychiatrist and wanted to stay on her medications. She did not want to go back to the state hospital and realized that it was her responsibility to do the best job she could in controlling "my schiwphrcnia." | |
Mary saw me four times. In these sessions, we discussed her values, her ideas about right and wrong, and what she considered to be the meaning of her life. Mary told me that as a result of our talks she had decided that "sleeping with a man before I am married is wrong in my own religion." She decided that "my own values are being violated when I sleep with Bob" and that "my illness screwed up some good messages that I was telling myself." In other words, Mary decided that the message to stop sleeping with Bob was for her noetically valid, yet the "hallucination form" that the messages took was reactive to her illness. Mary later called, saying that she was still dating Bob, but was no longer sleeping with him. She had talked with Bob about her values and he understood. She was no longer hearing the voices and thanked me for not laughing at her "religious thinking." The talks, she said, had helped as she had been feeling very alone and frightened. She agreed to "call again" in the future if she needed "this kind of help." She continues to sec her psychiatrist. | |
Mary illustrates the effect of responding positively to a schizophrenic client's ~earch for meaning. She was supported in her effort to clarify her noctic values. and this clarification was linked with the reality of her own life. The use of medications and regular appointments with her psychiatrist were encouraged to support her continued remission from the illness. Logotherapy helped Mary struggle with the existential vacuum that was slowly engulfing her existence. This therapeutic approach helped Mary to meet her goal of remaining out of the state hospital. Helping Mary stay integrated with the community and in touch with both reality and her noetic values has been demonstrated to be a positive appr6ach to helping chronically mentally ill individuals achieve a more enjoyable and productive life. Such an approach supports self-determination and facilitates the human search for meaning . | |
.IA At F5,· LAV 7Z. Ph. n., is a.1sis1ant professor a1 n1c Ohio .'>'1a1e Uni,·crsin·, College of' Social Work. JOHN BELCHER, Ph. n, is assis1an1 pro/£'ssor, lni1·ersi1,1· 11/ A/arr/and. 5,chool uf Social ~Vork, Baltimore, Afarrland. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Aricti. S. !111npreta1ion ofSchi::ophrcnia. New York. Basic Books. 1974. | |
2. Frankl. V. 111e Unconscious Ciod: Psvchotherapy and lheo/og1·. '.\cv. York. Simon and Schuster. 1978. Kaplan, H. and B. Sadock. Modem Smopsis of Ps_rchiatr_,. !If. Baltimore. Williams and Wilkins. 1981. | |
4. Lant?, .I. "'Responsibility and Meaning in Treatment ofSchizophrenics.'" /nternational h1rwn fi1r Lugu1hcrap_1· 7, 26-28, I984. · | |
5. Lant?, J. "Family Logothcrapy.'' Cumemporarr Fami/v '/11erapyk 8. 124-135. 1986. | |
6. | |
Powdermaker. F "Concepts Found ljseful in Treatment ofSchi?Oid and Ambulatory Schiwphrenic Patients." Ps1Clua1ry 15, 61-63, 1952. | |
7. | |
Recd, J. "SchiJOphrcnic Thought Disorder: ;\ Review and Hypothesis." Contemporary Psychialry II. 403-432. 1970. | |
8. | |
Sullivan H. Schizophrenia as a 1/wnan Process. New York. W. L Norton, 1962. | |
Franklian Family Therapy | |
James Lantz | |
Franklian family therapy is an existential approach to treatment. It is flexible | |
and recognizes the central importance of the human search for meaning. It also | |
recognizes that the family provides most people with their best hope and | |
opportunity to discover, recognize and accept meaning.6·7·8 | |
The family has been defined as a natural group in which the individuals share a common history and a biological future.1.2 This can best be understood as a relationship system in which members influence each other.6•7 To be functional and meaningful, members must find ways to discover what Frankl4 calls existential human values. In my experience, functional family relationship patterns help individual members realize and discover experiential, creative and attitudinal values which are or can be a part of their daily existence.s,7,x Creative values relate to family giving, experiential values to family taking, and attitudinal values to what the family stands for. 5 When a family is able to help its members recognize, accept and discover the three kinds of existential values, they grow and develop in a functional way.7 When members are not helped, at least one may develop some sort of psychiatric or existential symptom7, 11 such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, acting-out behavior, or somatic complaints. Such symptoms fill the family existential vacuum,JA,7,io, 12 | |
It is difficult for the family members to discover values and meaning without functional family communication.9, 11,12·13 Thus communication and meaning have a close and reciprocal relationship,7,8,13 and to help a disturbed family discover values and meaning, the therapist must help improve the quality of | |
communication.8,9,11,12,14,1s Communication patterns can become dysfunctional and disruptive to the family's search for meaning in various ways: messages may be sent in an unclear way, or perceived and evaluated inaccurately, or structural problems may arise when parents use children in indirectly expressing marital hostility.5·9 When partners form a marital relationship, each brings to the relationship patterns ofcommunicating which may or may not be helpful to the new family's search for meaning. Their unique blend of marital communication patterns | |
develops into a marital interactional style and later, with the addition of children, into a repetitive family communication pattern reinforced and maintained by the total membership. 12 If this pattern facilitates the search for | |
meaning, Franklian family treatment is not indicated.7 It becomes necessary only if the pattern disrupts the family search for meaning. Figure 1illustrates the reciprocal relationship between family communication pattern and meaning. | |
Franklian Intervention with the Family Group | |
Franklian family intervention, directed toward a search for meaning,7·8 works | |
Figure 1. Meaning and Family Pattern | |
---7 | |
The Family Will To Meaning | |
l)~,tunctional I amil\. FunL·tional l·am1l\ P,1,ttcrn Pattern | |
- | |
I 1m1tl'd }{,·al1,a11on ol I hL· Rr;-il11ati1rn ol L;,,.pc1f· ,pc11L·nt1aL ( ll',l\1\t' 1cnl1aL ( 'ieat 1w and ctnd ,\ttltuJm,d \ahu:\ ·\tutuJrn,il ValLw.., | |
I lw \1anife,tatHin | |
I he lh-Prnduct of Happ1ne~~ | |
through two approaches. The first directly focuses the family upon the discovery of meaning in shared history and family life. It introduces the members to their noetic or meaning unconscious. 7 | |
8 | |
The second approach is indirect and helps change dysfunctional patterns which cloud the family's awareness of meaning. It indirectly helps the family discover meaning as a consequence of improved communication.7 | |
The Direct Approach | |
In the direct approach the logotherapist facilitates the family search for meaning by helping its members get in touch with their noetic unconscious. This concept is based on the idea that family members are not always aware of meaning on a conscious level. Frankl4 and Fabry1 suggest that the noetic unconscious includes many positive human qualities ignored on the conscious level. The noetic unconscious also includes many meaning connections which are the unstated rationale for much of the communication pattern in the family's daily life. 5·7 For example, a "stingy" father who grew up during the depression may be experienced as unloving by his child until hoth child and father can make the meaning connection that the stinginess really expresses protective love. After the family becomes aware of the meaning connection, the father may still he experienced as stingy but no longer unloving (at least not because of stinginess). Three specific direct activities helping family members bring noctic meaning connections to consciousness are the family meaning history, the family shoebox game, and Socratic dialogue. | |
The Family Meaning History: Taking such a history is similar to what Virginia Satir13 calls "taking a family life chronology." The purpose of this chronology is to determine the circumstances, context and time frame in which members joined or departed from the family.5•11 ln addition, the family meaning history emphasizes meaning connections that members could or do make about their unique history. The family logotherapist uses sincere interest, questions, and reflection to help members reveal their history and become more aware of | |
noetic meanings imbedded in it on an unconscious level. One helpful way to | |
accomplish this is to look at a family photo album. This visual method is | |
particularly helpful to families who have trouble expressing meaning connec | |
tions in words.s,s | |
The Familv Shoebox Game: The therapist provides the family members with a shoebox, scotch tape, scissors, and some magazines, and asks them as a group to make a collage out of the materials. They are to use the outside of the shoebox to represent values and meanings which the family attempts to present to nonmembers of the immediate family, and the inside for values and meanings shared and presented to each other. The shoebox game is useful directly and indirectly. Directly, it provides members with a specific activity for thinking and talking with each other about family values and meanings and thus get in touch with their noetic unconscious. Indirectly, it helps the therapist, observing how they work with each other, to get a better diagnostic picture ofpatterns that may be assisting or disrupting the family search for meaning. In a word, the shoebox game can be used as a family interactional projective test. | |
The Family Socratic Dialogue: Socratic dialogue or self-discovery discomse can help family members discover meaning connections imbedded in the unconscious. The family therapist asks questions to help members become more aware of their spiritual dimension, their strengths, values, hopes, and achievcments.4·7 | |
Socratic dialogue is a treatment used in the Milan systemic approach to family treatment as well as in the Franklian approach. 7 In the Milan approach, the therapist asks questions designed to introduce new information into the family system through implicit or explicit connections with the questions asked.' Franklian u,c is ,irr.ilar and different -similar in that q ucstions are designed to introduce new information into the family system, and different in that the questions are designed to help members make "'meaning connectiom" to stimulate the emergence and awareness of the noetic unconscious.7 | |
The Indirect Approach | |
Indirect methods of Franklian family intcrwntion arc based upon ihe idea that Jy,functional family communication patterns di,rupt the family ~earch fpr meaning while functional patterns arc helpful. | |
Dysfunctional family interactional pattern is either a family communication problem1c or a family structural probk:m.9 Hoth arc meaning-diminishmg behaviors. 7.x This can best be understood through a brief look at two of our most creative and effective family therapists: Virginia Satir and Salvadore Minuchin. | |
Satir11 shows that clear. precise and congruent family communication is incompatible with the continuation of family symptoms. She demonstrates that a communication approach to family intervention can be extremely effective. From a Franklian perspective, the curative factor is not the improvement in communication, but the family's improved ability to share meanings as a consequence of improved communication. In this sense, Satir can be understood as using an indirect form of Franklian intervention to challenge familial meanings-diminishing behavior. | |
Minuchin9 indicates that parents who do not work together to provide leadership for the family often have a psychosomatic child. The treatment of choice is to create a situation in which the parents develop a mutual working style which creates a more effective structure for the family system. This results in a decrease of symptoms. From a Franklian perspective, it is not the change in family organization which makes the structural approach so useful, but the increased ability of members to share and exchange meanings as a consequence of a more effective family structure. In this respect, Minuchin is also using an indirect form of Franklian intervention to challenge familial meaning-diminishing behavior. | |
Many other indirect approaches are also compatible with a Franklian family treatment intervention, such as Andrews,2 Prosky, 12 Whitaker, 14 Ackerman,! and Mullan. 10 Specific methods of indirect Franklian family intervention I have used include therapist reflection upon family pattern, reflection upon internal response to family pattern. dere11ection, and paradoxical intention. | |
Therapist Reflection upon Family Pattern | |
Direct open reflection by the family logotherapist about dysfunctional communication and structural pattern can help the members develop awareness, insight. and a healthy level of embarrassment about the patterns they use to inhibit the search for meaning. in the following clinical example, the therapist openly reflects upon a structural problem which is clouding the family's ability to discover meaning. | |
The mother was concerned about their son's poor school attendance, temper outbursts, and marginal grades. After a conference with the parents, the school counselor referred the total family for treatment, suspecting that something was wrong in the functioning of the family as a unit. The family included son Roger. 14, Jane, 11, father, 45, and mother, 43. | |
In the initial family treatment interview, Roger would act up (i.e., 11ick cigarette ashes on the floor), mother would tell him to stop, Roger would talk back, father would grin, and mother would become silent. Jane acted as an isolate as this was going on. This process was repeated in various forms during the first half of the interview. The therapist viewed the repetitive process as a family structural problem and decided to intervene through the use of pattern reflection during the interview. The therapist was concerned that the structural problem disrupted the family search for meaning because the parents were unable to work together to lead the family to the discovery of values and meamng. | |
(Son flicking ashes on the floor.) Mother: (meekly) Roger, stop that. That's no way to act. Son: (angry) Get off my back. (Silence) Father: (silent) (with grin) (No support) Therapist: (to wife) You know, it looks to me like you (Reflect on pattern) | |
need some help right now but you're not asking | |
your husband. | |
Mother: (silent but showing tears) (Tells the therapist he is on the right track) Therapist: (softly) Do I see some tears? (Reflects on pattern) Mother: (crying harder) Therapist: What's it about? Mother: Nothing. Therapist: (gently) You afraid he won't help? (Reflects on pattern) Mother: (nods yes) Therapist: Let's find out for sure. Ask him for some help. (Reinforces her for wanting help) (Silence) Mother: (softly) Well -Will You? (looks at husband) Hus band: (to therapist) Well, I always try to be available (Intellectualizes) to her when I can. I'm gone a lot, working. (Silence) Therapist: (softly) Sometimes you're far away? (Reflects on pattern) Husband: (starts to cry) Yep, yes. Therapist: (softly) You far away right now? (Reflects on pattern) Husband: (shaky voice) Yes, I wish I wasn't but I am. (Silence) Therapist: I'm sorry. Husband: (shaky voice) I'm not always sure she wants me. Therapist: When she looked at you and asked for help, (Reflects on pattern) you weren't sure what she meant? Husband: Well~ I'm not always sure. Therapist: Ask her if she really wants you far away. (Silence) Husband: (to wife) Do you? Wife: (crying softly) No. (Long silence) Husband: (gets up and changes chairs and holds wife's hand) Therapist: (softly) How does this feel? (Reflects on pattern) Wife and Husband: (both smile) (Silence) Therapist: It looks a lot better to me. (Reflects on pattern) Wife and Husband: (both laugh and then hug each other) | |
Therapist Reflection upon Internal Response to Family Pattern | |
In this form of reflection therapists allow themselves to get involved in the emotional life of the family group.6 Because of the therapist's noetic involvement, both therapist and client family can learn in a reciprocal fashion. The internal state of the therapist becomes relevant to himself and the client family,6 stimulating growth in both_6.10.14.15 | |
Such an approach demands that the therapists rigorously reflect upon, monitor, and utilize internal feelings during treatment.6 In Yalom's15 view, there is such a thing as existential counter-transference which can be used to help therapist and client discover meaning. The following clinical illustration demonst rates the use of internal reflection by the logotherapist during indirect Franklian family intervention. | |
Mr. and Mrs. S requested marital therapy because "we can't get along." Mrs. S described her husband as "depressed," and Mr. S called his wife a "bitch." Marital interaction during conjoint sessions demonstrated the husband's loss of energy, crying spells, and pleading requests for attention. The wife demonstrated verbal abuse, caustic comments, and deprecating remarks to the husband. | |
Social history revealed that the family's two children had recently left home; the son to the Army, the daughter to college. The wife returned to work and was going to night school. The couple remarked that originally "we had to get married," and that now "it's hard without the kids." | |
The therapist considered the difficulty to be a noetic or meaning problem triggered by the present stage of family life. Husband and wife were having problems moving from the launching-of-children stage to a later one in which they must negotiate a new level of marital intimacy to discover meanings not merely based upon their mutual interest in raising children. | |
The parents had used the children as their primary way of discovering, recognizing, and accepting meaning. Loss of daily contact with the children presented an existential challenge that required relating to each other in a way that did not depend upon their mutual interest in the children. | |
The therapist believed the couple to be capable of growth and to have the strength to justify an attempt at noetic progression. He decided to take on a challenging role to try to stimulate a new level of intimacy between them. He worked with them to facilitate a process in which they could once again rediscover and experience losing and finding each in the other. Internal reflection was used by the therapist to identify and constructively express his own feelings in reaction to his difficulty in being close with the couple. | |
The therapist reported his problem of "feeling alone" when Mrs. S was being caustic, and his problem of"feeling guilty" when Mr. S was acting depressed. He identified these feelings as his problem, and accepted responsibility for them. Ideas about how he might solve "his'' problem were shared openly. This was possible only because the therapist really did believe that such feelings were, in fact, his responsibility. He stated that he felt it was necessary for him to "find a way to be closer" so he could help them "get closer" and discover meaning. | |
By openly presenting and accepting responsibility for "his problem," the therapist accomplished a number of difficult treatment tasks. He demonstrated a way to find meaning that was neither defensive nor hostile. The intervention interrupted the circular and reciprocal patterns of dysfunctional marital interactions by placing the therapist in the middle of these patterns while he was manifesting the noetic challenge. The therapist mirrored the family's central meaning issue by expressing his subjective feelings. This helped husband and wife feel that they were being understood. The therapist's "problem" allowed the marital problem to become and remain open to reflection in a safe treatment atmosphere. Significant marital growth did then occur, and at the time of termination, both husband and wife stated that the therapist had helped them "rediscover meaning in our relationship." | |
Dereflection and Paradoxical Intention | |
Dereflection was developed by Frankl4 for symptoms resulting from hyperreflection or hyperintention -when clients place excessive attention on fears, symptoms, or normal body functions such as sleep and sex. Hyperreflection prevents normal functioning,4 and the therapist helps clients turn to subjects other than the area of anxiety. This dereflection from the area of concern allows natural functioning patterns to resume.H,5,7 In family treatment, dereflection is used indirectly to disrupt problematic family interactional patterns which are a reaction to hyperreflection and hyperintention.7 The technique is useful in family structural problems,5 for sexual dysfunction,1,5,7 and when working with the family of a schizophrenic client. 5,7.x | |
Paradoxical intention is not used in a strategic, or manipulative way. The family logotherapist openly explains the use of the technique to the family members and directly teaches them about anticipatory anxiety and how the technique can short-circuit the vicious cycle. Such openness by the therapist challenges reductionism and helps the client family to accept responsibility for breaking behavior patterns and to change symptoms.6-7 | |
Conclusion | |
Franklian family therapy is an eclectic approach in helping the family search for meaning more effectively. The human search for meaning stands as the most important human activity and the family group as the person's best chance for realizing meaning. Franklian family treatment integrates the brilliant work of Frankl with what the author considers to be the most brilliant work of God | |
the family . | |
.IA MES E. LANTZ, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the Ohio State University, College o{Sucial Work, and clinical director ofVillage Counseling Associates in Columbus, Ohio. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Ackerman. N. Treatin1-; the Trouhled Fami/_1·. New York, Basic Boob, 1966. | |
2. | |
Andrews. F. Fhe Fmotionallv f)is1urhed F,unilv. New York, Jason Aronson, 1974. | |
3. | |
Fabry. J. The Pursuit (J/' Meaning. San Francisco. Harper & Row, 1980. | |
4. | |
Frankl, V. The Will to Afeanin1-;. New York. New American Library, I 969. | |
5. | |
LantJ, J. Family and Marital Therapy. !\ew York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1978. | |
6. | |
_____ "I .ogotherapy and the Persons of the Therapist." 1he lmernational Forum/or l,01so1herapr, 9, 29-32, 1986. | |
7. _____ "Family Logotherapy." Contemporary Famift, Therapy, 8, 124-135, 1986. | |
8. | |
_____ and Thorword, S. '"Inpatient Family Therapy Approaches." The Psvchialric Hospital, 16, 85-89, 1985. | |
9. | |
Minuchin, S. Familit!s and Famiil' 'fherap1·. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. 1974. | |
10. | |
Mullan, H. "The Psychotherapist is Challenged hy Existentialism." Pilvimage, 3, 1-10, 1974. | |
II. _____ and Sanguilliano, I. 7he 1herapist '.I-Contrihution to the Treatment Process. Springfield. Charles C. Thomas, 1964. | |
12. | |
Prosky, P. "Family Therapy: An Orientation." Clinical Social Work Journal, 2, 45-56, 1974. | |
13. | |
Satir, V. Conioint Family Therapy. Palo Alto, Science and Behavior Books, 1967. | |
14. | |
Whitaker. "Three Metaphor's for Family Therapy." Voices, 21, 15-17. 1985. | |
15. | |
Yalom, I. Existential Psi-dwtl11!rap_1', New York. Basic Books, 1980. | |
A Question of Meaning: Rabbinic Counseling and Logotherapeutic Models | |
Yaakov Thompson | |
Like many of my colleagues I come to the task of counseling with a confession: My rabbinical training was lacking in this important area. I make that confession in order to share one way in which I have tried to overcome that deficiency: by seeking models for counseling that are both nonpsychoanalytic and in consonance with my personal worldview as an observant Jew. That view is built on the assurance that life, up to its final moment, is meaningful. To live according to my faith is not always easy just as many professional tasks are not always pleasant.Nonetheless, I welcome the burdens in the conviction that they are meaningful. In the teachings of Viktor Frankl I have found a model for counseling that rests upon that same foundation: life, to be lived, must be meaningful. | |
Frankl's teachings are a unique blend of psychology and humane optimism. As a form of psychotherapy, logothcrapy can be fully employed only by a trained analyst which I am not. However, logotherapy can provide practical models ofcounseling for rabbis (and others) who are called upon for short-term problem resolution. | |
Unlike most other forms oftherapy, logotherapy is not reductionist ·· human beings are not seen as creatures of drives and instincts but, unlike animals, long for a sense of meaning. It does not release us from moral responsibility claiming we are victims of irrepressible drives. Its view is in keeping with Judaism's outlook that we arc always free to choose our actions and neither claim to be caught up in a destiny of "sin" nor count on being transformed through acts of grace. The choice of action like the choice of meaning must come from within. We are challenged by acknowledging ultimate responsibility for our actions. Logotherapy is a therapy of values that understands the counseling process, identifying values and hence, meaning. Any counselor is aware of how much distress is caused by the lack of existential meaning. Many people of all ages complain of meaninglessness. By helping clients independently discover meaning in life and even in their "problems," the counselor prepares the way for resolution. Simply identifying the problem is often enough to permit the client to become an active partner in the healing process. | |
As a rabbi I have found the logotherapeutic model both practical and convenient. Practical from the standpoint of my ability, convenient from my own assumptions about what is meaningful and what it means to be human. Implicit in both points is my professional and personal rejection of much of Freud and the popular variations of his thinking. | |
I do not believe that I and my colleagues should deal with mental disease. That is the concern of health professionals. We should deal with questions of mental dis-ease existential questions that betray disorientation vis-a-vis the meaning and value of life. Although many people come to us with "religious" questions, many are not merely religious (similar to questions of Halacha, Jewish law), but questions of the spirit. The issues may go beyond Jewishness to reveai a deeper existential problem. | |
The unique task of the rabbi/ counselor is to integrate the existential, and thus universal, problem with Jewish understanding of the questions and possible solutions. Logothcrapy can provide the foundation upon which an effective method of short-term counseling can be integrated with the value system of Judaism. In terms of rabbinic counseling this means uncovering meaning in a Jewish context. This is unique to rabbinic counseling and often means that the rabbi is called upon to speak about Judaism as meaningful to the individual. I can think of no more meaningful approach to life than that expressed by the traditional concept of Mitzvot (commandments). The ultimate meaning of the Mitzvot is an expression of the Divine will. If a sense of meaninglessness ensues from the failure to sec a higher purpose to one's actions (and life itself) then the concept of Mitzvot provides a strong medicine. | |
This approach is not mere wishful dreaming: there is no concept more important than the belief that God does care about the actions of the individual. For the Jew there can be no greater source of meaning than the Mitzvot. The unique task of the rabbi is then helping others uncover this source of meaning within his or her life. | |
The goal of logotherapy is to show ways in which meaning can be uncovered. Often ultimate meaning lies hidden underneath everyday activities, considered trivial. The observance of Mitzvot introduces a new way of thinking, in which every activity ( even seemingly trivial) can be reclaimed within the realm of the meaningful. There is an important difference: Logotherapy is not religion or "religious" ---the sense of meaning comes from one's existential stance. For the Jcw the sense of meaning is based on one's religious stance, one's actions -and evaluating meaningfulness -are based on the belief that they serve a higher purpose. (This too may be an existential position for those who stake their very existence on the belief that there is a God who cares and has purpose.) | |
The common thread running through the following three case histories is the sense that life had, in some way, lost meaning. A common assumption was that I, the rabbi, could restore a sense of meaning and somehow restore life to what it had been. The first assumption was reasonable, the second impossible. | |
The Danger Point | |
Early in my career as a rabbi, a young man phoned and asked if we could "talk about religion in general and Judaism in particular." He had long lost touch with Judaism, but now with renewed interest wanted to learn how to be a more spiritual person. I wondered how one teaches another to be more "spiritual." and what he meant by that term. At best, I thought, I could teach Jewish spirituality not from a book but by example. | |
When we met I discovered what he meant by spirituality. Life, he stated, as he lived it now, was meaningless. He hoped that, by becoming "more Jewish" he would find a sense of meaning. I realized that what he called a religious problem | |
involved much more than ritual or prayer. He had suffered from severe depres | |
sion, and only recently had been released from hospital, continuing drug therapy | |
and psychoanalysis. During his hospitalization several Christian clergymen | |
suggested that his depression might be alleviated by attaining a greater sense of | |
spirituality. Although he rejected their missionizing, he wanted to hear what I, as | |
a representative of Judaism, could offer. I understood the seriousness of his | |
condition yet sensed that his medical treatment lacked one medication -a cure | |
for the soul. | |
I made two points, one Jewish, one logotherapeutic. I explained that Judaism perceives the path to spirituality as one of observance. Life as a Jew is made spiritual and meaningful by the observance of Mitzvot. Connectedness with God had to be made by prayer and ritual. Paraphrasing Frankl's words we may say, "faith cannot be pursued but must ensue." It does not grow out of an isolated, mystical moment but from daily experience of Jewish living. I knew this was not the cure-all answer he had hoped for. I then discussed Frankl's concept of meaning~-what this young man called spirituality. He was confusing the meaninglessness of his spiritual life with the meaninglessness of his total existence. I tried to clarify the point that becoming a better Jew would not insure his becoming a happier person. Meaning must be discovered within the realm of daily living, not awaited as an act of grace. To find meaning does not always require a change in what one does but in why one does it. As a Jew one can't sit back and await a spiritual revelation but must discover a sense of spiritual relation. I added that, perhaps, his discontent grew out of too much selfreflection (hyperretlection) and suggested that he view Judaism as involvement with community, and thus, with others (self-transcendence). | |
After talking for two hours the conversation returned to the topic of his medication, and with it my awareness of just how serious his depression was -~ my suggestions might be sand fighting against an incoming tide. | |
That tide arrived with a vengeance a few weeks later when he committed suicide. Although he had been helped by a battery of professionals more competent than myself, I still questioned my own actions. My client had been desperately looking for a sense of meaning as a Jew and as a human being. Faced with a similar situation I would say the same things again because I realized the truth of logotherapeutic (and Jewish) insights: we cannot live unless we have a why, a purpose, an ultimate meaning; the "why"must be found within. The best the counselor can do is show the way. I also realized the importance of timing. Logotherapists like Elisabeth Lukas emphasize that the danger point of suicide lies not during the depressive period (when the clients are often too depressed to act), not during periods of normalcy (when clients have found meaningful activities and experiences), but at the moment when they emerge from the depressed state. Then concentrated, caring help is needed, and on a generally human level. As Frankl has done in similar situations, the depressed client has to be made to see that the sun still shines, even if it is covered temporarily by clouds. | |
Meaning in Mourning | |
A woman came to see me after her husband of more than forty years had suddenly and unexpectedly died. She told me she had nothing to live for now-~ even her children and grandchildren were no consolation. She felt alone and could not live that way. The same feelings of meaninglessness were still with her after many months. She still cried all day. She often drove aimlessly so none of her family would see her weeping. I became more concerned when I learned that these car trips included almost daily visits to her husband's grave. | |
As we talked, two issues emerged that demanded immediate attention. The first and most pressing problem was that her emotional wound was not healing, was being reopened each day. The second issue was her feeling that life was now bereft of any meaning. The first, bereavement, I could address wearing my rabbi's cap. For the second problem, I would need to add a feather to my cap, the feather oflogotherapy and Frankl's insights into the ultimate meaningfulness of life. | |
In Judaism, bereavement is not only a process of mourning, but of healing. The structure of Avelut (ritual of mourning) is meant as an outlet for grief as well as a guiding channel back to life. While we know that the pain of loss does not cease in seven or thirty days, Judaism does set a limit on grieving in order to start the long process of rebuilding life. For some reason this woman was standing still emotionially. Worse, she hid her grief from her family, cutting herself off from those who could help her most. | |
I spoke to her about the reasons behind Jewish customs of mourning, without much success. She understood the "theory" but this did not help. She admitted that her grief, crying and withdrawal, were excessive and confessed this was why she concealed it from her family. | |
Here I added a logotherapeutic insight. She was unable to begin the healing process because she had no reason to do so. 1 suggested that her children and grandchildren should know how she felt. She could only begin to heal when she allowed them again to become a meaningful part of her life. She protested that they could not help because they did not understand that, with the loss of her husband, she had lost the sense that her life was "for" something. They would interpret her feelings as a statemrnt that she did not love them. | |
In such cases Frankl often asks a bereaved spouse to imagine the opposite scenario. I asked her to imagine that she had died and her husband had been left "alone." How would he feel after her death? She answered that he would be devastated. 1 pointed out that surviving him meant that he had always, to his last moment, enjoyed her love and care. Could not that mean something? I turned to the question of her young grandchildren; how would they ever know, without her, what a wonderful man their grandfather had been? Through her he could live on for the grandchildren and continue to be a good and loving influence on them. She found hope in these suggestions, and promised to think about them. | |
I continued to see her from time to time and felt that she was finding new directions. She visited her husband's grave less often. She developed new social interests and spoke about going on vacation. She no longer mentioned the meaninglessness of her life. | |
Bereavement counseling is a constant task for congregational rabbis. The questions mourners ask are never easy, nor are the answers. In this area logotherapy offers a tremendous resource for the rabbi who can add the religious dimension to Frankl's keen sense of the human need for meaning. | |
The Human Road to Meaning | |
The woman who phoned me was not a member of my congregation, but hoped I would see her and her husband concerning a family problem. Her husband was hesitant: he was a psychologist in private practice and felt there was little I could do. Later a deeper reason for his initial response emerged. | |
Once again, the 4uestion of meaning was the key to help. Their two daughters had settled in Arizona where they had become involved with a fundamentalist Christian church. They were raising their children as Christians and threatened to cut all ties if the grandparents ever spoke to the grandchildren about Judaism. The couple voiced several concerns. First they wanted me to recommend a rabbi in Arizona who would he willing to speak to their daughters on their own terms. Although the girls showed no interest in returning to Judaism, they agreed to speak to a rabbi. That was the easy request. The next was more difficult and very much in the sphere of meaning. | |
The couple was tortured by the question of why their daughters had become involved with this fundamentalist Christian group. The two parents knew they could not force them to return to Judaism, nor hope to influence their grandchildren. The reason for seeing me was their inability to understand why all this had happened. It was not just an issue of religion~-the emotional fallout now threatened family ties. They wanted to see their grandchildren but felt unable to do so. | |
The couple explained that they had always told their children that it was important to be Jewish. Although not "religious," they had told them about the history and holiday~ of Judaism. The two daughters never received a Jewish education because the family never belonged to, nor attended, a synagogue. Given these details I saw that one possible cause of the present crisis was their daughters' search for meaning. I warned these parents that they might not like what I was about to say, not that I approved of what their daughters were doing. Rather 1 wa~ trying to offer a way to help clarify what was going on. | |
Although they had always told their daughters that it was "important" to be Jewish, they had never shown why or how it was important. As a family they had never participated in anything personally or publicly Jewish, and now were unable to understand why their daughters did not think of themselves as Jews. The explanation I offered grew out of a logotherapeutic understanding of the human person as a being in search for meaning. | |
1 suggested that what they had described as Jewish life had not given their daughters very much emotionally or religiously. Their present situation might be the outcome of their daughters'spiritual quest, a search for meaning. Was it not possible that, despite good intentions, they had not really given the children an opportunity to see that Judaism was not just "important," but meaningful? | |
I chose my words carefully; I did not want to condone or defend the daughters nor did I wish to indict or blame the parents. Like this couple, I saw the loss of two Jewish souls. I did, however, want them to consider the human dimension of their daughters' actions. My first concern was to help them find a way of understanding their daughters because that would provide a means of resolving the family problems. | |
Before our conversations ended I learned the real reason why the husband had not wanted to see a rabbi. He had stopped talking to his daughters and cut all ties, to his wife's dismay. He assumed that a rabbi would try to convince him to speak to the daughters or, as his wife suggested, visit them. This disagreement concerning the daughters put a strain on the couple's relationship with each other. We discussed several options they could pursue separately or together. I understood his feelings but, I pointed out, without communication there was little hope for the future. I knew that I had not "solved" the real problem and indeed was not expected to do so. What I did achieve was to give them an insight into their daughters' motivations. It was my hope that such an insight would start a process by which the parents could understand and, in that way, cope with whatever the final resolution might prove to be. | |
The Rabbi/Logotherapist | |
Although logotherapy is not a cure-all, I am convinced that it provides an accessible strategy for dealing with many intra-and inter-personal situations. Frank l's teachings are a means by which I can provide help without suspending my own beliefs. Even ( or perhaps, especially) when l am called upon to be a counselor I am still a Jew and a rabbi. It would be dishonest and destructive for me to offer any advice or help that would betray my convictions. That, possibly, is my rabbinic disclaimer. I am neither a doctor nor a psychologist. I do not look upon humans as biological beings but as spiritual creations who express their uniqueness by longing for spiritual satisfaction rather than physical gratification. | |
I am aware that many people would deny my ability to be nonjudgmental or objectively helpful. I concede that but must state that this is the strength of my position. As a rabbi I can use logotherapy because 1 "believe" in it. I am rabbi and counselor. In both roles I seek to integrate Judaism into the whole of life. This holistic approach allows no dichotomy between the religious and the secular. There is only life; it cannot be compartmentalized into the sacred and the profane. As rabbi 1 try to teach people to reach to the very heart ofJudaism. As counselor I try to make Judaism touch the very heart of people. | |
As a Jew I believe that life has meaning and value. Logotherapy maintains that when the sense of ultimate meaning is lost or misplaced, discomfort will necessarily be felt. If I may be permitted a loose analogy, the rabbi/ counselor should view the method of logotherapy as a process of Tikun, restoration, renewal; sparks of meaning are like sparks of holiness. The task is to restore the sparks to their proper place in the vital spiritual structure of the person. | |
YAAKOV THOMPSON is rabbi of' Surburban Park Jewish Center, East Meadow, Nev.-York. | |
The Symbolic Growth | |
Experience and the | |
Creation of Meaning | |
Willard B. Frick | |
Yiktor Frankl identifies three major sources of personal meaning: from creative action (creative values); from direct experience (experiential values); and from an encounter with the unalterable forces and constraints in life (attitudinal values.)4 It is Frankl's second category, the arena of human experiencing, that provides the focus for this article. | |
In discussing the experiential source of meaning, Frankl indicates that it is realized in one's "receptivity toward the world for example, in surrender to the beauties of nature or art. "4· P-43 The source of meaning in experiencing, for Frankl, is identified by "what we take from the world ..."3• P-15 and he speaks of the "fullness of meaning" which comes from such experiences. | |
For Frankl such experiential moments of meaning are essentially ones of receptivity and surrender, and offer an intense emotional experience which, by the force of its very intensity, reveals a higher meaning to the individual. Frankl suggests that such meaning is intrinsic to the source and intensity of emotional experience. He refers, for example, to "... that shiver of emotion which we experience in the presence of the purest beauty"4· P· 43 on hearing our favorite symphony in a conc~rt hall, and he indicates that we relate to such experiences in a passive manner. Thus, for Frankl. meaning is derived primarily from the emotional intensity of experience. | |
In his treatment of experiential values Frankl suggests something close to Maslow\ peak experiencc 111 where the feeling dimension or the emotional impact is its central feature. In identifying those emotionally encountered values such as "what is true, good, and beautiful,"3·P· 14 Frankl, as does Maslow in his concepts of B-(bcing) cognition and B-( being) values, 10 infers a passive encounter with meaning and values. | |
Frankl is also sensitive not only to the impact of emotionally intense experience but to the importance of any unique, individual moment of experiencing. Such moments provide unique meanings and he maintains that"... there is no such thing as a universal meaning of life but only the unique meanings of individual situations. "5• P· 55 "Meaning is relative," he observes, "in that it is related to a specific person who is entangled in a specific situation. "5· P· 54 | |
In another context, Frankl again speaks of the relativity and uniqueness of the special moment of experience for the creation of meaning and value. | |
"Every human person constitutes something unique; each situation in life occurs only once. The concrete task of any person is relative to this uniqueness and singularity. Thus, every man at any given moment can have only one single task, but this very singularity constitutes the absoluteness of his task. The world of values is therefore seen from the perspective of the individual, but for any given situation there is only one single perspective, which is the appropriate one. Accordingly, absolute rightness exists not in spite of, but because of the relativity of individual perspectives. "4• P· ' 2 | |
In treating both the experiential category and the significance of the unique moment of experiencing, Frankl suggests some emotional resonance with universal values, but he does not explicitly inform us of the process whereby experiences are translated into unique personal meaning by the individual. Specifically, I believe that Frankl neglects the crucial symbolic-metaphorical area that is so essential in understanding one important way that meaning is discovered through experience. It is this area, incorporating the force of the cognitive function in the creation of meaning, that I wish to explore. | |
The Symbolic Growth Experience | |
The purpose ofthis article, therefore, is to affirm Frankl's important recognition of the significance of the unique moment as a source of meaning and to amplify his view by introducing a model, the Symbolic Growth Experience,6 that offers an explicit conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between one's experience and the discovery of meaning. In conclusion, I shall discuss the relevance of the concept of the Symbolic Growth Experience to logo therapy. | |
In E. M. Forster's novel, The Longest Journey, Ricky Elliot, the young protagonist, makes this profound observation: | |
It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or incident that is symbolical. It's nothing in itself, yet for the moment it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, and we have accepted life. But if we arc frightened and reject it, the moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again_ 1, P· 149 | |
The concept of the Symbolic Growth Experience (SGE) outlines the process, meaning, and potential of such singularly important moments of experience in our lives. This experience may be defined as the conscious recognition and interpretation ofthe symbolic dimensions ofan immediate experience leading to heightened awareness, discovery of meaning, and personal growth. Thus, each SG E represents a special moment of opportunity for the elucidation of meaning out of the immediacy ofone's experience. As a basis for exploring the SGE and its role in the discovery of meaning, I would like to present four significant examples. | |
The first illustration is taken from Bruno Walter's biography12 of Gustav Mahler. Walter, a young coach to the Hamburg Opera, describes the enormous impact that the dynamic composer and director of the Hamburg Opera had upon him. In addition to this general influence, however, a specific experience gave a more ambitious direction to Walter's admiration of Mahler. Recalling the performance of Mahler's Second Symphony in Berlin, 1900, Walter describes the impact on hearing this work for the first time with full orchestra. | |
I considered myself thoroughly familiar with the work -I had written not only a four-handed but also a two-handed piano score of it -but when I heard in living sound what I had before experienced only in my soul, I felt with absolute finality that there lay my life's task. I was made happy by the work, by its triumph, and by my decision to pledge my future energies to Mahler's creations. 12• P· 4-5 | |
Bruno Walter later became one of the world's outstanding directors in the recreation and interpretation of the music of Gustav Mahler. My second example of a Symbolic Growth Experience is taken from a personal account given to me by a young woman. | |
After the birth of my first child, I found myself going with my four-month-old baby to a formerly important part of my life: a swimming meet in Chicago where I knew many of the people well. 1 wanted to show everyone my creation and accomplishment since I was no longer able to participate in the swimming meets. I talked with many of my friends -they oh'd and ah'd about the baby I held there in the locker room and then, quite suddenly, everyone left me to go to the pool area for the meet. In the silence of that locker room I sat alone with my child and it struck me immediately that T was no longer part of that world. I had made a choice and was on that path and there was no turning back to past accomplishments and successes of my life. It was a real feeling, quite desolate to begin with: but on the walk home, I became more able to step forward to what was now my life because this is where I was and it had many dimensions of growth yet to be experienced. This experience was a definite break from teenagerhood to adulthood -· really not experienced as convincingly to myself by a marriage ceremony or the actual birth of my child. 1 was 20 at the time. | |
The unique combination ofcircumstances encountered by this young woman | |
coalesced into a powerful awareness and respome that altered her self | |
pcrceptions, formed new meanings, and redirected her life. In one of her autobiographical writings,8 Madeleine L'Engle presents a childhood experience of great depth and beauty. It provides an exquisite example of a symbolic experience. | |
1 first became aware of myself as self ... when I was seven or eight years old. We lived in an apartment on East 82nd Street in New York. My bedroom window looked out on the court and I could see into the apartment across the way. One evening when I was looking out I saw a woman undressing by her open window. She took off her dress, stretched, stood there in her slip, not moving, not doing anything, just standing there, being. | |
And that was my moment of awareness (of ontology?): that woman across the court who did not know me, and whom I did not know, was a person. She had thoughts of her own. She was. Our lives would never touch, I would never know her name. And yet it was she who revealed to me my first glimpse of personhood. | |
When 1woke up in the morning the wonder ofthat revelation was still with me. There was a women across the court, and she had dreams and inner conversations which were just as real as mine and which did not include me. But she was there, she was real, and so, therefore, was everybody else in the world. And so, therefore, was I. | |
I got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror and for the first time looked at myself consciously. I, too, was real, standing there thin and gawky in a white nightgown. I did more than exist. I was. | |
That afternoon when 1went to the park I looked at everybody I passed in the street, full of the wonder of their realness.8, PP-43-49 | |
The final example illustrates how the most ordinary experience may, at a special moment, become a unique learning experience and profound in its implications for the discovery of meaning. | |
I went for a walk alone on the beach. There was a boy building a sandcastle at the water's edge. He was quickly trying to build a wall around it to protect it from the waves. The tide was coming in, so naturally it kept knocking it down. He laughed each time and tried to build it up again. He had such a wonderful attitude --his joy was in building, not completing. If he completed it, his game would be over --the fun was in the process. | |
I watched him for a long time ... 1t was one of the "Aha" experiences where, all of a sudden, this great realization came to me. I often concentrate so much on outcomes that I ignore processes. Findingjoy in the process is really important, for satisfaction can be found that way, and because results often don't show themselves. That little boy building sandcastles by the water was very wise. I wish I had stopped and told him how much he had taught me. | |
Life is a sandcastle built on the water's edge that is never complete. Happiness comes in the realization that the water will continually knock it down, and that is not important, it doesn't matter. It is important to concentrate on the process to strive for a result, but not become obsessed with it so that the process is meaningless. Happiness is laughing when the moat collapses because now there is more to build, more to do, a new beginning. 11-P-.11s | |
The Symbolic Potential of Experiences | |
These experiences differ widely in circumstances, structure, and content, yet in each unique experience the perceptions of the symbolic dimension and the evolving of meaning from the symbolic material led to a process of growth and self-discovery that was virtually identical. Meaning was perceived directly from the symbolic-metaphorical potential in their experiences. The perceived significance of each experience emerged out of a creative interaction with the environment and was not objectively present within the content or logical structure of the events themselves. In the symbolic transposition, meaning was discovered and the experience was extended beyond itself: thus transcending the "reality" of the objective features of the experience. | |
The SGE, then, allows us to perceive and extend experience symbolically and metaphorically to establish ontological significance in our lives. Through this symbolic transformation even the most prosaic features of experience often become charged with emotional power, values, and personal meaning.6 | |
It is this crucial metaphorical-symbolic arena that adds an important dimension to Frankl's discussion of the "experiential" sources of meaning. We can, I believe, draw an important contrast between Frankl's music lover who feels that "shiver of emotion ... in the presence of the purest beauty"4• P· 43 and Bruno Walter's experience on hearing Mahler's Second Symphony with full orchestra. In Frankl's example, a higher value becomes known, is experienced and validated, through the intensity of emotional-physiological response. He observes that "the higher meaning of a given moment in human existence can be fulfilled | |
P-43 | |
by the mere intensity with which it is experienced ..."4· Using Gendlin 's terminology,7 this suggests an organismic "felt" meaning mediated by an attitude of receptivity and surrender to the environment. | |
Walter also had a vivid emotional response to his unique moment but, in addition, his moment of truth and his life commitment to Mahler's music emerged and found direction from symbolic and cognitive processes, from his perception of the essential "message" that was offered by his experience. | |
Walter experienced meaning on two levels. First, he suggests some sense of awe on hearing Mahler's music "in living sound" and was made happy by the work. He, too, must have surrendered to the moment as he experienced a higher value. the essence of beauty and triumph. On a more cognitive level, however, Walter symboli,.ed this moment to mean "there lay my life's task," and this interpretation was further refined by his decision "to pledge my future energies to Mahler's creations. "I2. r-4-s | |
The SGE, therefore, deepens the significance of experience metaphorically and represents a unique moment that is given specific symbolic form and meaning. This form and meaning emerge from the nature and complex structure of that uni4ue experience for that particular person at a propitious moment. A set of forces converge to form a synchronistic event. | |
In the SG Ethe person becomes more than a passive recipient of some a priori or "contained" meaning within experience. Meaning has no a priori existence "out there" but is discovered by the person through creative interaction with the environment. It is quite evident, therefore, that the person does not create meaning abstractly, from a closed system. | |
Implications for Logotherapy | |
The SGE represents an altered reality; a metaphorical-symbolic reality. Responding to this reality of experience is not a special gift but represents a natural process that draws upon a basic human longing for symbolic life and activity. This may appear strange and esoteric because most of us arc neither taught nor encouraged to perceive and respond to this symbolic mode of perceiving and experiencing. As my four examples of the SGE indicate, however, some individuals transpose their experiences into the symbolic dimension quite easily and naturally. | |
If attended to in full awareness, the symbolic dimension of reality present in one's unique moment ofexperiencing becomes a rich source for the discovery of meaning. I believe the conceptual orientation and the cognitive skills necessary to discover meaning in an experience can be learned and that it would be appropriate for the therapist to teach them to clients within the context and process of logotherapy. Lukas emphasizes that "... meaning cannot be 'prescribed' by the therapist, but must be found by the patients. They must them | |
, P-124 | |
selves discover their possibilities, tasks, and goals ..."9 Certainly this is true, and in the lives of Bruno Walter, the young woman in the locker room, Madeleine L'Engle, and the woman on the beach we have dramatic examples of the discovery of possibilities, tasks, and goals by connecting with the symbolic-metaphorical potential in their experience. Teaching the concepts and skills of the SGE can provide clients with the resources to discover an equally powerful source of meaning and direction in their lives. The following suggestions for employing the concept of the Symbolic Growth Experience in the process of logotherapy are based on procedures I have developed for SGE workshop participants and selected clients in psychotherapy. After introducing the concept of the Symbolic Growth Experience and exploring its essential features, I ask clients to select some past experience they recall as highly significant. I then have the clients recall and explore the selected experience in detail. What were the possible symbolic elements contained within this experience? What might this experience have represented, metaphorically, that was overlooked by the clients? What special meaning or meanings might have been discovered within these symbolic elements? Through this didactic approach, a form of the Socratic dialogue often used in logotherapy, clients are introduced to a conceptual orientation and process that teaches them to recognize and value unique moments of experience and to discover explicit meaning in their symbolic elements. It has been my experience that workshop participants and clients frequently get in touch with profoundly significant meanings by going through this procedure of recalling, reworking, discovering and reinterpreting the symbolic potentials contained within some past experience. Our goal, however, is not confined to work with past experience. Ultimately, we want to help the client use these skills in responding to the unique moments in present and future experiences. | |
WILLA RD B. FRICK is Professor of Psychology, Albion College, Albion, Michigan. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Forster, E. M. The Longest Journey. New York, Random House, 1962. | |
2. Frankl, V. E. Man's Search/or Meaning. New York, Pocket Rooks, 1963. | |
3. _____ Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1968. | |
4. | |
_____ The Doctor and the Soul. New York, Vintage Books, 1973. | |
5. | |
_____ The Will to Meaning. New York, New American Library, 1970. | |
6. | |
Frick, W. B. "The Symbolic Growth Experience." Journal of Humanistic Psychology 23, I, 1983. | |
7. | |
Gendlin, E. Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. New York, The Free Press, 1962. | |
8. | |
L'Engle, M. A Circle of Quiel. New York, Fawcett, 1975. | |
9. | |
Lukas, E. Meanini:ful Living. New York, Grove Press, I986. | |
10. | |
Maslow, A.H. Toward a Psychology o/Being. Second ed., New York, D. Van Nostrand Co., 1968. | |
11. | |
Suclzle, M. Field S1wlv: A Source Book.fin Experienlial Learning. Borzak, Led. Beverly Hills, Sage Publishing, 1981. | |
12. Walter, B. Ciw1av Mahler. New York, Greystonc, 1941. | |
CERTIFICATION NEWS FROM THE INSTITUTE OF LOGOTHERAPY | |
The Institute of Logothcrapy has been approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors as a provider for Continuing Education credits, effective March 1987. Our provider number is 5258. | |
Continuing education credits are available to: | |
• | |
Persons who have attained the Diplomate in Logothcrapy status from Institute of Logotherapy, and wish lo recertify as required by the Institute. | |
• | |
Persons who arc members of the National Board of Certified Counselors, and wish to add logotherap'.) to their continuing education requirements. The continuing education guidelines in logothcrapy, the content areas | |
approved by the Institute, and the methods of caiculating contact hours arc contained in a lcat1et that can be reque~ted frnm the Institute of 1.ogotherapy. Contact hours can be accumulated through trnining courses given by the Institute or the affiliated Southern German Institute of Logothcrapy. university classes in logotherapy, attendance or presentation of papers at events sponsored by the Institute. and other activities listed in the leaflet. | |
The Institute also has issued a brochure about the Training Program in Logotherapy, detailing the conditions of Introductory, Intermediate. and Advanced Training, and containing application forms. | |
The brochure, 'Training Program in Logotherapy," and the leaf1ct. "Continuing Education Guidelines in Logotherapy,"may be ordered from Dr. Vera Lieban-Kalmar, Director of Education and Training, Institute of Logothcrapy. 2380 Ellsworth Street, Berkeley, CA 94704, tel. (415) 845-2522. | |
The Three Sacred Treasures and the Rehumanization of Medicine | |
Hiroshi Takashima | |
Sigmund Freud stressed the "will to pleasure" as the main motivation for the human mind. Alfred Adler added the "will to power," and Yiktor Frankl the "will to meaning." | |
It is remarkable that these concepts of the three eminent Viennese scholars have been observed since the dawn of history. | |
For two thousand and six hundred years, the Japanese Imperial Household has carefully preserved its three sacred treasures: the necklace ofcomma-shaped precious stones, the sword, and the mirror. The necklace is a symbol for female sex, the sword for male power, and the mirror for meaning of life --reflection and contemplation of one's self through wisdom. They parallel Freud's pleasure principle, Adler's power principle, and Frankl's meaning principle. | |
These three kinds of treasures were found as a triad in the ruins of the castles in Korea and China several thousands of years before they were found in Japan. The findings indicate that the ancient people in the Orient raised the question, "What is the human mind and how is it motivated?" and answered it not intellectually but through symbols. | |
It must be noted, however, that the mirror as symbol of self-reflection is to be interpreted, in the Franklian sense, not merely as reflection but also as transcendence of the self toward meaning. | |
Another triad of symbols is found in the ancient Western world in the riddle of the Sphynx, related by Sophocles 3,000 years ago: "What has four feet at the beginning, two feet in the middle, and three feet in the end?"The answer was: the human being----the child crawls on all fours, the adult walks upright on two feet, and the old person walks with a cane, the third leg. | |
From the viewpoint of logotherapy, this question about the essence of the human being can be understood on a deeper level: the very young start out on a level shared with the animals (the physio-psychological level); then the specifically human spirit develops; and the old become creatures of wisdom symbolized by the cane. | |
The wise men in the days of Jesus used canes, and so did the hermit-like philosophers in old Japan. Those canes represented wisdom to find meaning in life. In an orchestra, too, the conductor's baton can be seen as symbol of wisdom | |
-to bring harmony to the orchestra, through the conductor's freedom of will and responsibility. Wisdom is the manifestation of spirit. It is, as ancient people already observed, the essence of human nature. Only through wisdom, not through pleasure seeking or power drives, can we answer the question about true humanity. | |
Now we arc beginning to realize that the wisdom of the human spirit is not merely a philosophical concept but has practical medical consequences. Logotherapy is pioneering among the schools of medicine which is based on such meaning-oriented principles. Our modern materialistic civilization tends to lose sight of the human being. The more science advances, the more attention is given to the various parts of the human being, disregarding the person as a totality including the spirit. This is why Frankl is correct when he speaks of the rehumanization of medicine and modern psychology through logotherapy. | |
HIROSHI TA KASH/MA, M.D., isapsychosomatologist in private practice in Tokyo, regional director of" the Institute of Logotherapy, and director of" the Japanese Institute of" Logotherapy and the Society of Humanistic Anthropology. | |
Hinduism and Logotherapy | |
Sitansu S. Chakravarti | |
Any school of psychotherapy needs to formulate its view of human nature. It is here that the differences emerge in justifying itself against other schools. The Hindu religion has flourished, not merely providing counseling service to the seeker. but also therapy in an extended sense -for the psychic disease of greed rooted in desire. The therapi~t is not a doctor but a teacher -~ the guru, the helper on the way. | |
Logotherapy finds prohlems in life situations due to the "existential vacuum," or lack of meaning in life. The vacuum is there due to human beings falling short of self-transcendence, confined as they are to the routines oftheir biological and everyday mechanical existence. Hinduism counsels toward self-transcendence, according to the nature, constitution, and belief of the subject. People holding theistic and atheistic beliefs are accordingly accommodated differently. Thus, as in logotherapy, the path is existential, for it advocates the discovery of the meaning of life through attainment of freedom via self-transcendence. The way is not uniform for each and every human being. The diversity of human life patterns does not lead to chaos, but to the richness of the human situation. Hindu philosophy is existential, too, for in this religion, real human nature is existence, consciousness, and bliss. Human beings by nature arc essentially free, and their worth does not depend on conditions pertaining to their body or the contingencies of the world outside. This freedom is not a particular form of existence, for then human beings would not be absolutely free, but is rooted in existence itself. Similarly, it is not a particular form of consciousness but consciousness itself. It is also a state of utter joy beyond the most intense pleasures which being conditional arc limited. Ultimately, the unconditional freedom of humans constitutes the meaning of their lives. | |
Two kinds of forces work in humans --centripetal and centrifugal, like the revolution of the earth around itself and its rotation around the sun. The turn toward revolution is also a turn toward rotation. The centripetal leads on to the centrifugal. In all self-centered acts there are seeds of self-transcendence. This is the design of human nature. However, it is not all mechanical. Emphasizing the centripetal or the centrifugal aspects of human nature, or allowing the smooth flowing of the one to the other is the individual's decision. | |
In early youth the centripetal forces are prominent; at times they seem to be the only truth in life. "Youth only" societies emphasize this. "Youth only" psychologists read the meaning of life in physical enjoyment. However, a great turn in the centripetal direction produces an equally great turn in the centrifugal direction, and the sacrifices that youth is capable of, manifest this. Youth demands greater rights because it has larger responsibilities. A greater call to renunciation accompanies the deep attraction and ability for enjoyment. In an antinomian sense enjoyment itself points to renunciation. If youth is preoccupied by enjoyment, that is not just living a half-truth, it is falsity. Only in the context of renunciation does enjoyment find its proper meaning. | |
"Everything is pervaded by divinity; thus, enjoy through renunciation," says the lsa-Upanishad. To quote from Tagore: | |
I look forward to many a desire to satisfy with all efforts; You have saved me through denials. All my life abounds in this grace of harshness of Yours. | |
SITANSU S. CHAKRAVARTI. Ph.D., is Priest, Sharat Sevashram Sangha Temple, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. | |
The Meaningful Personality | |
MichaelF.Shaughnessy and Robert Evans | |
The Purpose-In-I ,ife (PIL) test2 has been extensively utilized and investigated, substantiating the concept of "meaningfulness." Almost one hundred dissertations, theses and other studies have been conducted using PIL. As a measure of "purpose in life"the test is extremely important, because it measures a construct central to Frank l's system of logotherapy --one's ability to find meaning and purpose in life. As noted by Frankl,4 the survivors ofconcentration camps had some purpose in life -a family to return to, an uncompleted task, an important mission or some goal to fulfill. Survival was transcended by a loftier meaning. Fabry3 has noted that "it was survival for the sake of a task, what one intended to do with the life that was preserved; to be reunited with a wife, to bring up a child, to finish a book, or simply to flee and help fight Nazism." Of course, the conditions at Auschwitz and Dachau were extreme. However, meaning and purpose in life can be found in many circumstances. In another situation, a person | |
arrived in New York a penniless refugee,jobless at the tail end ofthe depression, an ex-attorney with knowledge of laws no longer existing even in my own country, a writer without a language. I met a woman who did not care what I had (or did not have) and who perceived what I was ---what I could become if only someone believed in me. She did not tell me this; she acted upon it by marrying me.3 | |
Are "survivors" better able to cope with "the slings and arrows of outrageous fate," or are they better able to call upon "the defiant power ofthe human spirit?" I have investigated the "defiant power of the human spirit" relative to the act of creativity7 and have examined the family unit as a "reservoir of meaning."' Meaning and purpose in life, as indicated, can be found in different places for different people. Frankl remembers | |
two cases of would-be suicide which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument -they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases, it was a question of getting them to realiJ:e that life was still expecting something from them; something in thefuture was expected ofthem. We found in fact that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other, it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books which still needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child's affections.4-P-126 | |
No investigation exists ofthe "meaningful personality." Maslow5· 6 focused on the healthy personality. This study attempts to further our knowledge about the personalities of "meaningful" or "healthy" respondents. | |
To ascertain the personality components of those with high "purpose in life," the PIL was administered to 214 college freshmen and 150 adults, age 30 and above. Those scoring at the 85 percentile or above were asked to return for additional testing and were then administered the 16PF (Cattell, R. B. and IPAT Staff). 1The personality profile ofthe whole group scoring at or above the 85 percentile on the PIL is shown in Figure I. | |
Figure 1. The "Meaningful Personality," All Ages | |
l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | |
-+--+-+-+-r+-------·-t++ | |
B. U·SS l'ITELLl(,EN.I | |
AIHCI Hl BY IEU.INGS IJ. H\IMBI I f SOBFR 1-FXl'fDIFN l | |
<i SH\ H T<ll"GH-MINIH·IJ IK\•S!IM, | |
J. PRA('"I l('J\l | |
K. roru HRl(;H I | |
SU.1-ASS\IRl'IJ M co:,;s1 RVA11vr T\ (if{OL P-DEP[l\[)f'\ I | |
P RI-! t\XFP | |
OUTGOING MORE l'I I FLLIGENl EMOTIONAi I.> STAHL! ,\SSI:RTIVI | |
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY CONSCIENTIOUS | |
\'ENTllnS0~1[ lf/\P[R-Ml,IJFIJ | |
IMAGl'\AII\I | |
SHRl"WIJ ,\PPREHC..,:SI\ 1 | |
FXPI KIM[N\I'.(; Sf 1.1-Sl;FFICIF'\l CON \ROI I.I Tl T[/\SI | |
In this sample of 54 students (23 males, 31 females) certain personality traits predominated. The high PIL subjects were on the average outgoing (Factor A), emotionally stable and mature (Factor C), and conscientious and responsible (Factor F). All these traits have been referred to in Frankl's writings. | |
The sample was divided into four groups for comparisons. The first group represents the profiles of 29 participants between ages 18 and 20. The highest three factors that emerged for this group are emotional stability and maturity (Factor C), some sense of "happy-go-lucky" (Factor E), and venturesomeness (Factor G). Their personality profile is shown in Figure 2. | |
The second group represents the profiles of 24 participants between ages 20 and 30. The highest three factors emerging for this group are emotional stability (Factor C), assertivenss (Factor D), and conscientiousness and responsibility (Factor F). Their personality profile is shown in Figure 3. | |
The "Meaningful Personality," Figure 2. Ages 18-20 Figure 3. Ages 20-30 | |
The third group was selected to investigate whether the personality structure | |
of older adults was similar to that of college freshmen. Approximately 150 | |
adults and graduate students were screened by the PIL. Eleven adults (ages | |
30-40) were identified as scoring at the 85 percentile or above. Their personality | |
profile is shown in Figure 4. | |
In this group, personality factors A and C from the 16 PF again were | |
predominant, but Factor F was somewhat less so. Finally, a fourth screening, | |
older adults (40 and above), was undertaken and twelve adults were determined | |
to have scored at the 85 percentile on the PI L. Their personality profile is plotted | |
in Figure 5. | |
The "Meaningful Personality," Figure 4. Ages 30-40 Figure 5. Ages 40-60 | |
~ II ,..._ I\ 11 I : I(,~\ T ,>,Hl/'11 [) R\ JI f I l's!,~ | |
'. (,~lll•I' j)J P['.l>I '< I J l'MJI~( 11'11\l l! \~IC (()',~II! l | |
With this group the dominant factors re-emerged, i.e., Factors A, C, and F. This group resembled the college student profile. | |
In this exploratory small study of the personality structure of "high-meaningful" personalities, the personality profile showed remarkable similarities. Further research is in progress utilizing the M.M.P.I. as a more comprehensive | |
personality measure. As we learn more about "healthy," more "meaningful" personalities, we may gain greater insights into the factors that make up "meaning" and purpose in life. There may, in fact, be developmental trends relative to "meaningfulness" and purpose in life. The college students who initially scored very high on the "happy-go-lucky dimension" (Factor E) may settle down in later life, as if"tempered" by the slings and arrows of fate. Further longitudinal research may reject or confirm this notion. | |
MICHAEL F SHAUGHNESSY is professor c~f psychology at the Eastern Nnr Mexico University, Portales. ROBERT EVANS is a graduate assistant at Eastern New Mexico University. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Cattell, R. H. and H. W. Eber, 'The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire." Champaign, Illinois, Institute for Personality and Ability Testing, 1969. | |
2. Crumbaugh, .J.C. and L. T. Maholick. "The Purpose in Life Test." Munster, Indiana, Psycho | |
sometric Affiliates, 1981. ~-Fabry, J.B. The Pursuit of" Meaning. San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1980. | |
4. | |
Frankl, V. E. Man'.~ Search/or Meaning. New York, Washington Square Press, 1985. | |
5. | |
Maslow, A. H. Tmrnrd a Psvchology of' Being. New York, Van Nastrand Reinhold, 1968. | |
6. ____ The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York, Viking, 1971. | |
7. | |
Shaughnessy, M. F. "The Core of Creativity." Creative Child and Adult Quarterly 8 ( I), 19-23, 1983. | |
8. | |
____ "The Family: Reservoir of Meaning." Proceedings of the Sixth National Symposium on Building Family Strength. Lincoln. University of Nebraska, 1984. | |
Despair-An "Absolutization" of Values | |
Marian Wolicki | |
In Frankl's concept of human nature the existential vacuum caused by a | |
feeling of meaninglessness may be invaded by despair, with disastrous | |
consequences. | |
One of Frankl's basic assertions is that despair may result when a relative | |
value is placed far above all others -made absolute.2• P-352: 3, P-104 Despair may | |
then overcome persons who lose the ability to perceive the entirety of the world | |
and its events. They see only a small part. Narrowing their field of vision makes | |
them see just one element, which takes on absolute traits and leads toward a | |
straight path to despair. This is why it is dangerous to allow outer circumstances | |
or inner conditions to narrow the image of the world to just one value. | |
This "absolutization" can happen with various values -physical, spiritual, | |
personal, general ones. Frequently despair is the result of unhappy love, either in | |
general ("I cannot love") or love of an individual ("My love for a particular | |
person is rejected"). | |
Persons who see love as an absolute value, as the only meaning in life, | |
ignoring all other possibilities, will succumb to despair when love is frustrated. | |
Discouraged, they may suffer nervous breakdowns; they often want to run away | |
from life through alcohol, drugs, even suicide. | |
The same is true in striving to gain a husband, wife, or child. These strivings, admirable in themselves, aim at partial meanings. If exclusive and absolute as goals, they can easily lead to despair and all its negative effects. | |
Another example of "absolutizing" relative values is the striving for health, either physical or psychological. If health is regarded as the highest and absolute value, a prolonged illness, or incurable ailment or handicaps will convince the person that the future is meaningless, and that there is no use tying oneself to this world any longer; one is no longer fit for anything. | |
This attitude becomes more evident when mental health is lost; e.g., in neuroses where the feeling of worthlessness is even stronger. If patients fall into despair and consider suicide, they idolize not only wellbeing and physical strength but also their intellect, which they see as their highest value and aim in life. Without it, life has lost its attraction. | |
Practically every relative value may become an idol -a career, a certain desired position, a specific success. Persons who make such values absolute may, if the value is frustrated, fall victim to despair. | |
Protection from Despair | |
One way of protecting oneself from despair is to free the value of its absolute meas_urc, to see it in its proper light against the background of other values. 1, P-81 Then its loss, or one's inability to attain it, can at most cause sadness hut not despair. Sadness is unavoidable in life given its frustrations, but it is not | |
50 | |
destructive or paralyzing. Sadness can even contribute to a deepening of one's | |
existence, offering opportunity to reflect, meditate, acquire new wisdom, and a | |
philosophical attitude toward fate. Sadness results from our inability, or only | |
partial ability, to attain a relative value recognized as such. Despair, on the other | |
hand, results from idolizing a value, a mistaken belief that the relative is | |
absolute. | |
Another way of escaping from despair is a commitment to a life of sacrifice and renunciation. At the basis ofdespair lies the single-minded pursuit ofa value which blinds us to its proper place in the hierarchy of values, placing instead one concrete value on the highest pedestal.2-r-352 Sacrifice and renunciation are possible when we realize the existence of something higher than the lost value. | |
Sacrifice depends on our realizing a hierarchy of values, a sacred arrangement. | |
When we despair, we destroy this hierarchy, we improperly exalt one value, one | |
only, beyond all others, forgetting the others. | |
Sacrifice can concern essential things, very high values. In the area of faith, for | |
instance, we speak of sacrificium intellectus, the necessity of making a sacrifice | |
of the mind.2• P-253 Whoever makes the sacrifice believes in the existence of a | |
supra-meaning comprehending all hidden mysteries. | |
This approach to overcoming despair is not limited to religiously oriented | |
persons. Logotherapy describes a fundamental way of preventing despair by | |
considering life as a task and its various situations as concrete assignments we | |
have to fulfilL realizing the meaning of a given situation and the possibility of | |
achieving meaning from it.2-r-2s2 | |
Thus, according to logotherapy, a person may be unhappy, sad, but not in | |
despair. Life calls us to respond to the meanings of the situations we face. | |
Despair, then, is the consequence of our having lost responsibility -our ability | |
to properly respond to the meanings life offers from moment to moment. | |
I ,ogotherapy helps us remain aware of this "response-ability," and thus prevents | |
despair. | |
In the final analysis, those who fall into despair have lost control oftheir lives | |
by allowing themselves to be possessed by drives. by one passion, and no longer | |
are pilots of their lives. Logotherapy shows the causes of this state and a way out | |
of it. | |
MA RIAN WOL!CKI, PhD., is a Catholic priest ancl lecturer ofpsychology ancl anthropology at the 77zeofogicaf Institute in Przemysl, Poland | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Frankl, V. E. Patho/ogie des Zeitgeisles. Vienna, Franz Deutike, 1955. | |
2. ~~-Anthrupo/ogi.lche Grundla?;en der Psychotherapie. Bern-Stuttgart-Vienna, Hans | |
Huber, l 975. J ______ Der Mensch vor der Frage nach elem Sinn. Munich, Piper, 1979. | |
Psychogenic Neuroticism and Noogenic Self-Strengthening | |
Moshe Addad | |
Psychogenic neuroticism (anxiety) is developed by a subconscious process. The self protects itself from disquieting thoughts and experiences by pushing them into the subconscious. 111 They are thus erased from memory but live on in the subconscious in the form of energy uncontrolled by the self. The suppressed unresolved conflict results in psychological uneasiness and anxiety, creating emotional instability. | |
Anna Freud assumed that it is not possible by education to prevent traumas which create anxiety and then neurotic disease. She believed that analytic thinking "has to prepare us that the search for the roots of neurosis is, like the hope of preventing neurosis through education, unrealistic. "13 | |
Viktor Frankl maintains we can neutralize or limit anxiety by concentrating attention on the meaning of human existence, and on our conviction that our actions can reach beyond our limits to continuous self-expansion. This, in turn, will lead to a positive perspective on life and a feeling of belonging to our surroundings. This search for meaning Frankl sees as a primary motivating force opposing the pleasure principle of Freud and the power drive of | |
Adler.12. r. 19 | |
This influence of anxiety, causing instability, is reduced if we can stabilize and strengthen ourselves by discovering meaning based on a positive attitude to life. The consciousness that is produced shapes our uniqueness and constructs it as real for us and our surroundings. | |
The Spiritual Dimension | |
When internal and external forces take over, they block our existential validity. Our spiritual dimension provides us with the strength that helps us rise above these forces and gives us the freedom to act from a sense of responsibility and free choice, allowing us to relate to our internal feelings and to events in our surroundings. This self-transcendence broadens self-intensification and enables us to control and conquer anxiety, find solutions for inner burdens, and overcome obstacles to adjustment. Finding personal meaning allows us to function and motivates us to act. This emerging self-strengthening and the search for meaning help us overcome anxiety and provide noogenic solutions. Education can arouse a yearning for meaning that lies hidden within, and we must learn to move it from potential to actuality. According to Frankl, education is not to teach homeostasis where tension is eliminated, but to ensure that there will be a spiritual tension between what we have already accomplished and what we still have to accomplish. lt is the task of education to move students to fulfill potential meanings, and thus create positive tension. This is the way to health. If persons suffering from anxiety heed this demand and act accordingly, it will give | |
, P-128 | |
them the inner strength to resist their innate psychogenic anxiety. 12 | |
Our research examined possible connections between psychogenic neuroticism (personality anxiety) and noogenic solutions, and explored whether noogenic solutions could influence characteristics considered innate, such as the level of extroversion. Eysenck,5 based on the findings of the learning theory, concluded that conscience is merely a conditioning reaction. He also found differences in the ease with which people can be conditioned: introverts, for example, have a higher conditioning capacity than extroverts. He considered the tendency to extroversion or introversion innate, and also maintained that criminals have an innate tendency to extroversion which poses difficulties in being conditioned. Criminals, he found, have a type of personality that is by nature more exposed to external stimuli and less controlled by conscience. 14 | |
Our research examined possible connections between meaning in life and extroversion. Although noogenic solutions will not influence an innate characteristic such as extroversion, we presumed that criminality can serve as a substitute for existential meaning and give substance to life. It can be a factor of vitality, expansion, and self-emergence, providing "meaning." Thus criminality, in some cases, can ---as a substitute for meaning -be self-strengthening and ease anxiety. | |
Research Assumptions. | |
A. Based on Frankl's theory, we assumed that the human search for meaning is a primary force and not a rationalization of instinctive impulses. Consequently, the more our psychogenic neuroticism (anxiety) grows, the less would be our awareness of life's mission; and the greater our awareness oflife's mission. the higher will be the psychogenic anxiety. The independent variable is meaning, the dependable variable is neuroticism. | |
B. The search for meaning was assumed to be a primary psychological force which can influence other psychological processes, thereby lessening the effects of psychogenic anxiety. | |
C. Noogcnic solutions will have much influence over innate tendencies such as extroversion. | |
D. Criminal solutions, complex by nature, will for many people substitute for a lack of meaning. We would therefore expect to find in criminals a low level of neuroticism and a high score in the PIL (Purpose in Life) test.4 | |
The Research Population | |
The research sample was composed of 446 persons of whom 140 were imprisoned criminals and 306 were noncriminals. The criminals included 58 prisoners of mature age incarcerated in Ayalon Prison; 21 female prisoners from Tirza Prison; 15 drug addicted prisoners from Ayalon Prison; and 31 young ( 17-20 years) male offenders from Tel Mond Prison. | |
The ages of the entire sample ranged from 17 to 51 years --I03 were 17 to 20 years old, 261 were 21 to 30, and 82 were 3 I to 51 years of age.* | |
*Detailed tables of our research results are available from the author, Department of Criminulugy, Bar-llan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. | |
Research Tools | |
We used a questionnaire prepared by Eysenck,8 comprising 48 questions. Of these, 28 relate to extroversion, and 24 to neuroticism, both randomly scattered throughout the questionnaire. Each question offers a triple choice -positive, negative, or "don't know." For example: | |
I. Are you happiest when doing something requiring swift action? Yes, No,? (doubt). | |
2. Do you sometimes feel happy and sometimes depressed for no apparent reason? Yes, No,? (doubt). | |
Participants scoring 48 or more are accorded maximum extroversion. Extroversion becomes apparent with scores of 24 or more. Subjects scoring fewer than 24 points are inclined to introversion. | |
The level of neuroticism is measured on a scale from Oto 48. The amount of anxiety is checked in the same way by the Eysenck questionnaire.8 | |
We also used the Purpose-in-Life (PIL) by Crumbaugh and Maholick,4 a scale of attitudes constructed on the orientation oflogotherapy. The test lists 20 questions, graded from I to 7 as shown below. The score from 92 to I 12 points indicates an "indecisive range" of meaning orientation. A score of 92 or less shows a low meaning, and above I12 a clear meaning and purpose in life. Example: | |
I. I am usually: | |
I 2 3 4 5 6 7 | |
Bored Neutral Full of Life | |
2. Life for me seems to be: | |
2 3 4 5 6 7 | |
Full of Interest Neutral Routine and | |
and Purpose Uninteresting | |
Only those who answered at least 16 of the 20 questions were included in the statistical sample. The mark for each subject is the total grade divided by the number of questions answered. | |
Procedure | |
Questionnaires to the delinquents were handed as one unit by the author or one of three assistants. Subjects were told they were part of a random sample, and the purpose of the questionnaire was to check their attitudes, feelings, thoughts. They answered the questions without assistance, except for general instructions. They were assured that answers were for internal use only, for research, and that there was no way that the researcher or prison authorities could know the identity of the person who answered. The procedure for the noncriminal population was similar. | |
The correlation between PIL score and the neuroticism score was checked by the Pearson Test® on the entire population. A correlation ofR=.53 significant at the p <.00 I level was found. This finding confirms the assumption ofa negative correlation between the amount of anxiety (neuroticism) and PIL score: the higher the neuroticism the lower the PIL, and vice versa. Table I shows this to be true for both the criminal and noncriminal group. This significant negative correlation neutralizes the differences between criminals and noncriminals, although the negative connection seemed stronger for criminals. | |
Table 1. Neuroticism and Meaning of Life Among Criminals and Noncriminals | |
Group Noncriminals Incarcerated Criminals | |
No. of cases (N) 306 140 | |
N euroticism Score Mean Standard Deviation 20.88 9.8 32.77 9.87 | |
PIL Score Mean Standard Deviation 5.65 .63 4.78 1.05 | |
Pearson's Correlation (R) --.33 -.52 | |
Significance p< .001 P< .001 | |
For the criminal population, Table 2 shows that a significant correlation between anxiety and meaning-in-life score was found in each of the four subgroups. | |
Table 2 Neuroticism and Meaning of Life Among Prisoners | |
Group Young Prisoners Drug-Addicted Prisoners Older Prisoners Female Prisoners | |
------· | |
No. of cases (N) 31 15 58 21 | |
Neuroticism Score | |
Mean 35.88 35.66 31.06 34.52 | |
Standard 8.38 7.33 11.04 8.7 | |
Deviation (SD) | |
PIL Score | |
Mean 4.19 4.44 4.95 4.95 | |
Standard Deviation .96 1.14 1.03 .78 | |
Pearson's Correlation ( R) .44 -.51 -.53 -.53 | |
Significance p< .001 p < .048 p < .001 p< .02 | |
The influence of other variables on the connection between meaning-in-life and neuroticism was checked. The variables were: country of origin of the participants and their parents, birth order, sex, education, values, political persuasion, age, religion. Our results showed that the strength of the negative correlation remains and that it was unaffected by other variables. This finding lends more significance to the connection we found between anxiety and mcanmg. | |
Extroversion | |
According to Eysenck,7 differences between introverts and extroverts are hereditary, a result of physiological differences: introverts have an active cortex which controls and coordinates the processes receiving external stimuli, and also those reacting to the same stimuli. Extroverts, on the other hand, have a more passive cortex, allowing only limited ability to receive stimuli and control reactions to them. This is why introverts react more immediately to conditioning processes, and therefore require fewer repetitions than extroverts to become conditioned. Thus, the conditioning potential of extroverts is lower, more difficult, and requires more and stronger repetitions in the conditioning process. Their ability to inhibit reactions to stimuli is more limited, which is why they are more impulsive. We checked the correlation between meaning-of-life (PIL) and extroversion scores, but did not find any significant correlation. | |
Eysenck8·9 found that criminal populations were more extrovert than noncriminal ones. We again checked the correlation between the meaning-of-life and extroversion scores but found no significant correlations between those of imprisoned criminals and noncriminals. | |
We also checked the correlation between PIL and extroversion scores, with regard to the existence ofthe other variables mentioned before. In all cases there was no significant correlation. | |
Using the Eysenck test, we checked the connection between levels of neuroticism and meaning-in-life among the criminals. This was tested in four groups: The first included those with low anxiety (0-24); the second included subjects of the first group (0-24) plus those with scores of 25-36, so that the scores for ncuroticism ranged from Oto 36. The third group was composed of those with medium to high scores, 25 to 48. The fourth group included only those with a high level of anxiety, with scores ranging from 37 to 48. We found a distinct trend: the lower the level of neuroticism, the higher the score of meaning -the 23 prisoners with low neuroticism scores ranked relatively high in meaning of life. It may be that criminality itself, among other things, contributed to the high meaning-in-life score. | |
The imprisoned criminals in our sample consisted of 94 males and 21 females. Of the males, 35 were young and 59 mature. A minority of 15 was addicted to drugs. When we divided the group according to physiological variables (age, sex) or the less common variable (drugs), we found that the meaning-in-life score of the young offenders was lowest of all, and differed significantly from those of the older and the female criminals. | |
Table 3 shows a significant difference in the PIL scores between the criminal and noncriminal populations, and also significant differences among the four subgroups of criminals. | |
Table 3 Differences in the PIL Scores of the Criminal and the Noncriminal Populations | |
Group Non-Criminal Incarcerated Adults lncarcerated Females Incarcerated Drug Addicts Young Incarcerated Offenders | |
Number Examined 280 35 15 59 21 | |
Mean PIL SD 5.65 -· .65 4.26 .94 4.44 1.14 4.96 1.02 4.95 .78 | |
Self-Strengthening as a Means of Reducing Anxiety | |
Our findings show a negative correlation between the level of neuroticism | |
(anxiety) and meaning-in-life scores, and also the absence of influence of the other variables checked. This confirms our hypothesis that striving for meaning and the presence ofexistential tension are primary forces that strengthen the self and enable it to overcome the burden of instability. The results support Frankl's claim that values are not "defense mechanisms, reaction formations, or sublimations'"12· P· 110 but elementary factors capable of influencing other psychic processes. Examination of the correlation between the neuroticism and PIL scores showed it to be independent of the variables checked. This result strengthened our hypothesis of a meaningful correlation between the measure of neuroticism and meaning of life. | |
These findings have clinical implications. If neurotic individuals are helped to become fully aware of a mission in life and to appreciate the importance of their tasks in the way shown by Frankl, this should strengthen their selves and thus diminish anxiety. It is necessary to make them aware that to search for meaning in general, and of their own existence in particular, helps their self to emerge from the narrow borders in which it is confined. This strengthening of the self gives a feeling of capability and enables clients to neutralize the negative effects of anxiety. The set of values they build satisfie~ the quality that makes life worth living. Striving for meaning, if fulfilled, creates stability. | |
We have started additional research on the connection between selfstrengthening and anxiety. This research is being carried out in Talmudic colleges associated with the army and with Ba 'alei Tschuva (religious repentants), in Talmudic high schools among current and former members of collective agricultural settlements. and in religious and nonreligious boarding schools. We assume that our findings will confirm Frankl's hypothesis12·P· 121 that human beings are able to achieve a higher level of stability, that finding meaning creates changes in the self and strengthens the self, and that the existence of meaning is one way to overcome destructive pressures. Anxiety is the result ofthe processes of suppression, and strengthening the self can reduce the negative influence. | |
Extroversion and Meaning | |
No correlation was found between PIL and level of extroversion, regardless of the influence of other variables such as parents' ethnic origin, birth order, sex, age, education, values, or political beliefs. These findings verify the hypothesis that noogenic solutions have little connection with innate characteristics such as extroversion. In previous research, Eysenck 5•6·7•8•9 and others found that the level of extraversion and neuroticism could aid in anticipating criminal behavior. Our research found no similar connection between extroversion and meaning in life. | |
It would be interesting to make a parallel examination of the influence of meaning on psychological factors controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and compare the results with the studies connecting behavior and the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, such as heartbeat 15 or muscle controJ.3 | |
In the logotherapeutic technique of paradoxirnl intention, patients are required to direct their will to the very things they are afraid of. In this way logotherapy deals with behavior that springs from inner anxiety, including phobias, some of which arc controlled by the autonomic nervous system. The assumption is that "fear is the mother of the event"11 --that anxiety of anticipation brings on the unwanted behavior. Persons afraid of blushing, sweating, or stammering in front of an audience will get worse the more they fearfully anticipate that such behavior will occur, Some of these phenomena are linked to the autonomic nervous system. Logotherapy has had good results with paradoxical intention, and it would be worth examining these conditions empirically. | |
Criminal Solutions as Meaning | |
Our assumption was that some criminals find criminality itself an existential anchor which others find in meaning. Criminality sometimes gives the individual power, and at the same time fills his or her life with meaning. | |
This assumption was supported by diaries of criminals, especially books by Jean Genet. It is difficult to check this assumption, and caution is necessary in interpreting our research results with the 23 criminals which showed a low rate of neuroticism and a high rate of PIL. It could be that their meaning in life stems from their association with the criminal world. This is another area for future research. | |
Meaning changes from situation to situation and from person to person. As Frankl puts it: "Meaning of life is different for each individual, each day, each hour. That is why the essence is not in the meaning of life in general, but in the particular meanings of life at a given moment. "12, P· 132 The score that shows the meaning of life of an individual expresses his or her subjective perception. To fill out the questionnaire the subject must be capable of introspection, and no one can guarantee that the subject has this capacity. The capacity for introspection is influenced by such factors as sex or age, but our work did not show any such influence on the correlation between PIL and neuroticism. Neither was any connection found between age or sex and PIL score. Similarly it might be assumed that social rank would be correlated to what a person considers meaningful in the future as compared to the present. For prisoners, for example, the future is often focused entirely on release from prison because this event is so meaningful that it takes over their entire concept ofthe future. This assumption, however, was not confirmed in our research. | |
A negative correlation between meaning and neuroticism scores was found among all participants surveyed. However, the negative correlation in the criminal population was .52, among the noncriminals -.33. The criminal population, on the average, had a lower score for the meaning in life. The existential vacuum which expresses inner emptiness was deeper for criminals. This population with active criminality ( most of the prisoners had long criminal records) perhaps filled the existential vacuum with the substitute ofcriminality. It may be that aspirations for power, control, or pleasure resulted in criminal behavior and became a substitute for the missing existential meaning. Frankl believes that "the sexual libido gets out of con.trol in an existential vac | |
"12 | |
uum. · r. 11 °Frustrated aspiration to existential meaning is offset by striving for power and sexual compensation. | |
Negative psychogenic situations, including those expressing psychogenic neurosis, are treated by many types of therapies. Nevertheless, from our research we agree with Arnold and Garson2 that any therapy should, at least in a limited way, include logotherapy. | |
MOSHE ADDED is Prolessor ol Criminoloiy, Department of Criminology, Bar-Jlan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Added. M. "Dimensions of Personality and Methods of .Judgment among Criminal Population." Annals Medico-I'sycholugies. in press. | |
2. Arnold. M. B. and J. A. Garson. The Human Person. New York. Ronald Press, 1954. | |
J. Basmajian, R. '"Electromyography Comes of Age." Science 176, 603-606, 1972. | |
4. | |
Crumhaugh, J.C. and L. T. Maholick. ,lvfaml(J/ of!nsrructionsf<Jr 1he Purpose-in-1.ife Test. Psychometric Affiliates, Munster, Indiana. 1969. | |
5. | |
Eysenck. H . .I. The Bio/ologirnl Basis o( Personalitr. Chicago, Charles C. Thomas, 1967. | |
6. _____ The Srruclllre oJ Human Perwnalitv. London, Methuen & Co., 1970. | |
7. ~~--____ Crime and Personality. London. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977. | |
X. _____ and S. B. G. Eysenck. Pasuna/i1_1• Struclure and .lvfeasuremenl. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969. | |
9. _____and S. B. (i. Eysenck. "Psychopathy, Personality and Genetics," in R. D. Hare and D. Schelling (eds.) i\l'Chopathic Behaviour: Approaches to Research. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1970. | |
IO. Fcnichcl, 0. Outline <.f Clinical Analysis. New York, W. W. Norton, 1934. | |
11. Frankl. V. E. "Paradoxical Intention: A Logotherapcutic Technique." American Journal of Psychotherapy /4, 520-535, 1960. | |
12. | |
__________ Man in Search ofMeaning--From Dea1h Camp to f,):istenlialisrn. Jerusalem, Dvir Publications. 1970. | |
13. | |
Freud, A. Normality and Patholog1· in Childhood. International University Press, 1965. | |
14. | |
Shoham, S. G., G. Rahav, and M. Addad. Criminology. Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, Schocken, 1980. | |
15. | |
Weiss T. and B. T. Engel. "Operant Conditioning of Heart Rate in Patients with Premature Ventricular Contractions. Psychosomatic Medicine 33, 301-321, 1971. | |
Pedagogy and Logotherapy Charles Okechukwu lwundu | |
Pedagogy belongs to the sciences because it comprises the branches of the human sciences, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, didactics, biology, etc. In this article I intend to look at pedagogy as practiced, based on the thoughts of Viktor Frankl. | |
According to Fabry: "Having diagnosed the ills of our times, Frankl tries to point the direction toward a cure. His cure --the return to the resources of one's personal conscience --is neither unique nor new; but what is novel is his challenge that education, in the broadest sense, must lead man back to the resources of his conscience and help him refine his conscience. "1 Frankl defines conscience as the intuitive capacity to perceive the unique meaning of every unique life situation. Frankl also defines logotherapy as education to responsibility, especially needed in this age when technology threatens to reduce humanity to things having no responsibility but only reactions. Logotherapy educators will elicit in the students the widest range of meaning potentials, encourage them to make their choices, and educate them to make responsible choices. | |
The meaningful life cannot develop from a vacuum, but must be built up from fresh insights by individuals whose consciences are refined enough to sec the unique meanings as well as the "universal meanings" of values. In this sense, education can play a major part in guiding the youth to find meaning in their lives through a well-educated, trained, and refined conscience. | |
Fabry writes: "You cannot expect a very small child to have a fully developed conscience, nor does he any longer possess the bulk of instincts of the animals. Thus he must be guided by experiences which previous generations found useful and meaningful both on the individual and on the social level. A person's early education must take the form of values handed down from the ciders. But as the child grows up, he becomes more and more able to take a stand that is independent of traditions, and he may even oppose tract itions." In this sense logotherapy seeks to remove the conflict between true conscience and superego | |
meanings superimposed by traditions and social environment. | |
Frank I repeatedly states that meaning cannot be "given" by anyone, including the teacher, and values cannot be taught, they must be lived. What a teacher may give his students is not a meaning but personal example, for instance, the example of his devotion to the great cause of science, truth, and research. Frankl warns that the teacher should not undermine the basic meaning orientation of the young people by presenting them with a nihilistic. reductionistic, or pandeterministic philosophy of life. He stresses the importance of not counteracting the original enthusiasm and idealism of youth, their deep concern with values and ideals by teaching them, for example, that values are "nothing but defense | |
mechanisms and reaction formations." Teachers cannot be effective unless they are prepared to deal with values and ideals, and do not regard every moral stand by a student as an expression of resistance. Teachers have to make some effort to carry on the discourse with students in strictly ethical terms. | |
One of the most important logotherapeutic techniques is the Socratic dialogue. It is based on the assumption that a teacher is here not only to pour information into the students. but to draw from them what is deep inside them. | |
Freire accepts the ad\antagc and significance of the dialogue in the studenttcach,.:r rdation~hip. He affirms that this mcth,id ts helpful in reawakening the \tudenb' ci itical con~ciuusncss. "Only dialogue which requires critical thinking is also capable of generating critical thrn king. Without dialogue there iS no communication. and \\iliwut communication there can be no true education. Thu~. the dialogical cha1 act er of reeducation as the practice offreedom does not begin when the teacher-student meets the ,tudents-teachers in a pedagogical situation. but rather when the former first asks himself what his dialogue with the latter will be about. "1 Here Freire supports Frankl's ideas of the educational system: teachers, while trying to impart knowledge to the students. permeate their individual consciences by way of showing good examples. not imposing values but suggesting ~tandards and nnrms of behavior the students may fee! free to reject. [ducation encourages. students to seek truth and develop spiritual and mental maturity. | |
In sum. Frankl maintain, that in our age of existential vacuum, crises. and mcaninglcssncs~.. education must focu, its attention more than ever on tbe full development of individual conscience. This immunizes ~tudcnts against such ugly conditions as cnnforrnism and totalitarianism. Frankl states: "We live in a11 era of existential vacuum and meaningles\ness. ln such an era the task of education is to refine the conscience in such a way that we can sec the demand\ contained in every single ,ituation. In an era in which the Ten Commandments scrn1 to be losing their unconditioned \alidity for many. we have to sharpen our perccptivcne~~ of tht: tens and thousand~ of commandments that arise from the ten,; of tlwusands of unique ~ituations which life contains.•· 2 Frankl is convinced that onl~· an awakened and refined conscience can render us capable of raking a ,tam! thar will prevent w, from falling victim to conformism and totalitarianism. The aim of education is respnmiblenes,. | |
P. l·reire adds the thought that our era is evolving complex ideas, \alues, hopes, and that we are simultaneousiy creating history and becoming historicalsocial beings. In contrast to animal~. we can "tri-dimensionalize" time into past, pre~ent and future. These epochal units arc nnt closed periods of time, static compartments within which we humans are refined. Tbey interrelate in the dynamics of historical continuity. Elucidating his point, Freire writes: ·'An epoch is characteri1ed hy a complex of ideas, concepts. hopes, doubt, values and challenges in dialectical interaction with their opposites, arriving toward fulfillment. Tbe concrete representation of many of these ideas. values, concepts and hopes, as well as the obstacles which impede man's full humanization, constitute the themes ofthat epoch. These themes imply others which are opposing or even antithetical; they also indicate tasks to be carried out and fulfilled. Thus, historical themes arc never isolated, independent, disconnected, or static; they | |
are always interacting dialectically with their opposites." | |
These far-sighted views of Frankl and Freire suggest fundamental changes in the education of the young if they and we all ~ are to survive into the twenty-first century. | |
CHARLES OKECHUKWU IWUNDU is a research doctoral candidate in Logotherapy, Department of Educational Psychology, Pontifical University, Antonianum, Rome, ltalv. | |
REFERENCES: | |
I. Fabry, J.B. The Pursuit uf'Meuning, Logotherapr Appliedto Life. San f; .mcisco, Harper and Row, 1980. | |
2. Frankl, V. E. La Sofferenza di una vi/a senza sensu, psicuteraJ)ia per /'uomo d'uggi. Torino. L.D.C.. 1982. | |
3. f reire, P. Pcdagoxy (J/' the Oppre.1.1ed England, Penguin Books, 1982. | |
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