diff --git "a/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_002_2.txt" "b/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_002_2.txt" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_002_2.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,1605 @@ +Volume 2 • Number 2 Summer-Fall 1979 +CONTENTS +Letter from the Editor .............................................................2 +The "Ideal" Logotherapist Elisabeth Lukas ............................................................3 The Noetic Unconscious Joseph Fabry ...............................................................8 Logotherapy in Medical Practice George R. Simms .......................................................... 12 +Finding Meaning Every Day John M. Quirk ............................................................ 15 +Group Applications: In Intergenerational Communication Mignon Eisenberg .........................................................23 In Prisons Didi Sibaja-Makai .........................................................25 For Dyslexic Adolescents Vera Lieban-Kalmar .......................................................28 +Applications in Pastoral Psychology Melvin A. Kimble .......................................................... 31 +Paradoxical Intention and Autogenic Training Tullio Bazzi ...............................................................35 +Case Histories: +Endogenous Depression ........................................................38 Noogenic Neurosis .............................................................39 Comments by Viktor E. Frankl ..............................................40 +Paradoxical Intention and Dereflection Jay I. Levinson ............................................................40 +The Balance Sheet of Meaning in Work Walter Bockmann .........................................................42 +The Place of Logotherapy +in the World Today +Edith Weisskopf-Joelson +Human beings have always attempted to interpret their existence in a way that would bestow significance and fulfillment to their lives.* Their endeavors to develop their own philosophy of life can be viewed as an attempt toward self-healing. Yet, many health professionals disregard the healing effect of a life philosophy. While ministers take it for granted that "psychotherapy" is a philosophical and spiritual enterprise, many secular "healers" -psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and others -are affected by the mechanistic orientation of behaviorism and the biological orientation of psychoanalysis. They tend to view the patient as a person with a broken leg to be fixed, rarely as someone with good legs who does not know in what direction to walk. Patients today often confront the psychotherapist with the burning question "What is the meaning of my life?" but many therapists are not prepared or not willing to deal with this question. +The failure to conceive psychotherapy as a philosophical enterprise goes back to our schools. Rarely do we ask our graduate students in clinical psychology about their own views of human existence, about their own value systems; we pretend these variables are not pertinent to the process of psychotherapy. Clients are being referred to psychotherapists in the same manner in which patients are referred to surgeons: their basic views of what it means to be human are not considered. +Perhaps psychotherapy is seen as a scientific and technological rather than a philosophical enterprise because more prestige is accorded to science and technology than to philosophy. But if we remove the blinders +* The following comments are largely based on num bcrs 8 to 11 in the references. +imposed upon us by the spirit of our times, we shall see that the award of prestige is misplaced. For science. in the absence of a via?le philosophy, has opened doors to the pollut10~ of the environment, as well as to the possibilities of limited energy and unlimited nuclear war. +The Psychotherapist of the Future +The therapists of the future will be persons with a philosophy that enables them to grow, to create, and-in Erich Fromm's phrase-to "relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work "1r.41,11. 7 +Let us imagine that in the future much will be known about the kind of life philosophy that is congenial to each person. The psychotherapist, using her superior research training, will then be able to decide to whom she can be of help with her own world view, and whom she should refer to another therapist. +Perhaps such future research will disclose as a fallacy the assumption that different people need different faiths, different philosophies, to attain fulfillment. All great religions resemble each other in their basic tenets. The consistency of basic values is camouflaged by diversity of symbols, metaphors, rituals, and myths. Perhaps there is one faith for all human beings, and perhaps it need not be expressed in religious terminology. +Frankl represents a link between my fantasy and reality. He attempts to give guidance on the road toward fulfillment by offering a philosophy of life which has helped him withstand the most cruel reality a person can encounter. He is offering this philosophy to those who want to accept it. Frankl is a prophet disguised as a psychiatrist who disseminates his message in the language of psychology. He is a pioneer introducing faith into +3 +the thinking of secular therapists -as a respectable psychotherapeutic tool for the sick and an avenue toward a significant life for the sick and the well. +I have called Frankl a prophet disguised as a psychiatrist. Thus, it is now my task to show that logotherapy is a philosophy of life disguised as a psychotherapeutic school. t I shall do so by discussing logotherapy's tenets on meaning, values, and the passage of time. +Meaning +Among existing philosophies of life logo +therapy shows the closest kinship to Judco +Christian religious philosophies. Our faith in +such philosophies has declined since the +Middle Ages: to paraphrase Nietzsche, God +has been dying a slow death for several +centuries. +Logotherapy has resurrected some aspects +of God under a different name, under the +name of "meaning." Everyone's life possesses +meaning. We cannot arbitrarily assign +meaning to our lives; instead, such meaning is +already present. We cannot invent it; instead, +we have to discover it. Then it will tell us what +to do with our lives, just as God told us "when +he was still alive." +Out ofall the meaning potentials we have to +select the one which we decide to make a +reality. Because we are human we may err but +"the possibility of error does not release us +from the obligation of trying ",r 651. 3 +Just as Judaism and Christianity grant +atonement to the sinner who repents his sinful +life, so can "even a wasted life be flooded with +meaning 'retroactively' when its meaningless +ness has been recognized, and by the +meaningful suffering which results from such +recognition" (personal communication). +Thus logotherapy, like Judaism and Christi +anity, mitigates the enormous threat to +mental health of world views which postulate +guilt without the possibility of atonement. +I .ogotherapy is not only compatible with +religious faith but for some people might be +the first step toward adopting such faith. The ++Editor's Note: The work at the Institute of Logothcrapy and the articles submitted to the Forum confirm the author's statement that "logothcrapy is a philosophy disguised as therapy." but they also show that it is a true therapy based on a specific "logophilosophy. "One might say, current research proves that logotherapy is a therapy. with its own methodology. disguised as philosophy. +emphasis on meaning puts the world view of logotherapy in sharp contrast to those of other existentialists. Camus, for example, feels we can live without meaning, just as others feel we can live without God. +The possibility should not be excluded that also a world view which accepts meaninglessness may have a therapeutic effect for some people; that, as Camus says, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy'lr 911 1 -Sisyphus who believes that his life will be meaningless forever. But Camus, the man who accepts meaninglessness, was active in the French underground, and wrote novels like The PlaKue where dedicated people give their lives to the fight against disease. One could almost say that the nihilist Camus lived as ifhe were a follower of Frankl. +Values +Most philosophies propose a set of values to make life worthy and desirable. In this respect, too, logotherapy betrays its kinship to other philosophies. +Logotherapy distinguishes between meaning and values. Meaning is unique: Each individual must discover the meaning of his or her own life, a meaning which will not be identical with the meaning of a neighbor's life. In contrast, values are shared by a group of people. The Ten Commandments convey values rather than meanings. Values are "universal meanings" which help the individual to respond meaningfully in common situations. But logotherapy insists that we have the "defiant power of the human spirit" which allows every individual many ways of materializing common values in a manner fitting to his or her own personality within a particular situation. +Frankl's proposition that we can materialize values through achievements is widely accepted in our culture. His notion that experiencing can be as valuable as achieving is therapeutic because it compensates for our onesided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience. To elevate experiences such as love. joy, sadness. admiration of nature and art, to the position of a positive value is highly beneficial in achievementoriented societies which have eliminated the inner world from their awareness. +By far the most healing value proposed by +4 +logotherapy is the value of shouldering inescapable suffering courageously. In a country like the lJ nitcd States, where "keep smiling" is almost a moral obligation, a positive view of suffering endows the human individual with enormous strength in a world of tragedy and death. +Time +Logotherapy considers time as a friend although it brings us closer to the horror of death. Many philosophies help us come to terms with our finitudc. Religions may do so by creating faith in immortality. Again, Frankl's images are secular analogies to religious ones. He paints the image of a museum of the past where everything will remain forever, and from which nothing can he stolen since nothing we have done in the past can he undone ,r Ml. 4 +Any philosophy which keeps in mind the transitoriness of existence need not be at all pessimistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles the man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who takes life in the sense suggested above is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors ---after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness ~et down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the full. All that is good and beautiful in the past is safely preserved in the past. On the other hand, so long as life remains, all guilt and all evil is still "redeemable." The past-happily-is fixed, is safe, whereas the future-happily --still remains to be shaped; that is, is at the disposal of man's responsibility1rr 11-1s1 . 4 +Secular "Evangelism" +Thus far I have attempted to show that logotherapy is a school of therapy not in the usual sense but a religion-like philosophy which, however, may help all people, regardless of their religious or secular orientation, to retain or regain their mental health. I have based my argument on the body of Frankl's teachings. Now I wish to advance a further argument which pertains to the manner in which these teachings are presented rather than to their content. +If a young person wishes to become, for example, a psychoanalyst, his training will include the reading of textbooks teaching the basic principles and techniques of psychoanalysis. These books are meant to be read by the professional. A neurotic will not be healed or improved by reading them. Even popular books on psychoanalysis will not heal. This distinguishes psychoanalytic textbooks from those of logotherapy. +Logothcrapy is a message for the sick and the healthy; it is "preaching" in the best sense of the word. Therefore, most of Frankl's books are "bibliography." They do not teach techniques! to be used by the logothcrapist, but they present the logothera peutic message. They arc not textbooks for future logotherapists, but more akin to secular bibles. The patient and the "healthy" reader can extract the message directly from Frankl's and other books on logothcrapy. Published fragments of logothcrapeutic sesions2 suggest a close resemblance between what Frankl says to his patients and what he says to his professional students or what he writes in his books: The same message is disseminated in each +case. +This method of teaching highlights further +the "evangelistic" nature of logotherapy. +What Accounts for the Success +of Logotherapy? +The ideas of logothcrapy are successful because they meet the needs of our time. In a science-oriented era when people find it difficult to accept the metaphysical tenets of religious teachings, a religion-like philosophy without emphatic metaphysics is welcome to many. At a time when purpose, meaning, and values are downgraded, people thirst for a world view which fills their existential vacuum. Other psychotherapeutic schools are hardly able to do so. Rogers' school is nondirective, and behavior modification is an engineering technique; nor does "psycho +t With the exception of paradoxical intention and dcreflection. But even these t,chniques can be used by lay readers -;,olely on the basis of information gained by reading -to counteract their own symptoms. +5 +analysis reveal what is worth struggling for, or how much"1p 501.12 +By its emphasis on what human beings have in common with animals, psychoanalysis has overlooked what they have not in common: the need for a philosophy of life. Likewise, the focus of psychoanalysis on the family drama has obscured the effect of a life philosophy on our psychological health. A well-knownn psychoanalyst expressed to me the view that student rebellions are caused by the young people's desire for a strong father. But, in an era such as ours, would it not seem more plausible that students rebel because their lives lack purpose and meaning? +A philosophy which views values and convictions as epiphenomena of the Oedipus complex is prone to create an existential vacuum rather than to fill it. It almost seems that the Viennese writer Karl Kraus was right when he said: Psychoanalysis is the disease which it pretends to cure. +Logotherapy was born during a crisis in religious faith, and during a failure of"scientific" approaches to human fulfillment. It was also born into a Germany darkened by deep disillusionment caused by the breakdown of its one overpowering world view~National Socialism. It arose at a time when it was needed. Therefore, it was successful. As Johannes Baptista Torello says in his foreward to the Italian edition of Mans Search for Meaning: "Frankl is the therapist for the sufferings of our century." +Hope for the Future: A Criticism +At this point I should like to express a +critical thought and a hope for the future. +My psychotherapeutic work has convinced +me that individual neuroses are to a large +extent collective neuroses. Similarly, obser +vation of my own life and the lives of my +friends suggests that personal discontent may +be based on shortcomings of society. In a +drastic overstatement used for didactic +reasons I might say that the time for indivi +dual therapy has ended; now it is time for +societal therapy. Collective neuroses require +collective therapy. Here Frankl has done +more than his share by his group therapy dis +guised as lectures and books. +However, Frankl's concept of "meaning" stresses individual rather than collective action: the meaning of every individual life is seen as unique, differing from person to person. This concept is also emphasized subtly by the many examples which Frankl gives of the concrete meaning of individual lives. "Aren't there unborn pieces of art, Anna, waiting to be brought into the world by you? Only you can do it!" Or, "Isn't there a book to be written?" "A retarded son to be raised?" "A beloved relative to be comforted?''** But rarely: "Isn't there pollution to be conquered?" "Woman's rights to be defended?" or "Capital punishment to be abolished?" And, above all, "Isn't there a common, united battle to be fought to insure that there will not be a second Auschwitz?"tt +ls all we have learned from Hitler's horror that we must shoulder suffering courageously? We have learned more. But if we conclude that all united action, all mass movements must be avoided, we have learned the wrong lesson. It must never happen again that the intellectuals permit evil to overpower them because of their quest for a unique meaning rather than a common one. We must pour our personal meanings into a shared vision of a better future. +I can hear Frankl replying that logotherapy does not impose specific meanings on individuals but makes them aware of their yearning for meaning, invoking every person's own conscience to guide the search for meaning of his or her life. But I still maintain that the illustrations used, the atmosphere created, subtly suggest to the conscience that it will find the answer in private rather than in united causes. To my knowledge, logotherapy, with all its emphasis on goal, purpose, and dedication, has not inspired socially significant action. It must become socially significant. It is eminently qualified to be so. +** Needless to say, do not mean to belittle these individual meanings. ++t Editor's Note: J\s early as 1975 Frankl wrote Ir 1401 5 that "as to mankind, there is hope for survival only if mankind is united by a common meaning -in other words, an awareness of a common task." And in his Salzburg University Lectures6 he had the additional remark that "development of a common will to a common meaning is the only warrant that mankind will be spared seeing another Auschwitz." +6 +There is a time to be silent. and a time to speak. This is the time to speak. It is my ardent wish that Viktor Frankl's work will lead him to a new upsurge of creativity in a socially significant direction as a crown on his eminently meaningful life. +EDITH WEISSKOPF-JOELSON, Ph.D., is professor of psvchology emerita, University of Georgia. +REFERENCES: +I. Camus, Albert. The Mrth of' Sisrphus and Other Essars. New York. Vintage Books, 1955. +2. +Frankl. Viktor E. "Fragments from the Logotherapeutic Treatment of Four Cases." Modern pq-cfwtherapeutic Practice, Arthur Burton, ed. Palo Alto. California, Science and Behavior Books, 1965. + +3. +_____ . The Will /0 Meaning: Foundations and Applications ol Logotherap_i-. Paperback edition. New York. New American Library. 1976. + + +4. ____ . The Doctor and the Soul: From Psrchotherapr to Logotherapr. Paperback edition, New York, Vintage Books, 1978. +5. +______ . The Unconscious God: Psrchotherap_l' and Theologr. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1978. + +6. +_______ "Die Sinnfrage in dcr Thcrapie" in Suche nach Gott. Ansgar Paus and Oscar Schatz, ed. Gra1, Styria, 1978. + + +7. +Fromm, Erich. The San Societr. Greenwich. Connecticut, Fawcett Publications, 1955. + +8. +Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Some Suggestions Concerning Weltanschauung and Psychotherapy." Journal of"Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr, 4S: 601-04, 1953_ + +9. +______ . "Some Comments on a Viennese School of Psychiatry," Journal of' Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr 5!: 701-03, 1955. + + +IO.-~--_____ . "Logotherapy and Existential Analysis," A eta Psrclwtherapeutica. Psrchwomatica. and Orthopaedagogirn 6: 193-204. +11. +______ . "Some Suggestions Concerning the Concept of Awareness," Psrchotherap_1·. Theorr Research and Practice S, 2-7, 1971. + +12. +Wheelis, Allen. The Quest fi,r !dentitr. New York, Norton. I 958. + + +Kinship with Adlerian Psychology +Mrs. Ansbacher and I met Dr. Frankl twenty-two years ago at a week-end seminar of his at Endicott House near Boston, sponsored by the Religion in Education Foundation with J. Randolph Sasnett as executive director. We had the good fortune to be invited, Professor Gordon Allport having suggested our names. +This week-end seminar became for us an unforgettable occasion as we listened to Dr. Frankl describe his concentration camp experiences and the ways in which it was at all possible to cope with these conditions. I also had then a long personal discussion with him. Subsequently we followed his writings and have been corresponding with him for years. +We have always regretted that Alfred Adler severed his relations with the young Frankl since we have considered the similarities between the two and their complementarity more important than their differences. Of Dr. Frankl's contributions to methodology we have found the term "paradoxical intention" most apt and used it recently in our book of the writings by Adler on sexual matters, entitled Cooperation Between the Sexes, p. +410. As to the whole conception of logotherapy, it seems to me that the importance of meaning for mental health in general and psychotherapy in particular is being more and more recognized by various quarters although this is not specifically attributed to Dr. Frankl. Also the various personality tests inspired by his theories have made a definite contribution to psychology. +As evidence of our kinship with Dr. Frankl we may mention that during the seventeen years from 1957 to 1973 in which we edited the Journal uf Individual Psychology, published by the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, wc were always glad to accept a contribution by Dr. Frankl, or papers by others dealing with his work. We also considered it one of our important obligations to publish reviews of his books. In view of this we are very pleased that the work which Dr. Frankl initiated has now found a medium of its own in The International Forumfur Lugutherapy, and this writer feels very honored for having been asked to join its editorial Board of Advisors. +H.L. ANSBACHER, professor of psychology, The University of Vermont, Burlington. +7 +There is a time to be silent. and a time to speak. This is the time to speak. It is my ardent wish that Viktor Frankl's work will lead him to a new upsurge of creativity in a socially significant direction as a crown on his eminently meaningful life. +EDITH WEISSKOPF-JOELSON, Ph.D., is professor of psvchology emerita, University of Georgia. +REFERENCES: +I. Camus, Albert. The Mrth of' Sisrphus and Other Essars. New York. Vintage Books, 1955. +2. +Frankl. Viktor E. "Fragments from the Logotherapeutic Treatment of Four Cases." Modern pq-cfwtherapeutic Practice, Arthur Burton, ed. Palo Alto. California, Science and Behavior Books, 1965. + +3. +_____ . The Will /0 Meaning: Foundations and Applications ol Logotherap_i-. Paperback edition. New York. New American Library. 1976. + + +4. ____ . The Doctor and the Soul: From Psrchotherapr to Logotherapr. Paperback edition, New York, Vintage Books, 1978. +5. +______ . The Unconscious God: Psrchotherap_l' and Theologr. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1978. + +6. +_______ "Die Sinnfrage in dcr Thcrapie" in Suche nach Gott. Ansgar Paus and Oscar Schatz, ed. Gra1, Styria, 1978. + + +7. +Fromm, Erich. The San Societr. Greenwich. Connecticut, Fawcett Publications, 1955. + +8. +Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. "Some Suggestions Concerning Weltanschauung and Psychotherapy." Journal of"Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr, 4S: 601-04, 1953_ + +9. +______ . "Some Comments on a Viennese School of Psychiatry," Journal of' Ahnormal and Social Psrchologr 5!: 701-03, 1955. + + +IO.-~--_____ . "Logotherapy and Existential Analysis," A eta Psrclwtherapeutica. Psrchwomatica. and Orthopaedagogirn 6: 193-204. +11. +______ . "Some Suggestions Concerning the Concept of Awareness," Psrchotherap_1·. Theorr Research and Practice S, 2-7, 1971. + +12. +Wheelis, Allen. The Quest fi,r !dentitr. New York, Norton. I 958. + + +Kinship with Adlerian Psychology +Mrs. Ansbacher and I met Dr. Frankl twenty-two years ago at a week-end seminar of his at Endicott House near Boston, sponsored by the Religion in Education Foundation with J. Randolph Sasnett as executive director. We had the good fortune to be invited, Professor Gordon Allport having suggested our names. +This week-end seminar became for us an unforgettable occasion as we listened to Dr. Frankl describe his concentration camp experiences and the ways in which it was at all possible to cope with these conditions. I also had then a long personal discussion with him. Subsequently we followed his writings and have been corresponding with him for years. +We have always regretted that Alfred Adler severed his relations with the young Frankl since we have considered the similarities between the two and their complementarity more important than their differences. Of Dr. Frankl's contributions to methodology we have found the term "paradoxical intention" most apt and used it recently in our book of the writings by Adler on sexual matters, entitled Cooperation Between the Sexes, p. +410. As to the whole conception of logotherapy, it seems to me that the importance of meaning for mental health in general and psychotherapy in particular is being more and more recognized by various quarters although this is not specifically attributed to Dr. Frankl. Also the various personality tests inspired by his theories have made a definite contribution to psychology. +As evidence of our kinship with Dr. Frankl we may mention that during the seventeen years from 1957 to 1973 in which we edited the Journal uf Individual Psychology, published by the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, wc were always glad to accept a contribution by Dr. Frankl, or papers by others dealing with his work. We also considered it one of our important obligations to publish reviews of his books. In view of this we are very pleased that the work which Dr. Frankl initiated has now found a medium of its own in The International Forumfur Lugutherapy, and this writer feels very honored for having been asked to join its editorial Board of Advisors. +H.L. ANSBACHER, professor of psychology, The University of Vermont, Burlington. +7 +Logotherapy and Religion +Hedwig Raskob +The purpose of this article is not to deal with the question of the relationship between logotherapy and religion as such (see references 1,2,5, 18), but with the question: What ~ccounts for the various possible interpretations of logotherapy and religion, or even of the interpretation of logotherapy as religion? +Three Basic Positions +The three basic positions on the relationship between logotherapy and religion are: Logotherapy is a secular system, with no reference to the religious question; logotherapy is a secular system, open to the religious dimension; and logotherapy is a quasi religion; and specified positions in between. +Manuals and encyclopedias in the field of psychiatry and psychology refer to logotherapy as one among other schools and methods of psychotherapy without mentiontioning its stand on the religious question. 3-15 +The second position sees logotherapy as "a secular discipline open to the religious dimension"