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Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy Dlplomates 1 Upcoming World Congress of Logotherapy IX 2 A Message of Hope 4 Tom McKillop Reflections on •Frankl: Life with Meaning• 9 Robert C. Leslie The Lifestyle Approach to Substance Abuse 13 Glenn D. Walters Meaning and Life's Trials: An Avenue of Hope 20 Patricia E. Haines Joe Fabry Letter to President Clinton 25 The Logoanchor Technique 26 Ann Graber Westermann Logotherapy's Knowledge and Wisdom 31 RachelAsagba The Chinese Purpose-In-Life Test and Psychological Well-Being In Chinese College Students 35 Daniel T. L Shek President Clinton Response to Joe Fabry Letter 42 Meaning Amidst Chaos: The Challenge of the 21st Century 43 Grace Kannady Logotherapeutic Crisis Intervention: A Case History 51 Elisabeth Lukas Book Review 55 Recent Publications of Interest to Logotherapists 56 | |
Volume 16, Number 1 Spring 1993 | |
The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 65-73. | |
TREATMENT MODALITIES IN LOGOTHERAPY | |
Jim Lantz | |
The primary function of the logotherapist is to help clients identify, discover, and make use of the meanings and meaning potentials in their lives. 1 Logotherapists are concerned with both awareness and action.2•3•4 They are concerned with awareness, to help bring to the clients' consciousness their repressed, ignored, or denied meanings.1•3 They are concerned with action, to help clients make use of the meanings and meaning potentials that have been raised to consciousness through existential and socratic reflection. | |
The effective logotherapist helps clients maintain a balance between reflection and action.3'4 Too much reflection without action may result in awareness of the clients' meaning potentials without actualization, while too much action without reflection may result in actualization of meaning potentials that are not "owned" by the clients or do not "call" their unique, personal gifts and strengths. One way to help clients maintain an appropriate balance is to offer them a "correct" logotherapy treatment modality based upon an accurate assessment of how compatible are the clients' treatment needs with the modalities recommended. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the reflection and action opportunities in various treatment modalities used by logotherapists. | |
Individual Logotherapy | |
Individual logotherapy is the preferred treatment when the logotherapist decides that it is important to maximize the therapist's control over the treatment process. It includes two communication channels: from therapist to client, and from client to therapist. The therapist only has two communication channels to observe and monitor, and has control over one of them (from therapist to client). This situation is different in group logotherapy or family | |
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logotherapy where there is a significant increase in the number of communication channels that must be monitored and observed and where the therapist has less control. | |
The primary advantage in individual logotherapy is that the therapist has more control over the treatment process and therefore can set the tone of the treatment interview. Therapists can use communication toward the clients to increase their level of support in a way that decreases anxiety in them. In group, marital, or family logotherapy, therapists often lose a considerable degree of such control. | |
Individual psychotherapy is considered the least complex form of treatment, most easily controlled by the therapist to set a safe treatment atmosphere.3 •5 As a result, it is frequently the treatment of choice with severely disturbed clients, at least in the beginning of the treatment. The major disadvantage is that this modality can easily be misused: it can distance the clients from people within their social network by encouraging them to develop an overly intense and emotional relationship with the therapist. The nurturance, support, and relationship intensity that is possible in individual therapy is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It can offer continuous and controlled support for clients who need such an experience. It also can inhibit clients from finding such support within their natural social network. This disadvantage can be minimized by using group, marital, and family treatment as an adjunct to individual therapy. | |
Although at times individual treatment can discourage clients from solving problems in the real world by encouraging too much internal reflection, this disadvantage can be turned to an advantage. Some clients have developed a pathological focus upon external aspects of social living. Such clients have little awareness of their own feelings, goals, thoughts, responsibilities, fantasies, or expectations. They develop a constricted idea of the self, and they view their own feelings and meanings as unimportant. Such clients usually benefit from a type of treatment that introduces them to their own strengths and potentials--as is encouraged by individual logotherapy because it promotes internal reflection and develops internal self-awareness. This approach can help the client discover the Internal, unique qualities and strengths of the self that are called upon to give to the world in self-transcendent concern for others beyond the self. | |
Group Logotherapy | |
Group therapy is the treatment of choice when helping clients change interpersonal behavior patterns that disrupt their ability to make use of | |
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meaning opportunities. 3'5 Group logotherapy Is useful with a wide variety of clients and problems: children, adolescents, young adults, older adults, inpatient clients, out-patient clients, neurotics, psychotics, clients with character disorders, clients with organic brain damage, substance abuse clients, growthoriented clients, and many other populations. | |
The therapy group gives clients the opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with both the therapist and other members of the group, and receive support and confrontation from both. Many learning opportunities are available in group therapy that might not be available elsewhere, including installation of hope, universality, imparting information, altruism, corrective recapitulation of the primary family group, development of socializing techniques, imitative behavior, catharsis, cohesiveness, and interpersonal learning.5 | |
Group therapy is frequently the choice with a child, adolescent, or adult not living in a natural family group (or living In a group that is unable to support client change). Group logotherapy is also recommended for emancipated adults who need to replace old Interpersonal patterns that once were useful in the family of origin but now create difficulties for the client away from the original family. | |
Placing clients into a therapy group increases the complexity of treatment. Participants are forced to relate to both the therapist and a variety of group members who also have problems. The client becomes one of many, and the therapist must be able to comprehend a great number of group transactions as they occur. Increased complexity decreases the amount of control of the therapist over the treatment process. It can also provide the therapist considerable help from the other group members by giving the client additional support and confrontation. | |
Group Membership Selection | |
Group logotherapy is greatly enhanced by effective membership selection. To some extent the therapist can guide the process of the group by membership selections. It can be done in a way that results in a homogenous group, a heterogenous group, or a group that includes a balance of both. | |
A homogenous group includes members who have similar problems and characteristics. For example, people who live in the same kind of neighborhood, who are approximately the same age, the same sex, and who use similar problem-solving patterns. Sameness is planned and reinforced. It maximizes the support that each group member feels from the others, and minimizes the amount of confrontation in the group process. A primarily | |
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supportive group atmosphere is encouraged by homogenous membership selection. | |
A heterogenous group includes members who are different from each other in age, sex, race, social/economic status, and problem-solving patterns. Encouraging differences in the composition of a group increases the level of confrontation. This improves each member's opportunity to experience a different point of view, yet also decreases group support. | |
A balanced group can maximize both support and confrontation in the | |
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group. ' ' To achieve this balance, it is my choice to pick at least two group members who can comfortably utilize an aggressive problem-solving and interactional pattern, two members who can use a dependency pattern, and two members who use an avoidance pattern. Including two group members who can use each of the three major problem-solving and interpersonal patterns provides each group member with support from at least one other group member who utilizes a similar pattern. At the same time, this selection provides each group member with the probability of obtaining confrontation from at least one other group member who uses a different pattern. Such group composition provides each member with an opportunity to negotiate a relationship with another group member who shares a client's pattern and the opportunity to negotiate a relationship with another group member who does not. | |
It is also my preference to include at least two group members who share certain demographic characteristics such as income level, sex, race, and age. For example, it is not advisable to place just one elder1y client into a therapy group with younger adults. It is safe to place two elder1y adults in such a group because each of these members will have at least one other person who can be considered similar and supportive, at least in the dimension of age. It is inadvisable to place a client into a group without at least one other in a similar age, sex, race, or income level. When this is not proper1y planned, it often results in group scapegoating. | |
Group Relationships | |
A prerequisite to attending the first group logotherapy session is the client's verbalization of a contract or a decision about a general goal for personal change.3'5 It may take several individual sessions before the client can verbalize such a goal. Examples of such a verbal contract include "I want to learn to control my temper," "I want to learn how to listen to people and to be concerned about people," "I want to find out why I don't have any friends and how to change this,• "I want to learn to be more aggressive,· "I want to | |
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learn to convince people that I am not a doormat,· and "I want to learn how to talk with people without getting scared to death.• Placing a client into a group without the establishment of a treatment contract can result in an unproductive group where discouragement spreads rapidly. | |
All group members should have a relationship with the logotherapist before they enter the group. 3'5 This is important because there is always a great deal of anxiety about group membership, at least in the beginning. The client needs a preexisting relationship with the therapist in order to handle this anxiety. This preexisting relationship provides support and allows the client to proceed with relating to the other group members. | |
Task Orientation | |
Group task orientation refers to the process of teaching group members how to use the group experience in a helpful way. 5 This is initially the responsibility of the therapist.3 As a group develops maturity, experienced group members can help newer members learn how to use the group. Group task orientation includes the presentation of clear messages from the therapist about the goals of the group, general group rules, and some of the specific ways each group member can personally use the group to develop more useful and meaningful social living patterns. | |
Empathy | |
Empathy in group logotherapy refers to the process of understanding another and having some awareness and concern for the other's pain.5 Empathy does not mean overidentification or confusing our own experience with the experience of another person. Empathy is an active process that helps people feel better, not because it results in total understanding, but because it demonstrates our interest and concern. Again. the therapist has the primary responsibility to demonstrate empathy during the initial stages of the group. As the group develops maturity, clients will take on an empathy function as they learn to replace overidentification with an active attempt to care for each other in a way that includes acceptance of differences. In this way empathy stimulates the replacement of grandiose self-expectations with an acceptance, emergence, and support of the participant's real self.3•4•5 | |
Process Interpretation | |
Process interpretation in group logotherapy refers to the process of using verbal feedback to help clients develop improved insight into their social behaviors that disrupt meaning awareness. Process interpretations can be | |
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made by the therapist and/or by group members. Heterogenous group membership helps the group to provide more accurate interpretations, whereas a homogenous group membership increases the risk of inaccurate group Interpretations based upon overidentification.5 | |
An Illustrative Example | |
Effective membership selection, the articulation of a reasonable group treatment goal by each member, a preexisting relationship with the group logotherapist, a realistic group task orientation, effective group empathy, and accurate group process interpretations all significantly assist each group member to be more helpful. The following clinical material illustrates an effective adolescent logotherapy group in which the members provide for each other a balanced amount of both support and confrontation: | |
Ted: (Aggressive-pattern client) Like there is only three people In this group that's got any brains: Jim, Ann, and Carol. They got some smarts (Jim and Ann are the co-therapists). | |
Jack: (Aggressive-pattern client) (Angry) Are you saying I ain't got any brains? | |
Ted: (Laughing) If the shoe fits, wear it. | |
Al: (Dependent-pattern client) That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that these three are better than him. | |
Carol: (Dependent-pattern client) Right. He put himself down, too. He didn't include himself. | |
Ann: (Co-therapist) So you think he put himself down? | |
Ted: How? | |
Al: By saying that there were only three people with brains and then leaving yourself out. | |
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Ted: (Excited) Yea, but Ann and Jim went to college and all that, and like they're over there all cool and everything and like we're all here...depressed and everything. So that means they got some brains. | |
(Silence) | |
Ted: Well everyone got some brains, really. | |
Jim: (Co-therapist) How about Ted? | |
(Silence) | |
Jack: Well? | |
Ted: (On the verge of tears) Well, my mother, she's always saying I'm a dumb nigger with no brains and I'll never be nothing but a dumb nigger. | |
Al: So cause your mother says you're dumb that means it's true? | |
(Silence) | |
Al: Well? | |
Ted: (Softly) No. | |
Al: Well, like your mother's got some problems, so like why listen to her about that. You know you're not dumb and crazy. Just because she puts you down doesn't mean you got to put yourself down, too. Nobody in here thinks you're dumb. | |
In this excerpt, Ted attempts to handle his existential pain by putting himself one-up (by complementing the co-therapists and putting down the group). Jack accepted the put-down and became angry. Al looked beyond the put-down and commented upon the feelings and the existential pain behind Ted's maneuver by saying that Ted had also put himself down. Carol also | |
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picked up on Ted's underlying feelings. The group was able to confront Ted with his actions, his empty feelings, and to also give him some support and acceptance. The group helped Ted realize that he was meaningful. The group treatment climate included both support and confrontation, accurate empathy, effective and accurate group interpretations, and a therapeutic group task orientation. | |
Family Logotherapy | |
Family logotherapy is preferred when the client's problems seem specifically related to the family group. Family logotherapy tends to reinforce closeness within the family. If clients have problems in and outside the family situation, some combination of individual, group, and family logotherapy is often indicated. | |
The central idea in family logotherapy is the assumption that many emotional problems develop in a family existential vacuum when family problems disrupt family meaning awareness.3'4 The focal point of evaluation and intervention is shifted from simply the individual in pain to the person's network of family interpersonal relationships. An important goal is to alter dysfunctional interaction patterns within the family that support the development of a family existential vacuum. | |
Family logotherapy is similar to group logotherapy In that both modalities are more complex than individual treatment. There is, however, one major difference. In group logotherapy, the therapist has a preexisting relationship with every member of the group. The therapist knows every member, at least as well as the members know each other. This is not true in family logotherapy, where every family member knows more about the history and operation of the family group than the logotherapist. The family members live with each other, have a great influence upon each other, know each other's history and secrets, and spend a great deal more time with each other than they do with the therapist. The logotherapist is, and remains, somewhat of an outsider. | |
Although the family may want help, many families also resist help.4 This is true for a variety of reasons, but one important one is that family change is usually accompanied by family anxiety. This anxiety can be removed by simply defeating the therapist's efforts to facilitate change. Whenever the family group experiences too much anxiety the family members will join together and systematically defeat the therapist. The family group members will be able to do this because of their history, future, and dependence upon one another. This does not happen frequently in group | |
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logotherapy because the group members do not have a past relationship with each other, and because the logotherapist is an insider. As a result, the pacing of change often becomes even more important in family logotherapy than in group logotherapy because of the family's ability to join together to defeat and expel the family logotherapist who is provoking too much anxiety. Outsiders who are not careful are easily run out of town. The outsider with good timing may be able to weather the storm. | |
The primary treatment advantage in family logotherapy is that emotional problems and the existential vacuum can be treated directly within their actual social context.3'4 If dysfunctional fam~y interaction can be effectively challenged, the family members in pain can experience a profound level of support and family meaning awareness. The family cycle of pain and despair can change into a powerful cycle of growth and meaning actualization. | |
JIM LANTZ, PH.D., is director of the Worthington Logotherapy Center, and a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Social Work, 1947 College Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210 USA. | |
References | |
1. | |
Frankl, V. (1967). Psychotherapy and existentialism. NY: Simon & Schuster. | |
2. | |
Frankl, V. (1969). The will to meaning. NY: New American Library. | |
3. | |
Lantz, J. (1987). An introduction to clinical social work practice. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas. | |
4. Lantz, J. (in press). Existential family therapy: Using the concepts of Viktor Frankl. NY: Jason Aronson. | |
5. Yalom, I. (1970). Theory and practice of group psychotherapy. NY: Basic Books. | |
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The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 74-76. | |
INTRODUCING CLIENTS TO INTERGENERATIONAL RESOURCES | |
Paul R. Welter | |
While working with clients who could find little meaning in life, I intuitively connected them, when possible, with either little children or the elderly. A college student had overdosed, and was now looking longingly at repeating this escape attempt. Without really knowing why, I took her with me to visit a friend at a nursing home. The "match" worked, and she began visiting him on her own. | |
A middle-aged client wanted to become less "stiff' and more spontaneous. I helped her arrange time each week to spend on "all fours" with children in a pre-school. | |
A forty-year-old man in family counseling was confronted by his wife and three children on his inability to play. He finally said, after a period of dawning awareness, that he had never played, even as a child. He had gone from age five to age twenty-one in one afternoon when his own father had impressed upon him the importance of work. From that point on, he did very little playing in his growing-up days. He gradually adopted this "all-work-noplay" theme as his own, and was now trying to pass it on to his wife and children. They weren't buying it. | |
He agreed, with a bit of nudging from me, to spend an hour or so a week with his middle child building things with wood. There were two important outcomes from this: a) he spent more time with his son, with whom he was not as involved as he was the other two children, and b) he made one step toward learning to play. Doing a craft with a child is play that has a product. He could allow himself to play as long as he emerged with a product that was evidence that he had worked. Going from a product-orientation (work) to the process orientation of "pure" play usually requires the middle step of crafts. | |
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The Rationale for Doing an Intergenerational Match | |
After I had done many of these matches with clients, I tried to analyze why it was working. I'm still not sure. I know that I feel more whole if I have friends all the way from two years old to ninety-five years old. Also, I know from clinical observation and personal experience that there is something healing about these intergenerational connections. Life suddenly has renewed meaning after one of these experiences. A client may finally get moving again. So personally and clinically I am sure it works. | |
Some Implications for Counselors | |
If you have not utilized this resource to introduce new meaning to your clients, I invite you to give it a try. Plan some Intergenerational contacts with at least five of your clients over a period of time. This will give you a large enough sample to make a judgment about its usefulness. If it proves to be a useful method, then you can go on to the next step of building a network of resource persons. You don't need to talk to them about your network. Just make note of names mentally or on paper of those you can call on in the future. Doing this may enlarge your own list of friends of all ages. | |
Some people have access to many children. Others know very few as friends. There are many ways of making friends with kids that are usually effective. One is to sit on the front porch instead of the patio in the evenings. Another is to get down on your knees and talk with at least two small children before or after worship service each week. | |
Many clients have children of their own at home. An anxious, panicked client was searching for peace and joy. I talked with him about his four-yearold and two-year-old. It was the first time he smiled during that session. He said he had been too busy to play with his children recently. I told him that I agreed that he was very busy, and that he reminded me of the carpenter who was too busy to sharpen his saw. Here he was desperately seeking joy and peace, and he had two "in-house" master teachers of those subjects just waiting for him to come to class! He decided he could take a little time to go to school. | |
College students respond very well to a match with children or an elderly person. Many college students live in residence halls with hundreds of other nineteen-year-olds, and thus lack a sense of the unity of life. Scores of my college students have chosen to visit a grandparent or a nursing home resident as their Self-Directed Learning Project. They often forge a bond so strong that it lasts far beyond the college semester. In each situation, it has expanded the life-meaning of both the student and the older adult. In a | |
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Christian campus group, for which I serve as college advisor, we have had matches that have lasted as long as ten years. In choosing an older person it is useful to find someone whose life is filled with meaning. This person can then serve as a model, or perhaps even a mentor, in your client's own journey toward meaning. | |
I have found some clients are more open to a match with a child, and others more open to a match with an elder1y person. Recently a seventeenyear-old client said she didn't like kids, but she enjoyed spending more time with her grandmother. She began, for the first time, to listen to her grandmother talk about her life experiences. This dereflection process helped draw the adolescent out of a preoccupation with her own wor1d, and the experience expanded her meaning in life. | |
Beyond Words | |
Sometimes it is not enough for the counselor just to talk or even listen to the client who lacks meaning in life. The client may need an experience rather than words. To recommend such an experience, the counselor needs to figure out the nature of the meaninglessness. Usually the client is not responding to what life is asking of him or her, or feels cut off in some way from life. Using intergenerational resources--matching the client with a child or older person--is powerful because it can help meet both those needs. There is now a task to be accomplished--regular visits--and a new connection with life. | |
Why the very young and the very old? Client matches with the two extremes of life are especially useful because little children and the elder1y are honest, and because they usually have time for people. | |
What is special about the elder1y? They are closer to death than the rest of us. As someone has said, "The thought of death trivializes trivia." Many elder1y rejoice in the fact that they know better now than to worry about the things in life that once loomed large. | |
The young are not able to do tasks yet and the very old are no longer able to do them. But both find the center of their meaning in deepening the relationships with those they love and who love them. | |
PAUL R. WELTER, ED.D. [P. 0. Box 235, Kearney, Nebraska 68848-0235 USA] is a Counseling Psychologist and Dip/ornate in Logotherapy who currently writes and leads seminars. He has authored six books. The above article is extracted from Counseling and the Search for Meaning, by Paul R. Welter, Ed.D., copyright 1987, Word, Inc., Dallas, Texas USA--used with permission. | |
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The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 77-88. | |
TOOLS FOR THE LOGOTHERAPIST: A TWELVE-STEP SPIRITUAL INVENTORY | |
Howard P. Brown, Jr. | |
The phenomenal, late 20th century proliferation of 12-step-based recovery programs and groups throughout the western world signals at least two things. First, it demonstrates the dismal failure of modern humanity's attempts to find meaning through the use of addictive substances, sex, materialism, and a variety of other compulsive behaviors. Secondly, it affirms modern society's need for structured mechanisms through which its members may experience meaningful relationships with their real selves, others, and their creator or the universe. | |
12-Step Practices Overlap Logophilosophy | |
As observed by Holmes,5 Koster,6 and Wadsworth,9 there are many parallels between the tenets of logotherapy and the philosophies of 12-step recovery programs. The suggestion that A.A. members carry the message (Twelfth Step) to other suffering individuals makes use of the human quality of self-transcendence and supplies a meaningful experience of achievement. The suggestion for honest confession of one's faults (Fifth Step) helps the selfdiscovery process, also achieved by the Socratic dialogue. Human relationships are supported by the amends process (in Steps Eight and Nine) and its continuance (Step Ten). The search for Ultimate Meaning is suggested by the belief that a Power greater than oneself can restore one to sanity (Step Two). This proposal is further extended by the suggestion that the individual choose to turn his or her "will and life over to the care of a Higher Power(Step Three). Behaviors suggested as basic to the individual's continued pursuit of such transcendent encounters include the prayers for the removal of character defects (Steps Six and Seven) and the specific suggestion that persons seek through prayer and meditation to improve their conscious contact with a Higher Power (Step Eleven).1 | |
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Assessing Related Noetic Practices | |
Although 12-step programs appear simple, their successful application in everyday life involves a wide variety of behaviors, cognitions, and attitudes.3'4 These are measured in a new instrument titled the Brown-Peterson Recovery Progress Inventory (B-PRPI) which explores 53 different mechanisms rated by 12-step members as "important in recovery" and "relevant to A.A. spirituality".4 | |
Initial study supports the validity and reliability of the B-PRPI as an instrument that can be used for assessing the level of participation in 12-step recovery related noetic practices. The B-PRPI is offered here for continued research and use. | |
Our normative study of the 8-PRPI included 58 individuals from various types of 12-step groups (A.A. = 33%, N.A. = 10%, A.C.O.A. = 2%, | |
C.O.D.A. = 2%, Al-Anon = 12%, two or more groups = 38%, and unspecified = 3%). The sample consisted of 43% males and 57% females. Mean age was | |
35.5 years (range = 17 to 63 years). Sixty-seven percent had been through a professionally-run treatment program (range = 1 to 4 times). Mean education was 13.8 years (range = 9 to 20 years). Mean duration of 12-step group membership was 2.9 years and ranged up to 10 years. Alcoholics and drug addicts participating in the study reported attaining up to 10 years' sobriety, with a mean of 3.1 years. Approximately 29% of the sample attended church regularly, 35% attended occasionally, 28% never, and 9% intended to begin attending later in recovery. | |
Three-fourths of this sample of recovering individuals reported having completed A.A's Fourth and Fifth Steps and having begun making amends. Fifty-six percent reported engaging in prayer upon arising, 34% during the day, and 74% before retiring. About one-third of the sample meditated 15 to 30 minutes per day. About half reported reading from a meditation book daily, as well as regularly from other spiritual, personal-growth, or 12-step materials. Almost three-quarters reported having told their story at 12-step meetings. | |
Among the more consistent cognitive behaviors reported was ''taking Step Three· (making a decision to turn one's will and life over to the care of a Higher Power), with about 90% reporting having done so. Over half reported being able to accept emotional pain as part of recovery, with 56% viewing life as a learning experience, and 62% consistently experiencing meaning or purpose in existence. About 80% reported experiencing more meaningful relationships with others since beginning to "work" a 12-step program. | |
About 70% rated the B-PRPI as accurately reflecting the ideal 12-step recovery program; 24% as "somewhat accurate." About half the sample rated | |
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the instrument as "accurately" measuring an individual's progress in recovery; another 47% as "somewhat accurately.• A reliability coefficient of .94 was obtained on odd versus even items (unequal length Spearman-Brown). The mean and standard deviation obtained in our study were approximately 136 and 26, respectively. Pilot studies have indicated that the instrument can be used in identifying weaknesses in the practices of individuals who have relapsed, as well as Individuals reporting continued psychiatric disturbance.2'4 | |
The Therapeutic Approach | |
Having identified various recovery mechanisms, we began working with different methods of facilitating individuals' use of those identified recovery mechanisms. It has been our experience that when individuals are nondemandingly invited to choose their own concept of a Higher Power and assisted in developing their own ways to maintain conscious contact with that Power, most can formulate a pragmatic spirituality that not only promotes recovery from addiction, but also provides the tools necessary for sensing a meaning and purpose in life. | |
For some individuals, any approach to spirituality that appears linked to traditional religious belief systems is viewed as threatening and thus may be doomed to failure from the start. Therefore, the counselor must focus on the person's acquisition and use of individualized practices rather than a specific belief system. As observed by Peterson and by Stewart, as people continue to work the twelve steps and to observe others successfully experience a spiritual way of life, they are likely either to come to believe in a culturally-relevant Higher Power concept or to eventually drift away from the 12-step recovery process. 7'8 Since no one has the right to force a particular belief system on another person, the counselor is best served by helping clients identify and utilize spiritual practices that allow them to work a recovery program long enough, so fears and prejudices become less prohibitive.7 | |
For the innovative therapist. there are many sources for alternative, nonreligiously-based approaches to such spiritual practices as relaxation, meditation, self-evaluation, holistic health, etc. For those not offended by traditional Judea-Christian language, there are, of course, numerous sources for reading and meditation. It is useful to offer each individual a choice among several approaches to recovery and to assist the client in learning to practice their chosen methods. | |
The premise under1ying this therapeutic proposal is the idea that each individual possesses the capacity and need to develop a healthy, noetic experience. This innate, human Will to Meaning combats existential frustration and allows people to feel in harmony with themselves, others, and the | |
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universe. Addicted persons seem especially in need of help to find fulfillment in noetic experiences. It is an expressed goal of the logotherapist to make use of the client's resources of the spirit, and this is also a primary outcome of 12step recovery processes. The complementary natures of logotherapy and 12step programs being obvious, it only remains for therapists to develop their own integrative capacities for self-transcendence and, then, to assist the client's subsequent integration of theirs. | |
HOWARD P. BROWN, JR., PH.Dis Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4499 USA. He also maintains a private practice with Mid-County Physicians, Creve Coeur, Missouri. | |
References | |
1. Alcoholics Anonymous. (1987). NY: A.A. World Services. | |
2. Brown, H. P., Jr. (1989). A multidimensional psychospiritual approach to the outpatient treatment of chemical dependency, codependency, eating disorders, or related disorders. Doctoral dissertation, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS. | |
3. | |
Brown, H. P., Jr. (1992). Substance abuse and the disorders of the self: Examining the relationship. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 9(2), 1-28. | |
4. | |
Brown, H. P., Jr. & Peterson, J. H., Jr. (1991 ). Assessing spirituality in addiction treatment and follow-up: Development of the Brown-Peterson Recovery Progress Inventory (B~PRPI). Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, | |
8(2),21-50. | |
5. | |
Holmes, R. M. (1991). Alcoholics Anonymous as group therapy. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 14, 36-41. | |
6. | |
Koster, M. J. (1991). A view of logotherapy from the alcohol field. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 14, 103-105. | |
7. | |
Peterson, J. H., Jr. (in press). Evolution of A.A.'s concept of spirituality. | |
Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. | |
8. | |
Stewart, D. A. (1955). The dynamics of fellowship as illustrated in Alcoholics Anonymous. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 16, 251262. | |
9. | |
Wadsworth, T. M. (1992). Logotherapy and 12-step programs in the treatment of substance abuse. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 15, 13-21. | |
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THE BROWN-PETERSON RECOVERY PROGRESS INVENTORY (B-PRPI) | |
Howard P. Brown, Jr. and John H. Peterson, Jr. | |
1) Name or ID Number: __________________ | |
2) Today's Date: ______ 3) Date of Birth: | |
4) Sex (circle): (1) M (2) F 5) Years Education Completed: | |
6) Twelve Step Group Attendance: I have attended the following (circle): | |
(1) | |
AA (2) NA (3) EA (4) OA (5) ACOA (6) CODA (7) Al-Anon | |
(8) | |
Two or more of above (circle all attended) (9) None of the above | |
(10) | |
Other (write in) _________________ | |
7) | |
Dependency, Compulsions, or Addictions (circle): | |
(1) | |
Alcohol (2) Drugs (3) Alcohol and Drugs (4) Codependency | |
(5) | |
Eating Disorder (6) Alcohol and/or Drugs and Codependency | |
(7) | |
Alcohol and/or Drugs and Eating Disorder | |
(8) | |
Eating Disorder and Codependency | |
(9) | |
Alcohol and/or Drugs, Codependency, and Eating Disorder | |
(10) | |
Other (write in) __________________ | |
DIRECTIONS | |
Please respond to each item on this and the following pages as honestly as you can. After reading each statement, circle the number directly above the answer that most closely reflects what you have completed, are doing, are experiencing, or truly believe at this point in time. Remember to "stay in the now" and be careful not to exaggerate your answers either positively or negatively. | |
1) I have completed 0 4 | |
an AA fourth Step No Yes | |
or life inventory. | |
2) I have completed 0 4 an AA fifth Step No Yes or told my life story. | |
81 | |
3) I have prepared 0 4 | |
a written list of those I have harmed in my life. | |
4) I have begun making amends to those I have harmed in my life. | |
5) I perform a nightly self-ev~luation. 0 Never | |
6) I perform frequent 0 "spot check inventories" Never during the day and night. | |
7) When I realize that 0 I'm wrong, I promptly Never admit it. | |
8) I engage in mental 0 or verbal prayer Never upon rising. | |
9) I engage in mental 0 or verbal prayer Never before going to sleep. | |
10) I engage in occasional 0 brief prayers during Never the day. | |
11) I meditate, practice 0 relaxation, or have Never "quiet time·. | |
No | |
0 | |
No | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 | |
Less than | |
5 min. | |
/day | |
Yes | |
4 | |
Yes | |
2 3 4 | |
Often Very Nightly Often | |
2 3 4 Often Very Nightly Often | |
2 3 4 Often Almost Nways Always | |
2 3 4 | |
Often Very Daily Often | |
2 3 4 Often Almost Nways | |
Always | |
2 3 4 | |
Often Very Daily Often | |
2 3 4 5-15 16-30 ave,:3) min. min. min /day /day /day | |
82 | |
12) I read from a 0 1 2 3 4 | |
meditation book. | |
13) I read from more than one meditation | |
book. | |
14) Normally, I meditate, practice relaxation, or have "quiet time". | |
15) I attend twelve step group meetings. | |
16) I have a sponsor | |
17) I see or call other recovering people (other than at meetings) | |
18) I go on "Twelve Step" calls or talk to "suffering" people about my personal recovery. | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
No | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 | |
Very infrequently | |
1 per week | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Sometimes, but at no set time | |
2 2 per | |
week | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often Almost Daily Every Day | |
3 4 Almost Daily Every Day | |
3 4 Daily, At a set but at time each | |
no set day time | |
3 4 3 per 4 or more week t i m e s | |
weekly | |
4 Yes | |
3 4 Very Daily Often | |
3 4 Very Regularly Often | |
83 | |
19) I express my feelings 0 1 2 3 4 | |
and talk honestly | |
about my experiences | |
with supportive others. | |
20) I have "told my story'' at a twelve step group meeting. | |
21) I read from spiritual, personal growth, or twelve step texts. | |
22) I attempt to help others even when it's inconvenient for me to do so. | |
23) I attempt to listen carefully when those in my group or those I love are talking to me. | |
24) I attempt to forgive others when they offend or hurt me (as quickly as possible). | |
25) I treat other people as I would like to be treated. | |
26) I am honest with myself and others. | |
Never | |
0 No | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 Never | |
Sometimes | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
Sometimes | |
Sometimes | |
Sometimes | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often Very Regularly Often | |
4 Yes | |
3 4 Almost Daily | |
Every | |
Day | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
84 | |
27) I will listen to 0 1 2 3 4 | |
others' opinions | |
even if I disagree | |
with them. | |
28) I maintain a regular sleep schedule. | |
29) I maintain a regular well-balanced diet. | |
30) I am able to laugh at myself when I "goof up". | |
31) I attempt to behave and think opposite of my "old ideas". | |
32) I have admitted powerlessness over my alcoholism, addiction, and/or dependency. | |
33) I believe in "a power greater than myself'. | |
34) I have made a decision to live as if I have turned my will and my life over to the care of a Higher Power. | |
Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 No | |
0 Never | |
0 No | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Not Sure | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Often | |
2 Pretty Much | |
2 Often | |
2 I'm not sure Almost Always Always | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
4 Yes, Definitely | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
4 Yes | |
85 | |
35) I accept life on 0 1 2 3 4 | |
life's terms. | |
36) I recognize my irrational thoughts. | |
37) I resist the temptation to possess, control, or rnanipulate others. | |
38) I am able to be patient with others. | |
39) I think of others' needs as well as my own when I make decisions. | |
40) I can accept emotional pain as part of my growth in recovery. | |
41 ) I believe that I will progress in recovery with the help of my Higher Power. | |
42) I am able to accept both my good points and my bad points. | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
0 | |
Never | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
Often Almost Always AJways | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost AJways Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
2 Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
86 | |
43) My actions and words 0 1 2 3 4 | |
are consistent with my values. | |
44) While I may not like everyone, I am able to accept and love them exactly as they are. | |
45) I experience faith and trust in a Higher Power. | |
46) I am able to view life and its problems as a learning experience. | |
47) I base my decisions in life on what will serve to deepen and preserve my inner "serenity" or peace. | |
48) I experience meaning in life, a purpose for my existence. | |
49) My relationships with others are more "real" or meaningful than the ones I used to have. | |
50) I am in touch with reality. | |
Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never | |
0 Never Sometimes | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 | |
Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
1 Sometimes | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
2 | |
Often | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always | |
Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always Always | |
3 4 Almost Always Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always Always | |
3 4 | |
Almost Always Always | |
87 | |
51) I have remained 0 1 2 3 4 | |
abstinent or free from my dependency/ compulsion. 0-23 hours 1-29 days 30-59 days 60-90 days over 90 days | |
52) I am free of my mental obsession with the object of my addiction/ dependency. 0 Never 1 Sometimes 2 Quite Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
53) I avoid unnecessary association with persons, places or things not conducive to my recovery. 0 Never 1 Sometimes 2 Quite Often 3 4 Almost Always Always | |
TOTAL RECOVERY PROGRESS INVENTORY SCORE= | |
88 | |
The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 89-96. | |
LOGOPHILOSOPHY: COMPASS FOR AN EMBATTLED EDUCATION | |
Bernard R. Dansart | |
The American education profession has been under fire for at least the past decade, being charged with having lost its way. A landmark report, published in 1983, may be regarded as the opening volley of vocal, blatant, widespread expressions of dissatisfaction with public education. To quote briefly from this | |
report: Our nation is at risk...lf an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling... 1• P-5 A few of the indicators that the educational system in the United States | |
has lost its sense of direction and effectiveness were cited: | |
* | |
Functional illiteracy among all 17-year-olds is about 17%; among minority youth it is about 40%. | |
* | |
High school students' average achievement on standardized tests is lower than when Sputnik was launched. | |
* | |
The College Boards Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) declined 50 points on verbal scores and 40 points on math scores from 1963 to | |
1980. | |
* | |
Science achievement scores of 17-year-olds as measured by national assessments have steadily declined. | |
* | |
Remedial mathematics courses in public four-year colleges have increased to the point where they now constitute one-quarter of all mathematics courses taught in those institutions. | |
* | |
Business and military leaders lament the need to spend millions of dollars teaching basic reading, writing, spelling, and computation. | |
89 | |
The report calls for reform and excellence in education. It describes excellence as peak individual performance in school and the workplace. This personal excellence will be made possible by excellent schools and an excellent society. Although the descriptions of these excellent schools have some attractive elements, they are general and lack any mention about the nature of the person to be educated. The assumption is that everyone understands what a human being is and that we all agree on this assumption. | |
Confusion About the Spiritual Dimension | |
A look at some explicitly stated goals of education may help illustrate the lack of clarity and agreement about the nature of the learner, and the consequences for education. In 1918, the prestigious Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education published what are called the Seven Cardinal Principles of Education.3' P-277 They are: | |
a) | |
health (Soma), | |
b) | |
command of the Fundamental Processes (Three R's--Psyche), | |
c) | |
worthy home membership, | |
d) | |
vocational efficiency, | |
e) | |
civic participation, | |
f) | |
worthy use of leisure, and | |
g) | |
ethical character. | |
These seven principles, taken as a group, openly acknowledge two of Frankl's three dimensions--soma and psyche. Whether they acknowledge the existence of a spiritual dimension is questionable. The one principle, ethical character (g), that most likely implies the existence of a spiritual dimension in the learner is deleted from a similar list of principles put forward 20 years later (1938) by the Educational Policies Commission:3' P-211 | |
a) | |
self realization, | |
b) | |
human relationships, | |
c) | |
economic efficiency, and | |
d) | |
civic responsibility. | |
90 | |
Yet the notion of a truly three-dimensional human being so clearly outlined in Frankl's theory is an idea that has never been totally lost. It has been preserved in the ideal of liberal education and stated in a recent Phi Delta Kappan article: | |
The primary purpose of a liberal education...ls the cultivation of the | |
person's own intellect and imagination, for the person's own | |
sake...True education is meant to develop the individual human being, | |
the person, rather than serve the state...Formal schooling actually | |
commenced as an endeavor to acquaint the rising generation with | |
religious knowledge, with awareness of the transcendent, and with | |
moral truths. Its purpose was not to indoctrinate a young person in | |
civics, but rather to teach what it is to be a true human being, living | |
within a moral order. That person has primacy in liberal education.8' | |
p.545-46 | |
Notice the contrast. On the one hand we have educational principles developed by national commissions that leave the nature of the learner open to a variety of interpretations. On the other hand we have a liberal arts tradition specifying a belief in a transcendent and moral dimension in human beings. Perhaps education and society in general would be in much better shape if national commissions had enunciated principles clearly stating a belief in the spiritual dimension of human nature, and supported the goal of educating that spiritual dimension in everyone. | |
Current Deemphasis of Character and Ethical Conduct | |
Perhaps we can still set national educational goals that explicitly acknowledge the importance of the spirit. In the late 1980's, President Bush gathered the governors of the nation's 50 states and developed a new set of educational goals aimed at correcting educational deficiencies. Published in 1991, these goals purport to put American education back on track. The six goals state that by the year 2000: a) all children will start school ready to learn; b) the high school graduation rate will rise to 90% or more; c) students will demonstrate competency in English, math, science, history, and geography, and thus be prepared for responsible citizenship and productive work; d) students will outrank all other nations in math and science achievement; e) every adult American will be literate and will possess the skills necessary to compete in a global economy and to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citzenship; and f) schools will be free of drugs and violence and characterized by a learning environment.2 | |
It is difficult for me to disagree with any of these goals. It is, however, distressing what these goals omit.4 With one notable exception, they fail to address the development of character or ethical conduct. We don't find much evidence of goals like honesty, integrity, concern for the common good, or concern for the rights of others. 7 Self-transcendence is missing. Attention to attitudinal values is missing. The values represented in these six goals are compatible with the description of human nature as an Indivisible unity of soma and psyche, with only scant concern for the spirit. | |
None of the three sets of goals we have examined identify any beliefs about what a human being is. They all seem to assume that it is clear to everyone and that we all agree. | |
In reality, the history of the human race and of education demonstrate that we are not at all clear, nor do we all agree. Educational goals don't always clearly acknowledge the spiritual dimension nor do the graduates of our best educational institutions always serve as models of development of the whole person, especially the spiritual dimension. | |
It doesn't take much reflection to find instances of individuals in private and public life that typify an education that emphasizes knowledge and success (goals characteristic of the psychological level) and omits the spirit. Numerous examples can be cited of well-educated people engaging in conduct indicating lack of conscience or ethical character: medical doctors submitting inflated claims or claims for services never performed; lawyers encouraging clients to file frivolous law suits; and pharmacists charging for medications that were never dispensed. Even a national retail goods chain with a long and unsullied reputation charged customers for automobile repairs that were never made. One of the top ten universities in the United States was charged with illegally using millions of dollars of federal grant money. Nationally reknowned researchers have been accused of falsifying research data in order to publish studies that would boost their reputations. | |
Confusion About Human Nature-A Societal Problem | |
If we cannot expect moral behavior from our best educated and most privileged, it raises some questions about our educational system, and our society as a whole. | |
Modern science, a source of many blessings, has added to our confusion about human nature. Biology, and later medicine, studied the human body and determined no evidence of the human soul. Today, medical technology (with all its tests, poking, and probing) gives no support to the existence of the spirit. Its focus is on X-rays, CAT scans, magnetic resonance imaging, blood chemistry, and laser surgery techniques. Psychology, with its own tests and techniques, for the most part, emphasizes the laws of the psyche and pays little attention to meaning and the freedom of the spirit. | |
92 | |
On the other hand, down through the centuries, a belief in spirituality is seen in the works of religious writers, poets, social reformers, and educators. Their writings and the way they spent their lives gave testimony to their belief in the spirit. | |
This conflict about human nature is reflected in many of the divisive Issues of our own day. Religious views of human nature are in conflict with those of atheism. The Holocaust carried out a point of view that some people are essentially inferior and not the same nature as others. Euthanasia and abortion are divisive Issues that reflect our societal confusion and lack of agreement about what it means to be human. So too, in the field of education, if we don't understand the nature of the persons we propose to educate, we will wind up with inappropriate or inadequate goals. And thus we will have less than satisfactory results. | |
Logophilosophy Provides Guidance | |
Viktor Frankl's writings contain the clarity and comprehensiveness that will enable education to put itself on the right track. They provide the compass that will keep education from being buffeted about by every wind of novelty or current of convenience regarding what it means to be human. By using Frankl's writings as a guide, the inconsistency and partial understanding that has characterized educational theory and practice can be overcome. | |
If we accept humans as meaning-searchers and want to educate them according to their nature, it is important to understand Frankl's ideas of the three-dimensional nature of human beings, the three axioms upon which logotherapy is based, and the way in which we achieve meaning. True education will educate for all three dimensions: somatic, psychic, and spiritual. True education also will make use of the three axioms of freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning of life to clarify the nature of the spirit and how to educate it. | |
Frankl elaborates on the essential unity of human nature by emphasizing | |
unity in spite of diversity. All three dimensions are necessary for true human | |
nature, with the spiritual dimension rising above the somatic and the psychic. | |
Lacking any one of the dimensions, there is no human being. | |
Frankl's approach of dimensional ontology sheds light on our inability to maintain a clear and consistently accurate view of human nature. "This approach makes use of the geometrical concept of dimensions as an analogy | |
22 23 | |
for qualitative differences which do not destroy the unity of a structure."5' P-• Dimensional ontology demonstrates how three-dimensional objects of differing shapes can look identical when projected into two dimensions. For | |
93 | |
example, a cylinder will appear as a rectangle when projected sideways, or as a circle when projected from above. Not only has one of the dimensions been lost but the images are contradictory. Only when we look at the threedimensional space does the true nature of the cylinder become apparent. Similarily, if the three-dimensional human is projected into only two dimensions, we are left with a being consisting of soma and psyche. The spiritual dimension has been lost. | |
Using another of Frankl's analogies, if we project three different objects-sphere, cylinder, and cone--from above, they will all appear as circles. We cannot infer the true reality of the objects from their projections. Similarly, with human nature we cannot readily infer its true being from its projections (observable behavior). Each of us has personal experience of projections like these, of situations where we experience the predominance of one dimension of our nature. Sometimes we are so weighed down by fatigue or illness that we feel that our bodies are in control, that we are our bodies. At other times, overwhelmed by grief, fear, attraction, or some other emotion, we may be inclined to believe that we are only our psyches. Regardless of how potent these experiences may be, we retain our three-dimensional nature. Some glimmer of the spirit may break through. | |
Dimensional ontology sheds light on the nature of the body /psyche/spirit problem. Although it does not satisfy our desire for a complete explanation of the riddle of human nature, it is a big step forward. | |
Logophilosophy Applicable to Education | |
To what extent can Frankl's writings help guide educators to establish and achieve human goals? Several basic principles applicable to education are readily apparent. | |
Preeminence of the Spirit | |
All children are worthy of our respect and efforts regardless of gender, class, sexual orientation, or academic ability, because they are spiritual beings who have worth In their own right regardless of their background or contribution to society. Neither behavior nor appearances are determining factors in a person's worth. | |
Unity in Multiplicity | |
Because all children are an indivisible unity of soma/psyche/spirit, | |
educate for all three dimensions of the child. Physical education, basic health, | |
and nutrition are important because they constitute an element of what it | |
94 | |
means to be human. Educate the psyche because the emotional self needs developing. Also, memory and knowledge of facts are aspects of the psyche and essential components enabling us to discover meaning. Educate the spirit, the distinguishing element of the human being. Spirit makes possible discovering the meaning of the moment and ultimate meaning. It encompasses freedom, responsibility, attitudinal values, and self-transcendence. If we ignore any one of the dimensions of human nature, we are guilty of reductionism and are training animals or educating disembodied spirits, not educating human beings. | |
Freedom and Responsibility | |
Freedom and responsibility are opposite sides of the same coin. Because of our spiritual nature we are capable of a limited freedom, and this freedom is accompanied by a corresponding responsibility. We are free to discover meaning. Education should disentangle us from thosMorces that impede our discovery of meaning. | |
Self-Transcendence | |
Responsibility implies some reference, something beyond the self that calls to us. This orientation beyond ourselves, this specifically human capability, is called self-transcendence. Educating to self-transcendence is educating to the specifically human. | |
Values | |
Educate for all three types of values; creative, experiential, and attitudinal. Creative values include assimilating a useful knowledge base. This is the most familiar and frequently emphasized educational goal. Experiential knowledge includes developing an appreciation of art, music, nature, interpersonal relationships, and similar experiences. Experiential values are also commonlyinvoked educational goals but often not to the same degree as creative values. Finally, education for attitudinal values would include developing an understanding of the difference between success and fulfillment; that it is possible to have one without the other, that we can control our attitudes toward success and failure, even though we cannot control whether we have success or not. The educational establishment and society place least emphasis on this value despite the fact that attitudinal values are the aspect of our lives over which we have the most freedom. | |
While our students and our society may strive for success or to be | |
Number One, we all need to realize that not every person or country can be | |
95 | |
Number One. Only by clarifying the difference between success/failure (psychological dimension) and fulfillment/despair (noetic dimension) can people be freed from adding despair to discouragement, dissatisfaction, and frustration. A new system of teaching and testing is needed that encourages students to evaluate their progress in terms of meaning in their own lives rather than comparing their success against that of others. | |
The Educational Challenge | |
Accomplishing educational goals, derived from Frankl's vision of the human person, is no easy challenge for teachers and the educational system. In only a general way does Frankl's description of human nature answer the critics of the educational system and the anguished query of the teacher, "But what do I teach on Monday morning?" | |
However, Frankl's ideas do provide two powerful means of support to education. His ideas provide a clear vision of what it means to be human. And, the view is comprehensive; it has potential appeal to all people regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of them. Given these two basic characteristics, it becomes possible for educators to ask and answer the many individual questions that will provide education fitting for human beings. | |
BERNARD R. DANSART, ED.D. is associate professor at Loras College [P.O. Box 32, 1450 Alta Vista, Dubuque, Iowa 52004 USA] where he specializes in teacher education. | |
References | |
1. | |
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. | |
2. | |
Bush, G. W. {1991). America 2000: An education strategy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. | |
3. | |
Callahan, R. (1956). An introduction to education in American society. NY: Alfred A. Knopf. | |
4. | |
Eisner, E. (1992). The federal reform of schools: Looking for the silver bullet. Phi Delta Kappan, 73, 722-723. | |
5. | |
Frankl, V. (1969). The will to meaning. NY: Plume Books. | |
6. | |
Gow, H. B. (1989). The true purpose of education. Phi Delta Kappan, 70, 545-546. | |
7. | |
Sergiovanni, T. {1992). Moral authority and the regeneration of supervision. Supervision in transition: 1992 yearbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Cirriculum Development | |
96 | |
The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 97-102. | |
EXCESSIVE GAMBLING--MASKING A FRUSTRATED WILL TO MEANING? | |
Tanja Rutkowski | |
"I am a gambler. It has ruined my marriage, fatherhood, and career. I now work on myself with the help of a group, to find my way back to normal life." This statement comes from Mr. C. who has gambled on slot machines for 2-1 /2 years. He is one of the estimated 20,000 to 500,000 problem gamblers in the former West Germany. (Recent figures, including those from former East Germany, are not available.) | |
Problem gamblers are persons whose excessive gambling causes damage to themselves or others (family, colleagues). Consequences are career deterioration, breaking up of relationships with partners and family, financial ruin, even criminality. | |
Gambling was the research topic of a dissertation by Meyer.8 He identified, as the main danger, such factors as personality and social status of the gambler. He also identified the slot machine as dangerous, with its high and frequent winning potential. He considered gambling an addiction. | |
Others disagree with Meyer. They claim that extending addiction beyond substance abuse expands the concept of addiction. They also point out that no danger is inherent in the slot machines themselves. The causes of pathological gambling, they maintain, lie rather in the individual gamblers and their problems. These researchers see excessive gambling as neurotic behavior. | |
The causes of gambling have been explored in Germany by psychoanalysts, learning theorists, disposition theorists and personality theorists, sociologists, and social psychologists. Up to now, the problem has not been investigated from the viewpoint of logotherapy. | |
Logotherapeutic Interpretation and Evaluation of Literature | |
Frankl hypothesized that excessive gambling has its roots in a feeling of meaninglessness, an existential frustration.2' P-77 He writes: | |
97 | |
The feeling of existential vacuum, the lack of goals and life contents, | |
we call existential frustration, the unfulfilled will to meaning. We see that | |
exactly when and where the will to meaning remains unfulfilled, the will to | |
pleasure comes to the fore, to deaden the person's pain created by the | |
lack of existential fulfillment. The will to pleasure comes into play when | |
one has lost the will to meaning.3' P-136 | |
To assess the hypothesis that excessive gambling has its roots in existential frustration, the research literature was reviewed for applicability of three factors. The first was to clarify whether existential vacuum is present in gamblers. The second step was to test whether gamblers display lack of goals and life contents. The third step explored whether excessive gamblers pursue their will to pleasure which, according to Frankl, they will do when their will to meaning is frustrated. | |
Excessive Gamblers Experience Existential Vacuum | |
Ordinarily, existential frustration includes existential vacuum, the feeling of inner emptiness. It manifests itself first as boredom.3" P-101 The literature reports that when excessive gamblers are asked what motivated them early in their habits, they often mention boredom, loneliness, inner emptiness, and depression. Meyer9' P·216 states that gamblers indicted for crimes mention boredom and loneliness as reasons for their first visit in casinos. A number of other researchers list the attempt to overcome inner emptiness and depression as motivations for gambling (references may be obtained from the author). These reports confirm the relationship of existential vacuum to excessive gambling. | |
Excessive Gamblers Lack Life Goals and Contents | |
To clarify whether excessive gamblers suffer from a lack of life goals and contents, we explored how much self-distancing and self-transcendence they employ. Lukas has stated that only these two human capacities can initiate the processes of finding meaning. 5• P-455 | |
How do gamblers behave, in the spiritual dimension, toward their psychophysical conditions such as inner emptiness, boredom, sadness, depression, anger, or stress? And how do they behave, in their spirit, toward the outer world? The research literature makes it clear that they react to adverse psychophysical situations with excessive gambling. In such situations they do not see the possibility of self-distancing. They try to fill their existential vacuum by gambling. Some researchers see loneliness and anger as possible reasons for excessive gambling. Others believe that gamblers try to compensate for a recurring feeling of powerlessness by the sense of power during gambling. Criminal gamblers are "defeated by life." Other studies show that gambling activity increases as work satisfaction decreases. Still others find that excessive gamblers lack the ability to | |
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handle psychophysical conditions such as stress, boredom, emptiness, grief, sadness, or depression. (References available from the author.) | |
A number of studies demonstrate that excessive gamblers react to specific burdensome life situations in ways that reduce their capacity for self-distancing. They respond to peer pressure, disturbed relationships with a partner, death of a parent, divorce, or separation. A "lack of reflection" about the self and outside situations has been found to be a striking characteristic of the gambler. Finally, the specific qualities of the slot machine are mentioned--the seductive possibility of quick wins. | |
Logotheory maintains that excessive gamblers do not use their capacity of self-distancing to find their always-available reminders of freedom. They do not examine upcoming negative feelings or tempting situations that may lead to problems. Frankl repeatedly emphasizes that people may not be responsible for their situations and illnesses, but they are responsible for their attitudes toward them.2• p.eo Thus, the excessive gambler is free to defy fate (defiant power of the spirit). The atrophy of the capacity for self-distancing leads directly to a hardening of the existing condition, blocking further the possibilities of finding meaning. | |
How much are excessive gamblers prepared to self-transcend toward causes or other persons, without falling back onto themselves? Researchers mention a "pseudo sociality" (people play next to each other but not together). Gamblers have personalities not likely to form ties, or if ties exist, they often are exploitive. Active participation in the community and in political affairs are inversely related to frequency of gambling. Their responsibleness to themselves and others is poor. The irresponsibility of gamblers, who have reached the obsessive stage, leads to antisocial behaviors, including criminal activities to obtain gambling money. | |
In sum, the lack of self-transcendent actions are definitely noticeable in excessive gamblers. Feelings of boredom and loneliness are throw-backs onto the self. So is a lack of friendships. If relationships exist, they are mostly grounded in egoistic needs in connection with the gambling. But it is precisely self-transcendence that would make the temporary deferment of self-interest possible. Logotherapy by no means denies the needs of the person but challenges the person to include others, i.e., the fulfillment of meanings and the realization of values.3• P-10 Observation of gambling careers shows, however, that excessive gamblers refuse all responsibleness. Meaning-finding processes, that could be opened through self-transcendent behavior, remain closed by the egocentricity of the excessive gamblers. They miss opportunities for discovering meaning because they do not use the necessary prerequisites--self-distancing and self-transcendence. The insufficient use of these human capacities lead to a life without goals and contents. | |
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Excessive Gamblers Pursue The Will to Pleasure | |
The will to pleasure, as mentioned above, is pursued only when the will to meaning is frustrated.3' P-135 Excessive gamblers speak of the "intoxication of gambling,• which indicates that they see gambling as pleasurable experience. According to logotheory, authentic pleasure is a by-product of meaningful experiences. Excessive gamblers shortcut the way to pleasure by trying to reach it directly. | |
Frankl maintains that hyperintention to find pleasure always is linked with hyperreflection:1• p.,o gamblers focus their full attention on the pleasurable excitement. According to Kellermann, hyperreflection begins in the second phase of excessive gambling (the state of habitual gambling).4' P•112 Gamblers wish to prolong and intensify their pleasurable experiences of the first phase (the positive phase). But the forced pleasure, which according to Frankl loses sight of its causes, vanishes. 1• P• 10 Pleasure no longer is felt in the desired intensity. This is noticeable even during the second phase of habitual gambling. During the third phase (the obsessive phase), the negative experiences of the excessive gambling come sharply into focus and the will to pleasure becomes extreme. All other aspects of life, such as work, family, and friends, pale in significance. Some gamblers add drugs, in hopes that the combination of gambling plus drugs will increase their pleasure. | |
Further Support of the Logotherapeutic Interpretation: A Case History | |
The conclusion of the literature review outlined in the preceding section is that research confirms the presence in excessive gamblers of existential frustration characterized by existential vacuum, lack of goals and life contents, and will to pleasure. The appropriateness of the logotherapeutic interpretation is further confirmed through an in-depth interview with Mr. C., 33, married, father of a daughter. | |
Mr. C's dissatisfaction and doubts intensified just before and during his gambling phase at the slot machine. He was overcome by feelings of inner emptiness and restlessness from negative news about politics and society. | |
Relationships and family posed problems. He held his wife responsible for his gambling habits (she didn't understand him) and for his unwanted role as father (a situation which demanded financially and emotionally from him). He did not find meaning in his work--he often felt overcome by "helpless anger and frustration" when he faced the narrowmindedness of his boss. His leisure time consisted of "boring weekends" (existential vacuum)--he didn't want to become a member of clubs, claiming he had bad experiences and he was disgusted with the dishonesty of people. | |
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He began to gamble out of curiosity. This was a pleasant experience that freed him from worry, at least as long as he had enough money (will to pleasure). After he stole money from his company to finance his gambling habits, he made contact with a gambling-anonymous group. | |
Mr. Chas visited the group for over two years. During this period he has had only a few relapses. He sees facing his problems as a motivation for quitting his gambling (self-distancing)--this allows him to self-transcend. As for life goals, he mentions repayment of debts, solving family problems, and travelling--although he sometimes has doubts whether he can ever reach these goals. | |
Addiction or Neurosis? | |
After documenting the appropriateness of the logotherapeutic assessment, the question remains whether logotherapy considers excessive gambling an addiction or a neurosis. Frankl sees existential frustration as neurosis only in the widest sense because doubting of life's meaning is a universal human reaction.3' P·101 However, he sees a possible pathogenic consequence of existential frustration--if the frustration is joined by physical and psychological difficulties, a noogenic neurosis can develop.3' P·1481 Research has shown, however, that meaninglessness | |
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is a normal by-product of addiction anyway. ' P· Therefore, logotherapy should be applicable for the addiction model as well as the neurosis model, until sufficient practical experiences give guidance about the best therapy for frustrated excessive gamblers.7' P·112 | |
TANJA RUTKOWSKI [lm-Steeler-Rott 16, 45276 Essen, Germany] is Dip/. Padagogin at the Arbeiterwohlfahrt is Essen, Germany. The article is based on her doctoral dissertation, "Das exzessive Spielen an Geldautomaten mit Gewinnmoglichkeiten. Ein Versuch einer /ogotherapeutischen Interpretation.• (Excessive Gambling on Slot Machines with Chances to Win: Attempt of a Logotherapeutic Interpretation. | |
References | |
1. Frankl, V. E. (1984). Der leidende Mensch. (The suffering person). BernStuttgart-Toronto: Hans Huber Verlag. | |
2. | |
Frankl, V. E. (1987). Das Leiden am sinnlosen Leben. (Suffering in life without meaning). Freiburg: Herder Verlag. | |
3. | |
Frankl, V. E. (1987). Theorie und Therapie der neurosen. (Theory and therapy of neuroses). M0nchen: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag. | |
4. | |
Kellermann, B. (1987). Pathologisches GI0cksspielen und Suchtkrankheit aus psychiatrisch--therapeutischer Sicht. (Pathological gambling and addiction-Seen from the psychiatric-therapeutic view). Suchtgefahren, 33, 110-120. | |
5. | |
Lukas, E. (1984). Auf der Suche nach Sinn, Logotherapy. (In search for meaning, logotherapy). In I. H. Petzold, (Ed.), Wege zum Menschen. Paderborn: Jungferrnann Verlag. | |
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6. | |
Lukas, E. (1986). Von der Trotzmacht des Geistes. (The defiant power of the human spirit). Freiburg: Herder Verlag. | |
7. | |
Lukas, E. (1991). Auch dein Leben hat Sinn. (Your life, too, has meaning). Freiburg: Herder Verlag. | |
8. | |
Meyer, G. (1984). Spielautomaten mit Gewinnmog/ichkeiten-Objekte pathologischen G/Dcksspiels. (Gambling machines with winning chancesObjects of pathological games of chance). Bochum: Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer. | |
9. Meyer, G. (1988). Die Beurteilung der Schuldfahigkeit bei Abhangigkeit vom Glucksspiel. (The question of guilt in addictive games of chance). Monatschrift fur Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform, 71, 213-227. | |
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The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 103-104. | |
A TESTIMONY | |
Charles W. Burton | |
I was recently struck by the fact that Viktor Frankl's logotherapy has had a profound impact upon my life, especially during the past few years. I was introduced to logotherapy long ago by a friend who recommended Frankl's famous book, Man's Search for Meaning. Since then, I have recommended this book to many individuals. This same friend attended several Frankl lectures in the United States, and I still have some | |
of his hand-written notes he shared with me more than 15 years ago. From this initiation, I began to read other books by Frankl, and I even wrote a letter to Dr. Frankl in Austria. | |
Years went by until 1989, when I decided to complete my doctoral dissertation. My new advisor thought that Frankl's logotheory would be a good topic to research for educational implications. I was elated. I immediately dusted off my Frankl books, and I joined a wonderful group of individuals studying logotherapy. | |
In 1990, two devastating events occurred that deeply affected me. First, my corporation reduced its work force by 5000 employees, and it was my job to counsel with many of these workers and friends. Second, my family was affected by a traumatic event almost at the same time. However, my knowledge of logotherapy was a buttress to the emotional fallout of these events. Then in midJanuary, 1991, an additional 5000 employees were laid-off, and I found myself among them. Again the knowledge of logotherapy sustained me. Again, in November, 1991, another traumatic event struck my family, but Frankl's philosophy along with my personal religious faith helped me survive. | |
I discovered for myself the validity of certain tenets of logotheory. I assisted laid-off employees and myself to find meaning in our lives in spite of a devastating circumstance.1 With regard to the upheaval in my family, I could not change what had occurred, but I did change my attitude toward the events. When I did that, almost immediately I began to see the positive opportunities in the events where previously I could see only the negative aspects. | |
Through all of the trouble, I continued to work on my research project; it was very therapeutic for me. I am still suffering, but I have not succumbed to the suffering; rather, I have found meaning in the suffering which, in turn, has helped me survive. I have found that life is flooded with meaning all the time, and that it is our task to discover the meanings that have significance for our lives. | |
Since being laid-off, I have returned to the field of education as a public school counselor. I thoroughly enjoy what I do now--more than what I did for the prior 13 years in the aerospace industry. I use logotherapy daily with my students. I have designed a workshop based on the principles of logotheory for teachers, administrators, and other staff members who work in an educational environment. These activities have demonstrated to me the tenet of logotheory that states that existence is authentic only to the extent to which it points to something that is not itself.2 | |
CHARLES W. BURTON [16060 Meadow Oak Dr., Chesterfield, Missouri 63017 USA] is a high school counselor and a multicultural educator in the St. Louis area. He is a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. | |
References | |
1. Frankl, V. E. (1955). The concept of man in psychotherapy. Pastoral Psychology, 7, 16-26. | |
2. Frankl, V. E. (1967). Psychotherapy and existentialism: Selected papers on logotherapy. NY: Washington Square Press. | |
The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 105-108. | |
LOGOTHERAPY--MISSION FOR THE FUTURE | |
Ingeborg Van Pelt | |
The 1992 Fall Conference of the MidAmerica Institute of Logotherapy was a stimulating and thought-provoking event. It touched on such important issues as the definition of logotherapy and logophilosophy. Does the name effect spreading this unique therapeutic approach? Does logotherapy reach into the realm of religion, and does this foster concern among psychotherapists? What separates logotherapy from traditional psychotherapy, and what do the two have in common? | |
Logotherapy-the Term | |
Many logotherapists are aware that the term logotherapy is awkward in the United States because the word "logo" is not part of our common vocabulary. Scholars are familiar with the origin of the word "logos" and its frequent use in many scientific terms. According to the dictionary logos means "word," "reason," and it stands also for "meaning." We know of its combination with other words to mean a description of concepts: anthropo -logy, theo -logy, psycho -logy. Might we call the philosophy of meaning logo -logy? | |
Would it be more helpful to go back to "existential analysis,"--Frankl's original term? Would it be more helpful to focus on the healthy core with a name like health-psychology? | |
Logotherapy vs. Logophilosophy | |
During the conference the question arose, when to use the term "logotherapy," and when to use "logophilosophy." If one needs to convey the concept of meaning and its importance in life, one might want to refer to "logophilosophy'' or "logology'' in the same vein as one refers to psychology. If the emphasis is on healing (therapy), the term logotherapy seems appropriate. This term, however, does not give credit to the emphasis on the positive, the uniqueness of the human being, the defiant power of the human spirit, the ability to distance oneself from bodily | |
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or psychological symptoms, or the freedom of the will. What other word would clarify this special healing technique--therapy through empowerment? | |
Logotherapy and Psychotherapy Approach Religious Faith Differently | |
Recently a student questioned two psychotherapists about how they handled religious concerns of clients. Both answered that they would listen and not dodge the Inquiries. However, many therapists do tend to avoid getting involved in religious thoughts or struggles. They feel ill equipped or see it as inappropriate to deal with religious quests or meaning issues; it does not fit into their therapeutic model. The emphasis is on pathology and its repair, on regaining an equilibrium. Expressed desires for a religious faith or a search for meaning might even be interpreted as denial of the real problems--the latter is traditionally the target of the therapist. | |
The logotherapist addresses primarily the client's healthy human spirit. Frankl calls it the third vertical dimension of the human model; body and psyche are the two horizontal ones. By awakening this human spirit, also called the noetic center, one opens up the road toward meaning and fulfillment in life. For the logotherapist it will be irrelevant whether the client's search for meaning will lead to the discovery or rediscovery of religious faith--the emphasis is on meaningful living from moment to moment. Meaning and certainly higher meaning, however, contains a "faith" factor. | |
It follows that, in contrast to traditional psychology, logotherapy does not have to shy away from dealing with religious faith. | |
Logotherapy and Psychotherapy: Similarities and Differences | |
Logotherapy and psychotherapy share the common denominator of healing. Both schools have concern for the psyche, and deal with patients who suffer from anxiety, fears, guilt, shame, and depression. They differ, however, in their approach toward healing. While the traditional therapist focuses on pathological functioning, the logotherapist addresses the intact quality of the human spirit, the healthy core. While the psychotherapist emphasizes repair, the logotherapist aims at growth and fulfillment. One could use various metaphors to highlight those differences: the traditionalists accompany their clients in riding the psychic storms; logotherapists guard the little flame of their patients against the storm, saving it from being extinguished. They fuel the flame when necessary. They guide their patients to their flame, and encourage them to trust it while calming the winds to give this light a chance. Of course, traditional therapists also know about the human capacity for strength, otherwise they would be unable to hope for any therapeutic success. What is different, however, is that healing becomes a by-product when the recognition of pathology is the focus. | |
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In logotherapy the healthy core is the target; its empowerment fosters healing of impaired bodily and of psychological function. Once the defiant power of the human spirit is recognized, the patient gains self-confidence and hope. The client of the traditionalist often feels overwhelmed, discouraged, and worthless because of the unearthed pathology. This explains the lengthy dependency on the therapist, since client and therapist are waiting for gradual repair. | |
The Mission of Logotherapy | |
Our society today shows a continuous increase of people suffering from depression, anxiety, and fear. Statistics claim that one out of five in the United States is in need of therapy. This means that human beings no longer are able to rely on their own strength. They appear to be without roots and incapable of communal responsibilities. | |
Much has to be blamed on modern theories that ignore the healthy human spirit, and do not dare to embrace higher meaning and "religious• aspects. This attitude is fueled by modern fascination with "science• which excludes meanings, faith, responsibility, or values. But there is a general yearning for revitalization of these uniquely human aspects. So, logotherapy has an opportunity to become the mental health focus of the future. If logotherapists want to reverse the trend of scientific certainty and of human uncertainty and insecurity, logotherapists can engage in a dialogue with therapists and religious groups. This may mean adjusting terminology in order not to be misunderstood. Therapists also talk about strength, empowerment, connection and outreach, loving relationships and family bonds. it should not be difficult to convince the general public, even therapists, that it is important to acknowledge a healthy core within the human model. One might call it the motor, the human spirit, the center of awareness or insight; what matters is that there is a stronghold to weather the storm. We all know that we are powerless to stop hurricanes but what we can do is fortify our houses. | |
Once one has agreed on a healthy human aspect, one might be able to reintroduce the well-known terms of growth and development into adult psychotherapy. In logotherapeutic terms, "becoming• derives from the human spirit and encompasses meaning. If logotherapists want to build bridges with a wider span of religious denominations, they need to acknowledge that meaning and ultimate meaning is based on unprovable assumptions. Logotherapy bridges the gap between psychology and religion. Outreach to others, transcendence, is known as loving your neighbor. Higher meaning is known as God's Will, a Higher Power. Logotherapy even acknowledges the redeeming factor of forgiveness. | |
If we are asked about our vision for the future we might reply that meaningphilosophy and core-therapy (healing through the core) will rehumanize psychotherapy and open new horizons toward a better, more tolerant and responsible wor1d. | |
INGEBORG VAN PELT, M.D. [Box 2246, Amherst College, P. 0. Box 5000, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002-5000 USA] is director of Health Se,vices, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. | |
Hesponsibility Freedom of Choice Lovc,:Relat1onship | |
Attitude Creativity | |
ROOTS | |
Guilt | |
Psychosis | |
Depression | |
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The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1993, 16, 109-112. | |
SATIR AND FRANKL: MESSENGERS OF HOPE | |
Robert Leslie | |
Family therapist Virginia Satir, a psychiatric social worker, and Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist, share many things in common. This article reviews five elements that appear in the writings of both. | |
Common Sense Approach | |
One characteristic shared by Virginia Satir and Viktor Frankl is a down-toearth, common-sense approach to life. In sharp contrast to much psychological writing, both write in an interpersonal and growth-oriented context rather than in an intra-psychic and pathologized one. | |
Satir agrees with Karen Horney, that "Life itself remains a very effective therapist... to bring about personality change. It may be the inspiring example of a truly great person; it may be a common tragedy which by bringing the neurotic in close touch with others takes him out of his egocentric isolation; it may be association with persons so congenial that manipulating or avoiding them appears less necessary. "4• P· 240 | |
In a similar way, Frankl sees growth toward health as coming out of common life experiences. He believes with Satir that there is a life-urge that moves toward health, that life itself seeks wholeness. Along with Satir, he puts the focus not on problems, but on the defiant power of the human spirit to overcome problems. | |
Like Satir, he uses categories of everyday life. We find meaning in creating something, in experiencing someone, and in choosing to take a positive attitude toward circumstances. | |
Both Satir and Frankl recognize problems in interpersonal relationships, but they do not stress them. Instead, they stress how persons can cope with the problems. | |
Optimistic Stance A second characteristic shared by Satir and Frankl is that they are optimistic. Satir wrote, "I mean this to be the most important message in this book | |
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[Peoplemaking]: there is always hope that your life can change because you can always learn new things.6• P-27 | |
Satir is a very nurturing person. She makes It clear that she does not attach blame to any person or any pattern, but rather she assists and encourages growth. She throws the weight of her influence on the side of change and growth. | |
Satir begins any series of family sessions by developing a detailed, family-life chronology. She explains her approach: "Our task is to work out ways in which everyone can get more pleasure out of family life. Because I am sure that at one time this family had better times."1' P-121-126 The implication of these words is that having once had good times, they can have them again. Hope is strengthened. | |
Frankl also stimulates hope as a nurturing person. In a seminar held at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, his first action was one of edging his chair closer to the patient and inviting her to come closer to him. Although the room was filled with spectators, his attention was glued to his patient. | |
In another setting, at the amphitheater of the Polyklinik in Vienna, he singled out one of the students, a young woman from an American University on her junior year in Vienna. He said to her: "You are a therapeutic person." She was somewhat embarrassed at being singled out, but when he had spoken these words we could see what he meant, for she was, indeed, a therapeutic person. There was a directness and a human warmth about her which created an atmosphere that lowered defenses and encouraged growth. | |
Making Choices | |
Central in the work of both Satir and Frankl is a third item--making choices. Regarding choices, Satir writes: "I am not trying to solve a specific problem. I am | |
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working to help people find a different kind of coping process. ' P-And again: "We also know that we don't act on everything we feel. We can choose. Our intelligence directs our actions. We accept all of ourselves as humans. "7' P-22 | |
For Frankl, making choices lies at the heart of the system. With the woman at Pacific School of Religion--a woman who weighed over 300 pounds due to an incurable glandular problem--he talked directly about what choices she could make. He told her that she was not responsible for being overweight--her body did this to her--but she was responsible for what she did as a person condemned by her body to be overweight. A year later, she said to Frankl that following her talk with him, she took the first constructive step on her own behalf that she had taken in several years. 2' p.26-27 She had heeded his counsel and had made her choice. | |
Spiritual Emphasis | |
A fourth item that characterizes both Satir and Frankl is an emphasis on the spiritual. Satir writes: "I think most of us know that all human beings have a | |
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spiritual side, a side involved with their souls. "8' P-250 She goes on to speak of "a recognition of a universal life force referred to by many as God.• She elaborates this idea: "The creation of life comes from a power much greater than our own. The challenge of becoming more fully human Is to be open to ask to contact that power we call by many names--God being one frequently used. I believe successful living depends on our making and accepting a relationship to our life force. "8' p. 336 | |
Baldwin comments on Satir's concept of the life force: "For years, the 'science' of psychotherapy disregarded the soul, which it considered to be the realm of organized religion. This ignored the fact that when people forget their spiritual dimension, they feel lost because they have no connection with the life force or | |
the universal mind . .a. p. ,eo | |
Frankl does not hesitate to use the word "spiritual" although he uses it with a distinction that is difficult to carry over into English from the German. The German language has two words both translated as "spiritual.· They are "geistlich" which | |
has a religious connotation, and "geistig" which has no necessary religious connotation. | |
It is the broader definition which Frankl generally uses, but one of his ablest critics, Irvin Yalom, sees Frankl as being basically religious.9 Frankl's break with his teacher, Alfred Adler, came when Frankl told Adler that he (Adler) made adequate place for the body and the mind, but left no place for the spirit. | |
Frankl writes: "To this logotherapy would be assigned the task we have described as 'psychotherapy in spiritual terms.'"3' P-17 He goes on to say: "Man lives in three dimensions: the somatic, the mental, and the spiritual. The spiritual dimension cannot be ignored, for It is what makes us human_.a. p.x | |
Elisabeth Lukas describes how Frankl introduced the spiritual: "Frankl reintroduced the spiritual dimension of man into psychology and with it a fundamental revision of the concept of man. Man's spirit does not strive after lust, it needs meaning. Spirit does not seek satisfaction of needs but rather meaningful tasks and aims in life. •5• p.e | |
Socratic Dialogue | |
A fifth emphasis of both Satir and Frankl is the Socratic Dialogue. The Socratic Dialogue is an approach to values, meanings, and judgments introduced by questions. James Yoder describes this method: "Socratic dialogue aims at heightening self-awareness. It is intended to deepen the look within. It helps clients verify their most defining attribute--'freedom.' Socratic dialogue contains questions about information such as, 'What did you do?' It also contains questions about feelings. The question Is, 'What did you feel?' rather than, 'How did you feel?' Socratic dialogue also contains questions concerning meanings, values, and judgments such as 'What does the present situation demand?' 'How can you respond to It?' 'Where does the .§.!]Qy!g of your response come from?'"10• P-130 | |
Satir uses the Socratic dialogue to help family-therapy clients realize what they do to each other, explore how they feel about what they do to each other, and make them realize what the situation demands. | |
Fabry discusses how Frankl uses the Socratic dialogue: "[Socrates) believed the task of a teacher was not to pour information into students but to draw out their inner wisdom. Similarly Frankl sees the task of the logotherapist not to 'give' meaning to those who seek help but to help them find their own. The principle method to accomplish this is the 'self-discovery dialogue' also called the 'Socratic dialogue. '"10• p.e | |
Both Are Messengers of Hope | |
Satir and Frankl both are "Messengers of Hope.• It may well be that the real key to therapeutic progress comes only after hope has been called forth. For Virginia Satir and Viktor Frankl, hope is the outgrowth of a Common-Sense approach, an Optimistic Stance, Making Choices, Emphasizing the Spiritual, and using Socratic Dialogue. | |
ROBERT C. LESLIE, PH.D. [646 Santa Rosa Ave.,Berkeley, California 94707 USA) | |
is Emeritus Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Counseling at the Pacific School of Religion, and Curator of the Frankl Library and Memorabilia, Graduate Theological Union. | |
References | |
1. | |
Clinebell, H. (1966). Basic types of pastoral counseling. Nashville: Abingdon Press. | |
2. | |
Fabry, J. B. (1980). The pursuit of meaning. NY: Harper & Row. | |
3. | |
Frankl, V. E. (1973). The doctor and the soul. NY: Vintage Books. | |
4. | |
Horney, K. (1972). Our inner conflicts. NY: Norton. | |
5. | |
Lukas, E. (1985, 1988). Psychological Ministry, Typescript translated from Psycholgische seelsorge. Freiburg: Verlag Herder. | |
6. | |
Satir, V. (1972). Peoplemaking. Palo Alto: Science & Behavior Books. | |
7. | |
Satir, V. (1988). The new peoplemaking. Mountain View: Science & Behavior Books. | |
8. | |
Satir, V. & Baldwin, M. (1983). Satir step by step. Palo Alto: Science & Behavior Books. | |
9. | |
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. NY: Basic Books. | |
10. Yoder, J. (1989). Meaning in therapy: A logotherapeutic casebook. Columbus, GA: Quill Publications. | |
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ISSN 0190-3379 IFODL 16(2)65-128(1993) | |
The International Porum | |
for LOGOTHERAPY | |
Journal of search for Meaning | |
Treatment Modalities In Logotherapy Jim Lantz 65 | |
Introducing Clients to Intergenerational Resources Paul R. Welter 74 | |
Tools for the Logotherapist: A Twelve-Step Spiritual Inventory Howard P. Brown, Jr. n | |
Logophilosophy: Compass for An Embattled Education Bernard A. Dansart 89 | |
Excessive Gambling--Masking A Frustrated Will to Meaning? Tanja Rutkowski 97 | |
A Testimony Char1es W. Burton 103 | |
Logotherapy-Mlssion For The Future Ingeborg Van Pelt 105 | |
Satlr and Frankl: Messengers of Hope Robert Leslie 109 | |
World Congress IX, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Margaret Davis-Finck 113 | |
Presentations at World Congress of Logotherapy IX 117 | |
Book Review 121 | |
Recent Publications of Interest To Logotherapists 123 | |