diff --git "a/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_014_2.txt" "b/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_014_2.txt" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/SOURCE_DOCUMENTS/journal_014_2.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,647 @@ +Volume 14, Number 2 Fall 1991 +CONTENTS +Meaning-Centered Family Therapy ..................................... 6 7 Elisabeth Lukas If Freud Could Talk with Frankl. .......................................... 7 5 Joseph Fabry Logotherapy's Place for the Ritually Abused ....................... 8 2 Jennifer Ladd Conscience in East Germany ................................................. 8 7 Wolfgang Grassier Coping Strategies in Death Camps ....................................... 9 2 Solveig Cronstr6m-Beskow The Dynamic of Meaning ....................................................... 9 7 Jana Preble A View of Logotherapy from the Alcoholic Field ................. 103 Marsha J. Koster The Will to Being or the Will to Meaning .........................106 Jim Lantz Two Poems .......................................................................... 110 Elisabeth Lukas Principles of Psychotherapy and Logotherapy .,................ 111 James C. Crumbaugh +Life Review and Life Preview .........................................114 +Book Reviews .................................................................... 117 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 2-6. +THE ARST PUBLISHED CASES OF PARADOXICAL. INTENTION +Vlkl:or E. Frankl +Viktor Frankl used paradoxical intention in the early thirties and first published about it in case histories in a 1939 article in the Schweizerisches Archiv fur Neurologie und Psychiatrie, Switzerland. The purpose of that 1939 article was not so much to describe his new therapeutic method but to testify to the effectiveness of benzedrine as useful supplementary pharmacology. The term Paradoxe Intention itself was used by Dr. Frankl only after resuming his clinical practice following the war, but three cases described in his 1939 article clearly had all the earmarks of his new method based on the assumptions of logotherapy. The following is a slightly abbreviated English translation of the original article featuring three casos in which paradoxical intention was applied. +[Freud's disciple Paul] Schilder's view that benzedrine may be used in the symptom treatment of some neuroses is supported by my own experience. In [three] cases (two of obsessive compulsions, one of stuttering) it is shown how psychotherapy can be supplemented by a pharmaceutical therapy wlth benzedrine. The medication, however, only has the function of a temporary stimulant in a struggle in which the patient has already received the weapon from the psychotherapist. +Case 1 +Mrs. R, 43 (parents were cousins, mother was pedantic and hotheaded, older brother pedantic and excessively conscientious, younger brother nervous in a general sense) suffered from compulsively repeating activities and from obsessive feelings of having lost something. She had occasional compulsions in her childhood, but in adulthood the compulsion of constantly washing her hands became severe. She had received several treatments and psychotherapy, but the condition deteriorated to the point that she considered suicide. She was tortured by feelings of not having finished something, but without supportive evidence. "I have to do it again although I know I have done it well already." Emotionally, she experienced some unfinished business. +2 +First, the patient was directed to distinguish between her obsessively neurotic impulses and her healthy intentions, thus to distance herself from her obsessive thoughts. Then she learned to use this distancing to "exaggerate• her neurotic ideas to an absurd level and to take, so to speak, the wind out of their sails. For example, she would say to herself: "I'm afraid my hands are not dirty enough! I think they are very dirty, but I want them to be still much dirtier!" Instead of fighting her obsessive impulses (pressure creates counterpressure) she was advised to exaggerate them with humorous formulations (humor creates distance) and thus to overcome them. The patient's entire life view was refocussed. She previously exhibited the striving for perfection that is typical of obsessive compulsives, a striving for absolute certainty born from a feeling of lacking evidence and deep instinctual insecurity. Because perfection is unattainable in life in general, it is refocused into specific areas, such as cleanliness of hands and tidiness of the apartment. She was challenged to acknowledge this "fragmented character of life" and to have the courage to act. The neurosis can be seen as a shelter presenting a burden as well as protection. In the beginning, this was discussed with the patient as pure theory. During the next session she spontaneously (!) expressed the "suspicion• that she sometimes used the neurosis as an +1 +excuse. +After two weeks the patient clearly improved. She increasingly mastered the technique of finding the correct attitude toward her obsessive impulses, and taking responsibility, not for the obsessions, but for her attitudes toward them. Soon she learned to appreciate the pleasure of her (at first infrequent) "triumphs" over her obsessive impulses rather than suffering the displeasure of her defeats. During this phase of the treatment -three weeks after its start -the patient received benzedrine. According to her report about her general condition, she felt everything became easier, her mood improved, she "began to see everything like through rose-colored glasses.• At night, playing bridge, she felt fresher than ever before at late hours. Then she said: "I felt I could see more clearly, as if my eyes had improved." A blow of fate that hit the patient at that time was faced remarkably well. "I didn't see the matter so darkly (under the influence of benzedrine)...my housework feels easier because of my improved mood(!)." As to the effect on her obsession, or rather her attitude toward it, Mrs. R. reported that she could "defend" herself better, that she was able to face her obsessions with humor and determination. What she had learned in the psychotherapeutic sessions was more lasting +3 +and more easily applied. She became optimistic and felt "I can grow beyond the problems -I see them below me and not on top of me. Up to now I saw the obsession like a person to be respected, but now I can tease It." She felt as if she no longer was her old self, that she could "dance on rooftops." +Mrs. R was advised to make good use of the energy the medication had provided her. The psychotherapy gave her a weapon against the neurosis. It taught her, so to speak, to fence, while the medication gave her additional strength. Now she had to utilize the impetus the benzedrine gave her, for further training. She had to keep up the momentum. And indeed she did. During the next weeks of therapy, while taking one or two tablets of benzedrine a day, she was able to increasingly "resist the temptation (such as a washing compulsion)." She felt her obsessive thoughts (washing hands) became "increasingly vague.• Eventually the relative success continued even when she took no benzedrine. She was able to distance herself completely from her obsessive impulses. "Here am I, and over there is the obsession. It tempts me but I do not have to give in. The obsession cannot wash Its hands by itself -I have to do It -or refuse to do It...And I can refuse until the washing is worthwhile..." At this stage the therapy ended for external reasons. +Case 2 +Mr. S, 41, after unsuccessful psychoanalysis, came for treatment, or rather for consultation because he was to leave town in a few days to return home (abroad). He was In despair over the failure of the psychotherapy in which he had set great hopes, and he was seriously considering suicide, even carrying a farewell letter in his pocket. The patient suffered for fifteen years from severe obsessive compulsive symptoms that recently worsened. He gave the impression of a totally rigid person; also his fight against his obsessive thoughts was rigid. He was told that fighting obsessive ideas would only increase their power and his suffering, that on the contrary he should let them have free rein. Because Mr. S's departure was imminent, no analysis of his symptoms was attempted and only his attitude toward the obsessive thoughts was corrected. And indeed it was possible to motivate the patient within a few days to reconcile himself to the fact that he had obsessive thoughts. This brought, for the first time, both significant psychological relief and a decrease of his broodings. This psychological treatment was +4 +supplemented by medication through benzedrine. Mr. S reported that he felt more courageous, hopeful, and relieved, that he wrote an optimistic letter to his wife, and that he began to think about his job again. On the third day he announced happily that on the previous day he had experienced one hour free from obsessive thoughts, for the first time in at least ten years. He then succeeded, with the help of the benzedrine, to distance himself more and more from his obsessive thoughts, to live past them. He faced them calmly with a humorous attitude. Instead of fighting them and continuously observing them, he ignored them. He used the metaphor of a barking dog that increases barking if you try to kick it, but stops soon after you ignore it--you may even stop hearing the barking by paying no attention, much like the ticking of a clock. +As a supplement to psychotherapy, the benzedrine appeared helpful also in this case. It is as if patients receive a secret weapon against their obsessions if we give them, in the course of the therapy, the weapon of benzedrine. As to the case of Mr. S, it should be noted that he wrote me some time after his return home that he felt quite well and was satisfied that he was able to maintain a healthy attitude toward his obsessions, just as he had learned in therapy, and in spite of his external circumstances. This, he believed, was made easier through the continued taking of benzedrine. +Case 3 +Mr. F, 24, had stuttered since childhood. Two relatives also stuttered. The patient was told that speaking is basically nothing but loud thinking. He was advised to concentrate his attention on his thinking and let the mouth do the talking automatically. His focus should be on the What, not the How. Concentrating on the way of talking, instead of its content, makes one self-conscious of speaking and distracts thinking. His improper speaking mechanics were compensated by training in relaxation exercises (I. H. Schultz) and training to speak with audible breathing (Emil Fr6schels). These were practiced by the patient at home. He reported success--he succeeded in finding the correct attitude toward his speaking. "Without my wanting to, it spoke." He merely let his thoughts be audible, let the mouth talk. To counter his continuing general shyness, he was encouraged to seek company and talk in spite of his fear ("where is there a law that forbids me to speak in fear?"). At first, he is told, he would have to risk failure, but eventually would succeed and the fear would disappear; even in roulette one has to risk to win. +5 +In subsequent treatments Mr. F complained about fear he experienced even after successfully speaking up in company. Obviously he was afraid of the consequences of his contact with life, the loss of his "splendid isolation." He learned to understand that his challenge was to win a conscious victory over his irrational existential anxiety. +At this point the patient received benzedrine. Several days later he reported that, according to his diary, after the very first tablet he was able to speak more clearly on the phone (which had been a particularly difficult problem for him) and that in conversation with others hours later he felt remarkably calm and self-assured. However, as side affects, he listed palpitations of the heart, apprehension, and restless sleep. He later reduced the intake to half a tablet a day, which helped his speaking performance to be "in good shape" for hours. In sum, Mr. F reported a distinct effect, especially with speaking. He no longer felt "shame" and his apprehension was reduced, without having a specific urge to talk. Beyond that, his general self-esteem increased. +1This "secondary motivation" of the sickness (i.e., using the neurosis as an excuse) is not the cause of the obsessive symptoms, but does influence the selection of the target of fixation. The automatic tendency to use obsessive mechanisms is to some degree known to be a matter of fate, possibly hereditary. The various contents of the obsession are of course psychogenic. This does not mean, however, that uncovering the psychogenesis of the crncrete contents has important therapeutic significance, and even lern so is it an absolute necessity. We rather expect therapeutic effects from the attempt to motivate the patients to change their attitude toward life, drawing from the noetic dimension. In this way they are able to distance themselves from their neuroses, perhaps overcome them, but at least defy or bypass them and lead meaningful lives. +VIKTOR E. FRANKL, M.D., Ph.D., is the founder of Logotherapy and professor of psychology at the University of Vienna, Austria. +6 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 7-9. +LOGOTHERAPY AND THE UNCONSCIOUS OTHER +Jim Lantz +A beneficial result in logotherapy occurs when clients discover that improved insight, reality testing, problem-solving skills, and self-esteem are not the most important goals in psychotherapy and that even with these accomplishments, "something is still missing" and "still unfulfilled."3'5 After this discovery, many clients continue psychotherapy by moving into a deeper level of self-reflection and active participation.3'5'8 They begin to reflect upon the values, meanings, and meaning potentials in their lives2•3 and develop a concern for the existence and meaning of others in a deeper way which, paradoxically and profoundly, strengthens the self.2'3'8 They begin to reflect upon what Frankl has called the "self-transcendent meaning potentials hidden in the existential unconscious,"2'3 and others have called the "existential encounter with the unconscious other."5'8 +The Existential Encounter With the Unconscious Other +The existential encounter with the unconscious other starts when clients ask themselves, "What is the value and importance of improved psychosocial functioning?" and "What is the value and meaning of my life even if I can learn to live it more effectively?" Another question frequently asked is, "Will a better understanding of my problems, in itself, help me to find a sense of meaning and purpose in my life?" +As soon as clients begin to search for a sense of meaning and purpose in life, they discover that it is impossible to get in touch with the deepest meanings and meaning potentials in one's personal life without also discovering meanings and meaning potentials in others.1•8 This strange paradox of relational meaning shows clients that only through seeing the needs and meanings in the lives of others can they discover the rich meaning opportunities in the world that lie hidden in +368 +themselves. 2' ' -To put it simply, they discover that to strengthen the self is to give the self, to find the self is to lose it, and to understand the self +348 +is to challenge one's narcissistic preoccupation with the self. 1' ' ' The recovery to consciousness of meanings and meaning potentials in a relationship with and for others is powerful medicine for the existing +self_ 1,J,s-s +7 +Fear, Resistance, and the Existing Other +As clients work toward awareness of meaning and purpose through discovery of the unconscious other, they are often surprised by their own intense resistance to the awareness of meaning potentials +258 +embedded in such a self-transcendent concern. '' Such resistance Is a signal that deep change is beginning to occur and that the clients are becoming more aware of their meaning potentials.5'8 This resistance occurs because the clients are starting to experience the two side effects +358 +of meaning awareness: vulnerability and responsibility.2' ' ' +Awareness of meaning potentials in a self-transcendent concern for the existing other always involves the side effects of vulnerability and responsibility.2'3'8 If the clients allow themselves to experience love and meaning in a relationship with the other, they become vulnerable because they fear they may lose the subject of their meaning and love. 5'8 The world is unpredictable and often includes the tragedy of losing those we love.2 One way to avoid this vulnerability is to repress awareness of the existing +358 +other.1' ' ' In the words of William Blake, this protects us from learning to "bear the beams of love."1 This repression of the other protects us from the vulnerability of meaning and love that we trade in for a stale and empty sense of safety and security.s-a +Awareness of the meaning potentials to be gained by selftranscendence also has the side effect of responsibility.2·5•8 If we allow ourselves to find meaning in a relationship with others, we become responsible for taking care of that "other'' who allows us to give and find meaning. 1·3•5 Many persons avoid this responsibility by repressing awareness of the other.3'5'8 This repression of responsibility results in an +387 4 +emptiness.2' ' ' We are "protected" from the experience of love.1' +The Logotherapist's Task +Frankl2'3 and other logotherapistss-7 have consistently pointed out that human courage is a necessary part of developing meaning awareness. This courage is necessary to accept the vulnerabilities and responsibilities that are part of a conscious self-transcendent relationship with the existing other. For Frankl2'3 and others,5-8 a primary function of the therapist is to nurture the clients' courage as they attempt to develop awareness of the unconscious other. The therapist provides the clients with a model of courage and self-transcendent concern for the other through the therapist's relationship with the client.3'5'8 The therapist's struggle to allow the relationship between client and therapist to trigger +8 +meaning awareness requires both permission for the client to become aware of the self-transcendent meaning opportunities in relationships with others and demonstration for the client the feelings, thoughts, and actions that are a part of self-transcendent giving to the world.5'7 I can find no better guide for the logotherapist in this difficult relationship task than the following poem by the great Anglican priest, George Herbert: +Teach me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do to anything To do it as to Thee.4 +JIM LANTZ, Ph.D., a Dip/ornate in Logotherapy, is Associate Professor in Clinical Social Work at The Ohio State University, and Director of the Worthington Logotherapy Center, 666 High St.#202, Worthington, Ohio, 43085, U.S.A. +References +1. +Blake, W. (1986). Great English Poets: William Blake. NY: Clarkson N. Potter. + +2. +Frankl, V. (1959). From Death Camp to Existentialism. Boston: Beacon Hill. + +3. +Frankl, V. (1975). The Unconscious God. NY: Simon & Schuster. + +4. +Herbert, G. (1981 ). The Country Parson -The Temple. NY: The Paulist Press. + +5. +Lantz, J. (1974). Existential Treatment and the Vietnam Veteran Family. Ohio Department of Mental Health Yearly Report.Columbus: Ohio Department of Mental Health. + +6. +Lantz, J., & Harper, K. (1991). Using Poetry in Logotherapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 18, 341-345. + +7. +Lantz, J., & Lantz, J. (1991). Franklian Treatment With the Traumatized Family. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 2, 61-73. + +8. +Mullen, H., & Sanguiliano, I. (1964). The Therapist's Contribution to the Treatment Process. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas. + + +9 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 10-12. +THE CONSCIENCE: INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL +Wallace Danforth Joslyn +Frankl sees conscience as an intuitive human faculty guided by a power outside the human being and beyond human comprehension2• P· 52• 57 Although serving as a guide even in social relations, conscience resides within the individual. Massey3 has introduced the concept of "social conscience• which "concerns the way in which individuals interrelate with each other so they contribute to and are influenced by a mutual morality." This concept appears to refer to a dynamic process through which this mutual morality emerges. One might also conceive of ·social conscience" as the end product of that process. That end product would be those social norms which derive from conscience, such as "Thou shalt not kill." According to this framework, individual conscience would serve as the intermediary between that mysterious power to which conscience is tied and the evolution of ethical social norms. This paper will speculate on how transcendence is woven into the social fabric through conscience. +One might think of conscience as a compass whose needle is directed by a magnetic field outside itself. Certain individuals clearly articulate the direction their compasses point and confidently lead off in a "correct" direction. A few people look at their own compasses and say, "Yes, my compass points that way, too, and I will follow." Those people will at first be a minority and may be ignored or ridiculed. If they are indeed on the correct track and walk confidently, however, more and more people may agree that their own compasses point in the same direction. Eventually, most people may follow. Thus a social norm is created. +Trailblazing compass readers include such people as Moses, Ghandi, Susan B. Anthony and those individuals who first had doubts as to the virtues of slavery, human sacrifice, tribalism, and the worship of money and power for Its own sake. These people would not have attracted a following if their words and deeds had not struck a deep chord in the noetic or spiritual dimension of others. That dimension contains that irreducible faculty called conscience which is tied by a thin thread to that transcendent power, beyond human comprehension, which some call +10 +divine. Individual consciences resonate, one after another, until a whole society wonders how anyone could have thought or believed otherwise. +Frankl1' p.65-66 points out that because conscience is a human faculty, it is not infallible. Even persons who pay close attention to their consciences may disagree on the exact direction their "needles" are pointing. Using the compass analogy, we can see a horde of people wandering in the forests and deserts. They all have built-in compasses with needles drawn by a mysterious magnetic field from the North. Although most will read their compass needles as pointing somewhere between northeast and northwest, they will disagree as to the exact direction. Some will insist that only their own compasses are correct and march off in splinter groups. Others will realize that their needle reading abilities may be clouded. Therefore, they will compare notes with other compass readers. Finally, through this self-transcendence, involving discussion and perhaps conflict, many will reach a consensus, which becomes part of the "social conscience" of the group. +"Social conscience,· when conceptualized in this way, is the result of a healthy, dynamic tension among people who articulate the reading of their own consciences while retaining respect for those whose consciences appear to be in conflict with their own. They may find these conflicts of conscience difficult and trying. However, the abandoning of conscience, no matter how confusing the surrounding disarray of voices, amounts to capitulation to mindless conformism or a nonreflective existence in which individuals drift with the wind. The end result is much the same as that of the self-righteous, intolerant person who gives no respect to the consciences of others. Individuals who listen only to their own fallible consciences risk marching off in the wrong direction with no chance of correction. +As Frankl points out repeatedly, ethical principles or "social conscience" can serve only as general guidelines for behavior. It falls back on personal conscience to translate ethical guidelines to fit the everchanging, conflict-ridden series of unique situations confronted in daily life. Nevertheless, these ethical guidelines serve as monumental support for fallible, or uncertain, personal conscience. "Social conscience" contains the ''wisdom of the ages.• This wisdom is in continual dynamic interaction with individual conscience, and grows as a result of experience guided by conscience. Conscience, in turn, serves as the "judge" which interprets this wisdom to fit specific situations. +11 +DAN JOSLYN, Ph.D., is a Staff Psychologist at the VA Medical Center, Knoxville, IA 50138, U.S.A. +References +1. +Frankl, V. (1969). The Will to Meaning. NY, New American Library. + +2. +Frankl, V. (1975). The Unconscious God. NY, Simon & Schuster. + +3. +Massey, R. F. (1991). Social Conscience in Logotherapy. International Forum for Logotherapy, 14, 32-35. + + +NEW VIDEO JUST RELEASED +MALONE: A CONVERSATION WITH VIKTOR FRANKL +Victor Franld...Founder of Logotherapy, professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna, author of 28 books, including Man's Search for Meaning. In his 86th year, Frankl talks passionately and candidly about his remarkable life with public television's Michael Malone. +Michael Malone...is well known for his interview program, Malone, widely syndicated on public television. With roots in investigative journalism, he has authored several books, including the book that provided the basis for the PBS series, Silicon Valley Trilogy. Join author and host Michael Malone for a conversation with one of the most outstanding contributors to psychological thought in the last 50 years. +This 30 minute videotape is available from THE VICTOR FRANKL INSTITUTE OF LOGOTHERAPY P. 0. Box 2852, Saratoga, California 95070 USA +$50.00 + $4.50 postage (CA residents add $4.25 tax) +12 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 13-21. +LOGOTHERAPY AND 12 STEP PROGRAMS IN THE TREATMENT OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE +Terresa M. Wadsworth +In our industrialized, mechanized society most individuals have freedom from basic survival concerns and find themselves with increasing amounts of leisure time. But many individuals are not equipped to deal with unstructured free time, so they become bored and lonely. They are easy targets for advertisers, soap operas, musicians, movies and the like, whose messages encourage conformity in filling the social void with artificial sources. 12 These sources include alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs, as well as shallow sexual relationships. These artificial fillers provide immediate but short-term gratification--emptiness remains and hopelessness deepens. To reverse this trend, individuals must be helped to see meaning in their lives, rather than boredom and loneliness. The present article explores two methods of discovering or restoring authentic sources of meaning: logotherapy and 12 step programs. +Logotherapy +The basic logotherapeutic tenets and their applications are known to the readers of the Forum. Their specific uses have been discussed in many books and articles, most prominently in Crumbaugh's Logotherapy: New Help for Problem Drinkers. 4 Individuals who have repressed or ignored their "will to meaning" may develop an "existential vacuum" which they often try to fill with alcohol or other drugs. Their addiction becomes an obstacle to a meaningful life. Logotherapy focuses attention on meaningful tasks and relationships that enable them to overcome the obstacles. 11 Emphasis is placed on the individual's freedom to make responsible choices and their dimension of the human spirit where they can take a defiant stand against physical and psychological forces. +An important aspect of logotherapy is the environment in which it is employed. This environment is characterized by trust, acceptance (unconditional positive regard), equality, authenticity (genuineness), and a holistic perspective. It is within, and indeed because of, these parameters that therapy is successful.6 +13 +12 Step Programs +12 step programs are based on the original recovery model of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). They retain the same basic characteristics, altering only the specific addiction that is addressed. +AA developed out of the insight that alcoholism is more than a personal and physical illness. The afflicted person has friends, family, thoughts, emotions, attitudes and must be viewed in a holistic context.9 Focusing on specific parts, with no regard for the whole, will not lead to recovery. Individuals must accept and develop all three aspects of themselves: mental, physical and spiritual. The 12 step programs address the whole person, through emotional support, education on the "dis-ease" and following the 12 steps of recovery. +The camaraderie of suffering inherent in the 12 step programs is a powerful tool in recovery. This element of the program has two-fold benefits: a) the new member receives empathy (not pity), encouragement and hope for recovery, and b) "conning" of self and others is reduced. Just as old members can identify with the problems new members are experiencing, so too can they spot a "con" as it is being presented. +Personal recovery through working (following) the steps is the foundation of all 12 step programs. The steps constitute a 'how to' guide for changing behavior and attitudes with a key concept being the issue of responsibility. Yet, individual work is supported and encouraged, in that the individual sets the pace and way. +Guidelines for being responsible are provided in 12 step programs, +specifically in steps 4, 8, 9, and 1o. These steps require the individual to: (Step 4) Look inward and discover liabilities and assets through reviewing past relationships and experiences. Thoroughness is stressed. (Step B) Compose a list of all persons who have been harmed in some way by the member's behavior or attitudes. This encourages humility and focuses on personal responsibility. (Step 9) Take responsibility for past injuries and "make amends" or restitution to all harmed persons, except when to do so would cause more harm than good. For example, the alcoholic husband who has hurt his marriage by having an affair is not necessarily encouraged to confess this affair to his wife if that will be more damaging than helpful to her. Other methods of +14 +making amends may be more advisable. This step can +prove difficult to understand, so when faced with this +dilemma, members are specifically encouraged to consult +with their sponsors. (Sponsorship is discussed further +below). +(Step 10) Continue this process of making amends +throughout the member's lifetime, by immediately +admitting mistakes and taking corrective action. +Members come together in groups for mutual support, insight, encouragement and identification. These groups help members retain a sense of equality, commonality and informality. +The 12 step founders recognized the need for contact and support outside the group meetings, so the concept of sponsorship was developed. Sponsors are generally people who have been in the program for several years and are actively working (and re-working) the 12 steps. Sponsors are a listening ear, teacher, guide, and mentor for the newly recovering person. Very early in the orientation to the program, newcomers are encouraged to find two sponsors of their same sex. Having two sponsors is recommended for several reasons: a) it prevents dependency on one person; b) if one sponsor is discontinued, there is a back-up until a replacement is found; and c) differing perspectives offer increased opportunity for insight and growth. The requirement of same-sex sponsors helps maintain a sense of equality, facilitates genuine identification, and minimizes the complicating sexual issues that the new member may be trying to sort out. +Sponsorship, group meetings, and individual work on the 12 steps requires the individual to examine personal values and behaviors. In doing so, many find an awakening of the spiritual part of themselves. It is through developing this spiritual aspect that contentment and effective stress management is achieved.3 +Similarities Between the Approaches +Logotherapy and 12 step programs have many similarities, even though the techniques and methods they employ may differ. Both believe that addiction occurs, at least in part, through the use of substances to ameliorate painful feelings and to fill an inner void. Both relate to sufferers with acceptance, understanding, equality, and hopeful expectations of successful recovery. Both believe that recovery occurs through an +15 +ongoing process of taking responsibility for one's beliefs, thoughts, and actions. +Responsibility +Logotherapy uses responsibility in many ways. It accepts and supports each individual on a personal level. Further, the therapist has responsibility to respect the client and treat the whole person. Focusing on a part is not enough because ignoring the larger picture can keep the client dangerously stuck in treatment that does not address the current problem. Lukas gives a good example: +"Mrs. B was an adult woman complaining of chest pains. Since the pain increased at times of psychological stress and no organic symptom could be found, the diagnosis 'psychogenic' seemed reasonable. The pain diminished with relaxation exercises and logotherapeutic conversation. Finally, it disappeared. +Six months later, Mrs. B returned complaining about pain in the lower right stomach area. Her family doctor smilingly talked about nerves and sent her to me . +...I was pessimistic enough to send Mrs. B first to another physician. Lo and behold, this physician who was unbiased and did not know that she ever had psychogenic disturbances, easily diagnosed gall stones. Without my pessimism, precious time would have been lost".11 • P-130 Avoiding pomposity is another way of demonstrating the +therapist's responsibility to the client. This can be achieved by developing a pessimistic eye--not toward the client's recovery, but rather, toward the therapist's own interpretations and assumptions about what is occurring during the therapeutic process. Avoiding "obvious" answers and developing skepticism toward immediate insight experiences aids the therapist in maintaining personal humility and approaching each client on a human level. +Logotherapists are responsible for maintaining humility and relating to clients on a one-to-one authentic human level. They are also responsible for allowing clients to come to their own decisions and discover their own values. The pomposity of a therapist "God syndrome" is detrimental, especially when working with addicts who are accustomed to finding outside answers to their internal problems. Clients are responsible for working on their own issues, accepting the consequences of their behavior, and honestly, openly connecting with the therapist. +16 +In 12 step programs, the issue of pomposity is actively combatted through the 2nd tradition, "...Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern."13·P·10 Leaders are responsible to the members of the group to share the knowledge and wisdom of their experiences. Individual members of 12 step groups are responsible to themselves, to each other, and to the leaders to maintain humility and equality within the program. Leaders who "assume a throne" during meetings are confronted by members of the group. +Individuals in 12 step programs share their recovery with others.13 Thus, each member is responsible to the group's growth and perpetuation. In sharing recovery experiences, individuals give back to the group that which they have received. This is a healthy form of payback that is often new behavior for addicts--to give without expectation of reward or thanks; to risk sharing sensitive, emotional experiences. +The Spiritual Dimension +One of the basic assumptions of logotherapy Is the existence of a higher, human dimension, in which human beings can take a stand beyond the forces of the body and the psyche. In the 12 step tradition, this spiritual dimension is a belief in a "higher power" beyond the individual's control or ability. The spiritual concept "higher power'' is not specifically defined. Rather, it is left to individuals to develop their own concepts of what they can believe in as greater than themselves--for some it is the group itself; for others it is God in the Western tradition; still others find a higher power in nature; or it may not be defined at all. As one 12 step member put it, "My higher power is SAM--Sure Ain't Me". In logotherapy terms: more than my physio-psychological self. For AA: something beyond the individual, even if the individual has no clear conception of what it is.1 +Most addicts have discovered that will power (or more appropriately "won't power") alone was not enough to break through their addiction. Relying on other individuals fosters another dependency, or addiction, and is effective only as long as the other individuals are available. However, the practice of surrendering to something more powerful than the physio-psychological self and relying on that for inner strength and guidance fills the void (existential vacuum) and frees the individual to be separate and sober. M's Serenity Prayer embodies this concept: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." +17 +The dimension of the spirit, as discussed in logotherapy, is not spirituality in the traditional sense. It includes the traditional, but also encompasses the attitudes and values attached to one's own personhood and path in life. It is freedom and responsibility.5 +In the first part of the Serenity Prayer, there is an element of surrender. But logotherapy emphasizes that although one is not always able to control the "how'' of living, one can invariably choose the attitude one adopts toward the circumstance of living. +The second and third portions of the Serenity Prayer are all too often underplayed within the 12 step environment. Slogans like "Things happen the way they're supposed to" and "Let go and let God," though well-intentioned, tend to propagate a victim stance within personal recovery. Much healthier slogans, emphasizing these latter portions of the Serenity Prayer, could be, ''Things happen, but we can still make choices to get on with living" or "Be actively responsible in the remaining areas where you can develop your own role in life." These are more empowering statements, and they are in accord with logophilosophy. +Logotherapy goes deeper into the core of recovery than does the spirituality concept in the 12 step programs when it strongly emphasizes the element of empowerment in responding to life. There is a danger in completely surrendering one's will to a "higher power" if it results in adopting the attitude, "whatever happens--happens." This is victim thinking and is at the core of the addicts' problems, i.e., perceived helplessness in the sea of life. +Combining the Approaches +Haines has utilized both approaches to develop a 12 step logotherapy program to aid families recovering from addiction. Each member of the family focuses on their own individual issues and plan of recovery using the following 12 steps: +1. +I believe I have personal meaning and purpose in my life. + +2. +I must make wellness a priority in order to fulfill a higher purpose. + +3. +To achieve greater fulfillment, I must look honestly into myself, identify shortcomings, and be willing to do something constructive to remedy them. + +4. +I am willing to believe that I am not the complete source of my own strength, but that there is a Superior Power + + +18 +that will enrich the quality of wellness and provide a source of strength. +5. +I can change me; no one else can. + +6. +I have control over my attitudes. + +7. +There are alternatives and choices; always a plan B. + +8. +I take personal responsibility for my decisions. + +9. +I can learn how to make daily tensions work for me. + +10. +Life isn't fair--1 don't expect it to be. + +11. +No one owes me a thing. + +12. +In spite of trials and hardships, I can build a rewarding + + +101 9 +and contented lifestyle."7' P-• +This creative synthesis of the two approaches emphasizes individual responsibility and enhancement of personal meaning. Although Haines' approach is targeted at the family, it is easily applied to individual and group settings. +Brown and Peterson2 have developed what they call ''value therapy." Therapy begins with the individual completing the Rokeach Value Survey as a part of the intake process. The client then ranks personal values. A daily monitoring system is set up for the individual in order to weigh the consistency of their behaviors against their reported values. Regular visits with the therapist are implemented to support and evaluate progress. This stage lasts approximately 7 to 1O weeks. At this time, the individual is provided with a profile of the values held by successfully recovering AA members. The clients re-evaluate their own attitudes, which frequently are then re-aligned. This evaluation of personal values and ongoing behaviors is a creative synthesis of responsibility, feedback, and meaning, which in turn leads to greater insight for the client. +Henrion8 utilizes logotherapy in a group context with inpatients who are receiving treatment for substance abuse. She recommends that patients follow Crumbaugh's4 five-step plan. They are encouraged to: +a) +Select a life view. Patients question their beliefs about people. Are they nothing more than animals who by some quirk of nature turned out a bit more sophisticated? Are they more than automatons responding to environmental stimuli? Do they possess unique qualities that enable them to direct their own future? The answers to these questions have a direct bearing on how the individual will respond to therapeutic interventions. + +b) +Develop self-confidence. After patients are aware of what life view they hold, they are asked to review their past and + + +19 +present behavior patterns. At this point, many become discouraged and require encouragement. Daily affirmations, or positive self-statements, are introduced. The patient repeats their affirmations each morning and evening. Regular practice is important. +c) +Think creatively. Patients explore future options of living, based firmly on the reality of present circumstances, with other members of the logotherapy group. Alternatives are discussed and weighed. + +d) +Engage in relationships. This is an ongoing process that requires risk, trust, and skill development. Interpersonal skills are cultivated, in particular the discernment of healthy personalities from destructive ones. At this stage, patients are encouraged to utilize "acting as if" exercises to practice rapport building. + +e) +Search for new life-purpose. Here patients stop focusing on themselves and look ahead to find meaningful goals to enrich their lives. These steps provide yet another example of novel application of + + +logotherapeutic and 12 step concepts. Though occurring in an inpatient setting, the group support and feedback could easily be achieved in an outpatient setting. +Although logotherapy and the 12 step philosophies differ in their methods, the aim of both is to help suffering individuals overcome their personal circumstances and discover meaning and purpose in their lives. Creative combinations of tnese treatment alternatives can be successful. It is important to emphasize that the individual inner core of meaning must be developed and sparke!d into life to produce responsible action. 10• Therapists are challenged to find methods they can comfortably use to access the transcending quality within each individual. Further developments and research in this area are needed. +TERRESA M. WADSWORTH [Eastern New Mexico University, P. 0. Box 4131, Ponales, NM 88130, USA] is a graduate student at Eastern New Mexico University, where she is pursuing a Master's degree in counseling/clinical psychology. She has worked in the mental health/substance abuse field for the past six years. +20 +REFERENCES +1. +Alcoholics Anonymous. (3rd ed.). (1976). NY:AA World Services. + +2. +Brown, H. P., & Peterson, J.(1989). Redefining the BASIC-IS's: A psychospiritual approach to the comprehensive outpatient treatment of drug dependency. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 6, 27-61. + +3. +Corrington, J. E. {1989). Spirituality and recovery: Relationships between levels of spirituality, contentment and stress during recovery from alcoholism in AA. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 6, 151-165. + +4. +Crumbaugh, J. C., Wood, W. M., & Wood, W. C. (1980). Logotherapy: New Help for Problem Drinkers. Chicago: NelsonHall. + + +5. +Frankl, V. E. (1967). Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy. NY: Simon & Schuster. + +6. +Frankl, V. E. (1969). The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy. NY: New American Library. + + +7. +Haines, P. E. {1987). Logotherapeutic intervention for families in early chemical dependency recovery. International Forum for Logotherapy, 10, 105-109. + +8. +Henrion, R. (1987). Making logotherapy a reality in treating alcoholics. International Forum for Logotherapy, 10, 112-117. + +9. +Holmes, R. M. (1991 ). Alcoholics Anonymous as group logotherapy. International Forum for Logotherapy, 14, 36-41. + +10. +Lantz, J., & First, R. (1987). Family treatment and the noetic curative factor. International Forum for Logotherapy, 10, 110-111. + +11. +Lukas, E. (1984--original work published 1980). Meaningful Living. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman. + + +12. +Olive, K. W. (1990). Meaning in drug treatment. International Forum for Logotherapy, 13, 131-132. + +13. +Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. {1952).NY: Harper & Brothers. + + +21 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 22-29. +A VALUES WORKSHEET +Robert R. Hutzell +Logotherapy helps individuals discover their values, gives them direction, and then allows the findings to recede back into their noetic unconscious. +Logoanalysis, as developed by James Crumbaugh, offers a structured format that prescribes both paper-and-pencil and cognitive selfawareness exercises to help individuals conduct a thorough self-evaluation and search for their personally meaningful values. Additional tasks are then prescribed to help the individuals take the necessary steps toward actualizing their values. Logoanalysis emphasizes personal awareness of one's life-philosophy, the importance of meaningful interpersonal relationships, and action toward personally meaningful tasks. +Thus, logoanalysis emphasizes the process of surfacing the underlying value system, and then details the steps needed to actualize that value system once it has been surfaced. Logoanalysis is especially useful for individuals who do not intuitively set goals consonant with their value system. +Many persons in the United States today are unaware of their own values and do not know how to set goals consonant with them. As Frankl suggests, these people fall into conformity, experience existential vacuum, and may turn to addiction, aggression, and depression. +The Values Awareness Technique +A technique termed the Values Awareness Technique {VAT) was developed as a paper-and-pencil, logoanalysis technique to facilitate the process of surfacing the individual's underlying value system. The first half of A Workbook to Increase Your Meaningful and Purposeful Goals (available from the Institute of Logotherapy) guides the individual through the VAT process and culminates in a written values-hierarchy. +The VAT is a semi-standard method for helping individuals clarify the values they find personally meaningful. The technique includes a series of cognitive exercises, each following a three-step format: +• +Expanding Conscious Awareness + +•Stimulating +Creative Imagination + +•Projecting +Personal Values + + +22 +The first step allows persons to distance themselves from their daily patterns and view life from another perspective. Through specific questions, they search for meaningful aspects of life that may get overlooked in everyday living. The second step asks them to think of all the possible reasons why their response might be meaningful to anyone. That is, they consider the many possible values that could underlie their response. At step three they select up to three values listed in step two that particularly "fit" their way of thinking. Thus, a projective instrument is administered at step one, and then at steps two and three, the participants interpret or project upon their step-one response. Step three narrows the focus of step two. +The first VAT exercise is followed by several others, each incorporating the same three-step process. The exercises are designed to illuminate the three classes of values recognized in logophilosophy creative, experiential, and attitudinal. +Completion of the VAT takes several sessions and may include homework. Many productive discussions result from the responses. We have found it convenient for participants to use a worksheet, like the one presented at the conclusion of this article, to keep track of surfaced values. Most people surface up to 90 values, many of which are repeats across different VAT responses. To finish the VAT, participants are asked to consolidate any values for which they initially chose different words but by which they actually meant the same basic value. These values are rank ordered from most repeated to least repeated to form a valueshierarchy for the individual. Values listed only once are disregarded. +The Values Worksheet +By gathering values-hierarchies from a group of persons, a list of often-selected values has been developed. Presentation of that list, which I call the Values Worksheet, is the primary focus of this article. +The VAT is just one place where the Values Worksheet has been used. Other persons have used the Values Worksheet in their own ways. And I encourage you to be creative and do the same. +Although the worksheet can be used with many populations in its present form, it will be useful for you to customize it to your own population. There are some inconsistencies in the present worksheet. For example, Women are listed as a value, but Men are not. Fatherhood is included; Motherhood is not. This is so because the present version of the worksheet was developed on an all male population. You can +23 +customize the worksheet for your population by incorporating it into your work in a manner useful to you, saving a reasonable number of completed worksheets of your participants (I arbitrarily used 100), then using cutoff scores that I describe below to decide which items to retain, which to delete, and which new ones to add. +Development of the Values Worksheet +The initial Values Worksheet was developed by gathering potential values from a variety of adjective check-lists and values questionnaires. Where necessary, the words were changed to nouns. A total of 167 words were gathered. These were alphabetized and 38 blanks were added to constitute the Values Worksheet I. A blank space was left to the right of each value for the participants to make a hash-mark every time they surfaced the value. +The Values Worksheet was used with the VAT as part of a Meaningful and Purposeful Goals (logoanalysis) group initiated in 1981. The group restarts, with new participants, every two weeks. The participants come from the alcohol dependency treatment program at the VA Medical Center in Knoxville, Iowa. This program offers a fairly typical inpatient alcohol treatment, presenting a disease-model of alcoholism and emphasizing education about the stages of alcoholism as well as attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Treatment includes medical, psychological, and sociological workups; lectures and classes on alcoholism and related topics; daily discussion groups on the effects of alcoholism; and physical therapy, corrective therapy, and recreation therapy. Other psychological/educational experiences, including the Meaningful and Purposeful Goals group, are assigned on a case-by-case basis. +Completed forms were gathered from participants of the Values Awareness Technique sessions, who had selected at least one value twice (or more) yet whose total number of hash-marks was not higher than would be expected if the individual completed the task correctly. Values Worksheets were gathered from 100 participants who met these criteria. +Then, each value on the Values Worksheet was examined to determine the percentage of individuals who surfaced that value one or more times. These percentages ranged from 2% to 83%. Values selected by 10% or more of the participants were retained in a revised Values Worksheet (Values Worksheet II); 142 of the original 167 values were retained; 25 were deleted. +24 +Next, write-in values added to the worksheet by the participants were analyzed for the percentage of participants surfacing each write-in value. Values were written in 337 times, and 147 of these were separate values. The modal number added was O {30% of the participants added no values); the range of write-in values was 0-17. +The percentage of individuals listing each specific write-in value ranged up to 29%. Those write-in values listed by 3% or more of the participants were incorporated into Values Worksheet II. There were 27 of these added values. Thus, the Values Worksheet II consisted of a total of 169 values, followed by several blank spaces for write-ins. +The Values Worksheet II was further revised by repeating the modification procedure, using this new worksheet with 100 participants who were treated later in the same Meaningful and Purposeful Goals group. (You may want to follow the same procedure if you wish to customize the Values Worksheet to your own population. You could use a sample size of 100 also, or any other reasonable size.) Values that surfaced one or more times by at least 10% of the participants were retained for Values Worksheet Ill (presented at the end of this article). Values surfaced by less than 10% of the participants were again deleted, and values written in on the blanks of the worksheet by 3% or more of the participants were again added. +The percentages of participants who surfaced the values of Worksheet II one or more times ranged from 3% to 73%. Of the 169 values on Worksheet II, 162 were retained for Worksheet Ill. Only one of the 27 values added at the first revision -"smallness"-was deleted at the second revision because it failed to meet the 10% criterion. +Of 248 values written in on Worksheet II, 170 were separate values. The modal number added was again o {this time, 41% of the participants added no values). The range of write-in values was 0-13. The percentage of participants listing each write-in value ranged up to 9%. Fourteen of these write-in values met the 3% criterion and were added to the worksheet. Thus, Values Worksheet Ill contains 176 values. It also has blanks for participants to write-in more values if needed. +Testing Hypotheses about the Values Worksheet +Several hypotheses are testable with the collected data. For example, we can hypothesize that groups of individuals drawn from a common population will have a set of common values {i.e., a set of group values or a group values hierarchy). If this "group values hierarchy" +25 +hypothesis is true, then the two 1DO-subject samples described here (which were drawn at different times from the same basic population) should demonstrate parallel overall values hierarchies. To test this hypothesis, values included on both the first and second versions of the worksheet were correlated, using Pearson product-moment correlations of the percentages of participants listing each value. The resultant correlation was +.92, demonstrating that values selected numerous times by the first sample were also the most frequently surfaced values by the second sample; values selected infrequently by the first sample were likewise selected infrequently by the second sample. This result does not prove but supports the "group values hierarchy'' hypothesis. Further support would come if this data-gathering process would be repeated with a distinctly different population, and a distinctly different values hierarchy would be discovered. I would be happy to work with anyone, and share my data, for the correlational analyses needed for this additional evaluation. +Another hypothesis is that the revised worksheet is closer to the true values hierarchy of the target population than was the initial version of the worksheet. If this hypothesis is true, then we should find that more values were retained (i.e., were selected by 10% or more of the subjects) on the revised version than was seen on the initial version. Further, fewer values would need be added ( i.e., written in by 3% or more of the subjects) on the revised version than on the initial version. As noted, for the first 100 subjects, 142 values were retained, 25 deleted, and 27 added. For the second 100 subjects, 162 values were retained, 7 deleted, and 14 added. All of these numbers support the hypothesis that the revised worksheet comes closer to representing the true array of values of the population. Repeating the data gathering once again in the future (and we are collecting data now on Values Worksheet 111) might bring us closer still to a true array of values of the population, but at some point we will stop making gains and simply see random changes due to sampling error. +Still another hypothesis is that values listed on the worksheet are more likely to be selected by participants than are values not listed. It stands to reason that it is easier to recognize your own values when they are listed than to recall those same values "from your head." This hypothesis about listed values, if true, suggests that customization of the Values Worksheet to your particular population is important before you use results from the worksheet to make generalizations about any values hierarchy of your population. To test this hypothesis we analyzed data for +26 +the 27 values added at the revision from Values Worksheet I to Values Worksheet II. These 27 values were not listed on Values Worksheet I, and so were noted by the subjects only if they recalled the values or pulled the values "from their heads.• Because they met the criterion of being listed by at least 3% of the first 100 subjects, they were incorporated into Values Worksheet II. Thus, these 27 values, when selected by the second 100 subjects, were selected by being recognized on the revised worksheet. To test the "listed values" hypothesis, the average number of times these 27 values were written in by the first 100 subjects was compared with the average number of times they were selected by the second 100 subjects. The mean for the first 100 subjects was 6.5 (range was 3 to 29). The mean for the second 100 subjects was 33.6 (range was 3 to 66). Thus the hypothesis that values are more likely to be selected when they are listed on the worksheet received support. Although the absolute numbers were much higher for the recognition data, the relative hierarchies of these values were similar whether recalled (as in the first 1oo subjects) or recognized (as in the second 100 subjects) as seen by the fact that the correlation between the two sets of numbers was + .60. +I hope the presentation of the Values Worksheet will spur others to use it and to customize it for their own populations. Comparisons of overall values hierarchies should lead to additional hypotheses which can then be tested. Also, comparisons of values hierarchies between populations expected to have differing values hierarchies should prove useful. For example, religious populations might be expected to have relatively higher religious and helping values, sports populations might be expected to have relatively higher competition and physical values, work and business populations might be expected to have relatively higher vocational and financial values, etc. Data for these hypotheses can be gathered by you the reader. +ROBERT R. HUTZELL, Ph.D., [P. 0. Drawer 112, Knoxville, Iowa 50138, U.S.A.] Dip/ornate in Logotherapy, is a Clinical Psychologist at the VA Medical Center in Knoxville, Iowa and Director of Psychology at a multispecialty medical clinic in Knoxville. +27 +VALUES WORKSHEEf +Accomplishment Achievement .. Adventure ... Affection .... Aggressiveness Alertness Ambition Amusement Animal Life Approval .... ___ Art ....... . Attention .... Attractiveness . Authenticity .. ___ Beauty ...... ___ Belonging .... ___ Boldness .... . Calmness ... . Carefulness .. . Caring ...... ___ Cautiousness .. Challenge .... ___ Cheerfulness .. Children .... . Christianity ... ___ Cleverness .. . Communication Companionship___ Competence .. ___ Competition .. ___ Completion ... ___ Confidence +Contribution .. Control ..... Courtesy ..... Creativity .... Curiosity .... Danger ...... Dependability . Discovery .... Easygoing .... +Education ... . Efficiency .... Energy ...... Enjoyment ... Entertainment . Enthusiasm .. . Excitement .. . Exercise .... . Experience ... Expertness ... Exploration ... Fame ...... . Family ...... Fatherhood .. . Feelings ..... Food ...... . Forgiveness ... Freedom .... . Freshness .... Friendship Fulfillment Fun ....... . Generosity ... +Genuineness .. +Growth ..... +Happiness .... ___ +Hard Work .. . +Health ..... . Helpfulness ... ___ +History ...... ___ +Honesty ..... ___ +Humor ..... . Idealism ..... Imagination .. ___ Importance ... ___ Independence . ___ Inquisitiveness . ___ Insight ...... ___ Intelligence ... ___ Intensity ..... ___ Justice ..... . Kindness .... Knowledge ... ___ Leadership ... ___ Leaming ..... ___ Life ........ ___ Logic ....... ___ Love ....... ___ Loyalty ...... ___ Mastery ..... ___ Material Goods Mechanics ... Mental Health Money ...... ___ Morality ..... ___ +28 +Naturalness ... Nature ..... . Nonconformance Obsetvance ... Order ...... . +-- +Originality ... ___ +Outgoing +Outdoors + +Patience ..... Patriotism .... Peace ....... ___ People ...... ___ Perfection ... . Persistence ... Physical Agility ___ Physical Exercise___ Plant Life .... Pleasantness .. ____ Power ..... . Practicality ... ___ Prestige ..... ____ Pride ...... . Productivity .. ____ Protection .... Quiet ....... ___ Recognition Relationship Relaxation ... Reliability .... ___ Religion ..... ___ Respect ..... ___ Responsibility . ___ +Risking ...... ___ Safety ....... ___ Satisfaction .. . Security ..... ___ Self-Confidence Self-Esteem .. Self-Expression.___ Self-Growth .. Self-Reliance .. Sensibility .... ___ Serenity ..... ___ Seriousness .. . Service ..... . Sex ....... . Sharing ...... ___ Sincerity ..... ___ +Skill ....... . Smelling ..... ___ Sobriety ..... ___ Socialization .. Solitude ..... Speed ....... ___ Spiritual ..... ___ Sports ...... ___ Stability ..... ___ Status ...... . Strength Support Surprise Survival Talent ..... . Taste +Teaching .... ___ +Thoughtfulness ___ Thrill Togetherness Tolerance .... Travel ..... . Trust ...... . Trustworthiness Truth ...... . --Understanding Unselfishness Variety ...... ___ Warmth Wisdom Women Work +29 +The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 30-32. +THE KANE SYNDROME +Willis C. Finck +The small globe encapsuling a vision of a snowy winter scene tumbles from a hand, and the barely audible word "Rosebud" trickles from the mouth of Charles Foster Kane as he draws his last breath in the opening scene of the great film classic Citizen Kane. The picture, with Orson Welles as director and star, celebrates its 50th birthday, and is praised by reviewers as the outstanding movie of the twentieth century. +Citizen Kane is a technical masterpiece in many respects, but it would not have survived as a masterpiece on technique and style alone. As we recognize now, it foreshadowed the human dilemma of our times, especially in affluent societies: How can we have so much, and at the same time have so little? It captured the pathology of our century which Viktor Frankl diagnosed, 1Oyears before the film was made, as "existential vacuum." The story of Charles Foster Kane is a life journey reflecting the three great schools of Viennese psychology, a journey of an affluent young man struggling to fill his psychological void. +Our first view of Citizen Kane is the energetic, hedonistic youngster, pursuing his Freudian dreams. All his energy is devoted to gratifying his wants. He collects things and people. He buys artifacts from all over the world to fill the emptiness of his expansive mansion, a symbol for himself. He buys a mistress, pays for her ill-fated singing career, and bribes and cajoles the critics into writing favorable reviews about her. He hires away the journalists from a competing newspaper. He collects, buys, bribes, and stores, but the void in his life only grows larger. +Frustrated with his inability to gain relief for his anguish, Charley Kane turns to a second strategy. Subconsciously he tells himself: "If pleasure doesn't bring fulfillment, maybe power will." He puts the Adlerian plan to work. He recognizes the power of the media and buys up all the newspapers and radio stations he can. He wants editorial control of whatever is being said. He doesn't care about truth. He cares about control. He wants to be the first great media power broker of the twentieth century. He doesn't report history, he wants to make it. He tells a reporter: "You provide the prose, and I'll provide the war." On another occasion: "People will think what I tell them to think." His drive for power is so +30 +intense that it conflicts with his drive for pleasure. Nothing in his life brings him lasting satisfaction, only momentary gratification. He is surrounded by an emptiness he cannot fill. In one of the most poignant scenes of the film, Kane sits at one end of a very long dinner table, and seated at the other, almost out of voice range, is his "significant" other, who should be a meaningful part of his life, but isn't. +One short scene lets the audience glimpse the psychological mystery that has shrouded the life of Citizen Kane. His mother runs a small boarding house in Colorado, and when she comes unexpectedly into some mining holdings, she decides that the best thing she can do with the money is to send Charley away from his home and family to a richer social and academic environment. No two minutes in any movie better depict an environment devoid of familial love than when Mrs. Kane hands her son over to a world of prestige. The stage is set for the unfolding of a meaningless life. Charley finds himself desperate for love, without a meaningful purpose, and without an answer to the "why" he was taken from his loving, happy, secure childhood and thrust into a world where everything was done for him. Stripped of his dignity, his childhood humanity, his sense of purpose, Charley Kane is sent to a life which Frankl characterizes as a life where one has enough to live on, and nothing to live for. +Kane is not blind to his situation but his meaning is blocked. He suffers from what Elisabeth Lukas has termed "the bad parents complex .. ." Unconsciously, he blames his mother, his childhood, and he remains unaware of the treasures within his spiritual dimension that would enable him to transcend his life of pleasure and power. +One of the characters in the film says: "Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it.· This Is the typical misconception of a society that believes "everything" means pleasure and power. +A boy is to a man as a rosebud is to a rose. Kane died a boy, his unfulfilled potentials went up in smoke. In response to the meaning of rosebud, one character says: "I don't think any word can explain a man's life." Ironically, rosebud comes close to summing up Charles Foster Kane. +In the last scene of the movie we see acre upon acre of the accumulation of the things in Kane's life. The camera eventually takes us to the furnace room where much of the abundance of a lifetime Is being fed to the fire. It is that moment that allows us total insight into a life of futility as the small sled Rosebud is consumed by the flames. +31 +Life like Charles Foster Kane's is one of the great tragedies of this century. Viktor Frankl diagnosed this illness long before Citizen Kane was produced. If Orson Welles is considered a genius for his direction and screen writing, shouldn't Frankl be considered as one of the greatest psychological pioneers for recognizing the Kane syndrome long before it became the prevalent psychological disease of the twentieth century? +WILLIS C. FINCK is the Executive Director of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, P. 0. Box 2852, Saratoga, California 95070, U.S.A. +32 +The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 33-40. +FRANKL AND JUNG ON MEANING +Thomas J. Peterson +Meaning and healing are closely connected for both Frankl and Jung. The discovery of meaning is essential for psychological health. Jung saw the relationship between neurosis and the lack of meaning: "A psychoneurosis must be understood as the suffering of a human being who has not discovered what life means for him. "8' P-255 Similarly, Frankl has written extensively about the neurosis of our times growing in an "existential vacuum," a feeling of meaninglessness.4 Logotherapy has been defined as healing through meaning. 1 +Frankl and Jung draw attention to the important relationship between a person's belief system and psychological health. Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzche's aphorism: "He who has a why for living, will surmount almost every how.''4' P·103 Jung expressed the identical thought: "Man can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense...•10• P-75 +Given the agreement on the role of meaning, one might expect a good deal of similarity between Jung and Frankl on the nature of personality, the conduct of therapy, or the role of the therapist. This is not the case. This article suggests a possible reason for the disagreement. It first summarizes the respective views on the preferred method of attaining meaning, and, second, tries for a "reconciliation strategy" via Jung's theory of types. It is proposed that Frankl is an extrovert with an extroverted view of meaning, and Jung is an introvert who has provided a complementary interior reading of meaning. It is hoped that this article contributes to the constructive discussion between logotherapists and Jungians on opposing but not mutually exclusive approaches to meaningful living. +Frankl: The Power of Objective Meaning +Frankl's primary orientation as a therapist is to the discovery of objective meanings in the "ten thousand situations of which life consists."5' p.x For Frankl, "Man should not ask what he may expect from life, but should rather understand that life expects something +33 +from him."2' p.xm For each situation there is a special meaning of the moment that calls for realization. 1 +To respond to the call of each unique situation requires an alert conscience. Conscience, according to Frankl, is the intuitive "prime phenomen" of the human spirit that can "sniff out" the meaning of the situation. The call of conscience comes from beyond the ego; it is wholly other than it. Meaning and value emerge from this realm "beyond and above man".4' P-54 According to Frankl, for meaning to preserve its demand quality, it must originate "outside of' the subject. According to Frankl, we do not invent meanings, we detect them."4' p.te +For meaning to be life directing, it must be objective. Meaning that derives from instinctual sources, whether as conceived by Freud, Jung, or Rogers, is not objective. "Instinctual meanings" do not confront as "other," ie., they do not stand beyond the individual. Frankl stated: "Existence falters unless it is lived in terms of transcendence toward something beyond itself."4 ' P·12 +Rogerian self-actualization does not sufficiently challenge the person to look outside him/herself and subtly encourages narcissism. For Frankl, the self, if pursued, is not found. Paradoxically, selfactualization occurs only when the self is not the intended target. +A second objection to subjective meanings is also found in Frankl's critique of Freud's and Jung's emphasis on instincts. Instinctual existence is not compatible with existential living. The uniqueness of human life lies in its potential to stand over against instinct; any grounding of life in the instinctual robs the person of what is most human, i.e., the ability to choose. Frankl connects instinctual existence with "driven-ness" and states: "Genuine religiousness has not the character of driven-ness but rather of deciding-ness. Indeed, religiousness stands with its decidingness--and falls with its gii'~~n-ness. In a word, religiousness is either existential or not at all."6' +Meaning that is centered on the self, whether the instinctually based archetypes of Jung or the self-actualizing tendency of Rogers, removes the demand quality. Meaning pulls us toward some cause or action in the world. The tension between meaning "out there• and the human being "in here" is healthy, stimulating the person to realize the unique meaning opportunities available. +If the self to be integrated needs an object or cause, then approaches to the psyche that accept inherent potentialities or +34 +subjective concerns are suspect. Introspection can too easily become self-preoccupation, taking the person away from the challenges of the world. Frankl observes: "Only the neurotic ... is no longer objectively ~f!§!nted: he is primarily interested in his own subjective condition.''3' +For Frankl, as it was for Adler, life's meaning is to be found primarily in socially useful cooperation. We are social creatures and life consists in the active participation in the community. Inward turning means turning away from the source of meaning, i.e., the world and its manifold requests. If not primarily oriented to the world, the self is liable to fall prey to an obsessive self-scrutiny. Frankl feels humans must keep in touch with the world so as to set up the vital tension between what is and what ought to be. Viewing existence as a dialectical polarity of self and world, Frankl's spirit is squarely behind the world part of the polarity. Though not neglecting the self (eg., his conscience), Frankl is mindful of the import of the world in the dynamics of the psyche. When Frankl speaks, he finds his voice when speaking for the world, and the value of that testimony shines forth. +Jung: The Significance of the Psyche +Carved above the door to Jung's home in K0snacht, Switzerland, is a Latin inscription which can be translated: "Called or not, the gods are present." For Jung, a materialistic worldview such as Freud's that reduces the "gods" or religious phenomena to projections of fatherimages fails to explain these phenomena on their own level. Much as Frankl has criticized Freud's reductionist or "nothing but" tendencies, Jung has forcefully argued that certain numinous experiences are best conceived of as "religious," as phenomena in their own right rather than as symptoms or disguises of some other more basic force. +The preferred path to meaningful living for Jung consists in cultivating the right attitude toward these autonomous powers of the psyche. If these "gods" are ever present, then for Jung living as if they did not exist, i.e., denying their existence, is an error. According to this reductionistic perspective, religion is a myth no longer needed. Jung believes this reductionistic attitude is a form of modern hubris and manifests itself in a one-sided, overly rationalistic approach to life --an approach that does not stoop to consider what last night's dream or today's inexplicable mood might mean. Such a stiff-necked refusal to consider inner warnings or +35 +messages leaves the individual isolated from what Jung considers to be the wellspring of psychological health: the archetypes. +The archetypes are the "gods" that are ever present, fundamental patterns of thought and affect that can influence and, on occasion, guide a person's life. Jung's clients, often middle-aged or older, complained of a cramped, insipid kind of depression, an existential vacuum, and enlisted his aid in returning to this inner spring of meaning. The Jungian method is a walking with the client through dreams, images, fantasy productions, back to the latent or emerging archetype. +The attitude most conducive to finding meaning is that of partnership with the unconscious, a willingness to listen and take Into consideration the complementary view of the unconscious. Hannah referred to this partnership In her biography of Jung: "The whole idea is an Auseinandersetzung between conscious and unconscious. This untranslatable German word means having it out with a thorough discussion of every aspect, airing all the pros and cons, always with a hint of eventually coming to terms."7' P-109 +For Jung, the conscious ego and unconscious self are related in a compensatory fashion, with the self usually giving messages to the ego via dreams that symbolically represent advice to adjust or change attitudes or actions. For example, persons who consciously see themselves to be above reproach might dream of being accosted by a leper or of wrestling with a beggar. Such striking images serve to remind the dreamer of a deeper truth. The ego that consistently neglects these balancing messages is apt to fall prey to the power of the state (we will tell you what to do) or to the overweening pride (that is likely to suffer a fall) described above. For Jung, this essentially religious attitude acts as a counterweight to the undue influence of mass movements and as a means of attaining a tempered or balanced view of the self. +Recalling Frankl's emphasis on the external world and obligations to meanings in it, Jung articulates an opposing position. He speaks for the significance of the psyche, for the power of internal forces. Jung counsels paying close attention to these forces and warns that denying or minimizing them invites an unhealthy onesidedness. Regarding the tension between self and world, Jung dwelt most on and explicated best the self and its dynamics rather than the world. In a letter to a friend from his school years, Jung wrote: +36 +Fate will have it--and this has always been the case with me--that +all the "outer" aspects of my life should be accidental. Only what +is interior has proved to have substance and a determining value. +As a result, all memory of outer events has faded, and perhaps +these "outer'' experiences were never so very essential anyhow, +or were so only in that they coincided with phases of my inner +development."9' p.viii-i• +Taward Responsible Inwardness and Anchored Commitment +For both Frankl and Jung, meaning is found, not invented. It is an irreducible thing-in-itself. Reducing meaning to some other force (power, pleasure) can lead to nihilism, escapism, or another form of existential neurosis. However, meaning for Frankl and Jung is not found in similar ways. It is proposed that Frankl, as an extrovert, has set out a framework for one possible method of meaning achievement, i.e., commitment to some important cause, preferably something in the world. Jung, on the other hand, has advocated attentiveness to inner states so as to remain in touch with important life forces present in (but not necessarily limited to) the psyche. +In an article on his differences with Freud, Jung provides a possible means of reconciling these contradictory and apparently mutually exclusive viewpoints: 'True expression consists in giving form to what is observed."8' P·118 Extroverts, according to Jung, are primarily oriented to the external world of people and things. Psychic energy flows, as it were, outward. External objects have value and hold the interest of the extrovert. An extrovert is more "in" the world, aware of circumstances. Introverts are oriented, primarily, in the opposite direction, looking inward. Ideas, images, internal reactions are more valued than external events. The world is viewed as intrusive to the introvert, rather than as beckoning for possible activity. +The introvert will notice and emphasize different aspects of a gestalt than the extrovert. Each type, giving true testimony of its own perception, will have two different stories to tell. The reconciliation strategy is to accept the testimony of both Frankl and Jung as valid for his own psychological type, thereby obviating fruitless but all too common dichotomous choicemaking: either Frankl or Jung is "right,• but not both. +Acceptance of the duality of truth then leads to greater understanding and tolerance. The presumption of having "it" can foster a +37 +suspIc1on of or contempt for the opposite aspect. For example, extroverts are apt to see introverts as hopelessly lost in fantasy, idle daydreamers, and rather passive. Introverts tend to view extroverts as superficial, rootless, with no inner guide. Because of viewing the other through your own strength, the other's weakness is especially obvious. +Fig. 1. MEANING ORIENTATION MODEL +Responsibility +(meaningful living) +Analytical Psychology +(anchored commitment) +Introversion +Ill +Inward ism +(neurotic seK-concem) +II Logotherapy +(anchored commitment) +Extroversion +IV +Crusaderism +(escapist turning to the world) +Irresponsibility +(meaningless living) +Figure 1 presents a model of four different meaning orientations. The two axes are responsibility and psychological type (i.e., introversion or extraversion). By crossing the two axes, four possible meaning orientations result. +38 +Quadrant 1 is Jung's analytical psychology, emphasizing an inner anchoring while at the same time incorporating responsible commitment to the world. In Jung's own life, his dedication to his family, his patients, and his writings reflect this kind of responsible relationship with the world. +Quadrant 2 is Frankl's logotherapy. It is also an anchored commitment, but with the emphasis on the commitment aspect. +Quadrant 3 is labeled lnwardism--the neurotic preoccupation with the self. An unbalanced or irresponsible centering on the self prevents the person from taking the necessary actions in the world. Thoughts or ideas without action are empty. +Quadrant 4 is what Maddi has called "crusaderism."11 Crusaderism is the throwing of oneself into causes in order to avoid meaninglessness; the meaning of the cause is less important than the fleeting chance to merge oneself into the warmth of the group. Maddi writes: +Crusaders are caught up by the vitality, drama, and group cohesiveness inherent in causes and movements, with the actual content and goal pursued being less important. This exposes the vulnerability of crusaders to meaninglessness--The commitments they make are not based on the substance of the cause so much +11 147 +as on its accoutrements. • P• +Avoiding neurotic self-concern is the task confronting introverts while cursaderism is the challenge extroverts must face. Frances Wickes, a Jungian analyst, outlined the different life tasks for each type: +The extrovert spending himself freely in relationships and holding himself in continual contact with the world of things and people must learn that we can give only from our wealth, not from our poverty; and realize that without an inner development there may be nothing worth the giving or building, for the outer life may become a mass of disconnected fragments. The introvert, withdrawing constantly into himself, must learn completion through relationships and outer achievement. He must understand that possession without use is also barren and that use In its broader sense involves the connection of the inner and the +outer_,,2. p.110 +39 +Extroverts are apt to see introverts as Quadrant 3 examples even when they aren't and, similarly, introverts are likely to categorize extroverts as crusaders. +True respect for the other is based on understanding. The paths of extroversion and introversion may lead in opposite directions but they both return to the same source. +TOM PETERSON, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Central University, Pella, Iowa 50219, USA. +References +1. +Fabry, J. 8. (1980). The pursuit of meaning. NY: Harper & Row. + +2. +Frankl, V. E. (1955). The doctor and the soul. NY: Alfred A. Knopf. + + +3. Frankl, V. E. (1959). The spiritual dimension in existential analysis and logotherapy. Journal of Individual Psychology, 15, 157-165. +4. Frankl, V. E. (1967). Psychotherapy and existentialism. NY: Simon & Schuster. +5. +Frankl, V. E. (1969). The will to meaning. NY: New American Library. + +6. +Frankl, V. E. {1975). The unconscious god. NY: Simon & Schuster. + + +7. Hannah, B. (1981). Jung, his life and work. NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons. +8. Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World. +9. Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. NY: Random House. +10. +Jung, C. G. {1964). Man and his symbols. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday. + +11. +Maddi, S. {1970). The search for meaning. In M. Page (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (p. 147). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. + +12. +Wickes, F. G. (1966). The inner world of childhood. NY: Appleton-Century. + + +40 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1991, 15, 41-45. +THE MEANING CRISIS IN RUSSIA TODAY +Dmitry A Leontiev +Russia, the country where some of the roots of existentialism lie, finds itself today in a border situation -economically, as well as psychologically and spiritually. Perhaps the only adequate worldview in Russia today is Frankl's tragic optimism.5 No wonder his logotherapy has been getting increasing recognition since his 1987 Moscow visit. +Today, Russians are in a deep existential crisis, suffering from lack of meaning and values, the existential vacuum. The crisis is quite different from the one in Western affluent societies where material problems have been more or less solved and people look for meanings on a higher level. The meaning crisis in Russia has different causes. For decades, the entire population lived in a narrow, conservative, determined way. Even people who rejected this imposed value system and formed their own in opposition to the official values, were thus influenced by official Communist ideology. +The imposed value system, as with all totalitarian ideologies, was based on a myth -the Socialist or Communist myth well known in the West: private property is the source of exploitation, the class struggle is motivation for progress, the just society is the utopian ideal, and so on. This seventy-year old myth has been destroyed to an extent that makes it difficult to find a similar total demolition of values in an entire population anywhere else. +The consequences are manifold. First, many people, especially the old, have to admit to themselves that their whole life was meaningless or had a wrong meaning. But it is psychologically impossible to admit this and believe that life has been in vain or even harmful. Psychological defense mechanisms force these people to deny the facts in order to find positive meanings. Second, people take a cynical attitude toward all values because for many there were no others than Communist values. Frankl maintains that there is existential vacuum in our century because our traditions no longer tell us what values to choose.4•P•142 The consequences of the breakdown of the entire totalitarian ideology are incomparably more extensive than the breakdown of traditions in industrial society. +41 +There are three possibilities to overcome this vacuum. The first is a personal spiritual effort to find one's own individual meaning. But few people in Russia have this capacity because they lack a philosophical and psychological culture or, one might say, they lack the directives of a conscience that remained undeveloped under totalitarian pressure. The second possibility is to hold on to the old discredited values, but this leads to conflicts with present reality. The third possibility is to find new societal values. People suffering from existential vacuum are ready to accept new values offered by others. These values may be religious, nationalistic, but also egoistic, profit-oriented, or hedonistic. Those ready to accept the values of others easily submit to the advocates of new values and become defensive of these new values because they fear their lives will become meaningless again. +Frankl lists these two characteristics -conformity and fanaticism -as symptoms of the collective neurosis of our time.3 They also are what Juri Afanasyev, the radical-democratic representative, called the majority of the First Congress of the USSR in 1989: the aggressive-submissive majority. This epithet has become popular in Russia but in today's value crisis which uncritically accepts any alternative values, it is also applicable to the old Communists (which certainly are no majority) and to most of the socalled democrats. Thus, nationalistic, political, sometimes religious and other values are accepted. Regardless of the variety of values, aggressive submissiveness is accepted on the right as well as on the left. It is the characteristic symptom of today's value pluralism in Russia. +Psychological Views of Meaning +There are two main traditions in psychology that seem to view the meaning of life in different ways. The first has its roots in the psychology of Carl Jung, who left no explicit theory of meaning but some interesting thoughts. Jung states that finding the meaning of life is a difficult task which, however, can be solved by action. "Fortunately," says Jung, "a beneficial and forebearing nature doesn't ask most of us to raise the fatal question of the meaning of life. And a question that is not raised need not be answered. "7·P·208 The second tradition starts with Alfred Adler who maintains that every human being has a meaning of life by the age of five. This meaning usually remains unconscious, but objectively exists regardless of whether or not it later becomes conscious.1 Is there a contradiction between the two opinions? Frankl balances these two views: Finding meaning is a special tasks,p.ss (see Jung) but each individual is +42 +able to find the specific meaning of his or her life, and cannot live without it.5·P•274 (see Adler). "Whether we want it or not, whether we believe it or not, our life has meaning as long as we are breathing. Even a man ready to commit suicide believes in a meaning, if not of life, or living on, so of dying. If he really believed in no meaning at all, he couldn't lift a finger and thus not commit suicide," says Frankl. +The American scholar Peter Ebersole asked many people to describe the meaning of their lives and illustrate it with an example. Hardly ever did he receive a negative answer.2 My student Mikhail Kalaschnikov in Moscow got similar results. These results agree with Frankl's thesis that meaning is accessible to every person. But how is this compatible with the great number of people who lack meaning as Frankl has found? +This contradiction is only apparent because the quoted statements are mere projections of a complex meaning phenomenon. The key to the understanding of this phenomenon is found in Leo Tolstoy's My Confession. In this book Tolstoy describes in detail his search for meaning. "I realized," he wrote, "that to understand the meaning of life, life must have meaning, and we must have the mind capacity to comprehend it."9•P·94 And: "If I want to understand life and its meaning, I must not lead the life of a parasite but a life that humankind has found meaningful, although I still have to check the meaning for myself.9·P·99 +My reflections can be summarized in a few short theses: The life of every human being is intentional and therefore has some objective meaning. I agree with Adler that this meaning can be seen at a pre-school age. It is an empirical meaning that may remain unconscious for a long time, often until death. But at one time this meaning may become conscious -either when a therapist or life itself asks the question. Then I confront the task to make the meaning of my life conscious. And to make meaning conscious, I have to appraise my whole life. If I come to the conclusion that my life objectively has a low or doubtful meaning, if I am dissatisfied with my empirical meaning, I will repress the true meaning of my life. I will say, then, my life has no meaning, that is, no meaning worthy of a human being. In other words: if making conscious my true meaning would threaten my self-esteem, meaning remains unconscious, and I experience a feeling of meaninglessness, although I long for true meaning. The meaning of everyone's life is unique because his or her life is objectively unique. If one tries to change the meaning of one's life intellectually without changing one's life, life will prove that this meaning is wrong. A beautiful example for this is found in the famous novel, Crime +43 +and Punishment, by another great Russian writer, Feodor Dostoevski. Rodion Raskolnikov creates his self-image, founded on the idea of his superiority, but when he tries to live this idea, he experiences its falsehood because it is based purely on intellect. +I propose the following definition: Seen from a psychological point of view, the meaning of life is a more or less conscious and adequate experience of the direction our life takes. The point is not to make conscious the unconscious, but to live meaningfully, regardless of whether one can intellectually formulate a meaning concept. +Four possibilities are conceivable: +1) I am unconsciously satisfied with life. I have no problems, am fully occupied with my activities, and see no meaning tasks. +2) I am unconsciously dissatisfied. I feel emptiness, frustration, a feeling of meaninglessness, without understanding why. +3) I am consciously unsatisfied. In this case, too, I have a feeling of meaninglessness, and actively and consciously search for meaning, while telling researchers I have no meaning. +4) I am consciously satisfied. I can define my meaning which is genuine and in no conflict with my actual life. +Meaning in Russia +Now back to the situation in Russia today. Many ideas expressed by democratically oriented politicians and intellectuals are nothing but meanings formulated in the mind which often contradict the real life of these people. This is why these ideas, since 1985, could not give life a new direction. Only urgent changes of the economic mechanism, now in process, can change their lives and meanings. +Where do people find their meaning? Here are some experimental findings I have collected, together with my student Mikhail Kalaschnikov: I made a Russian version of the well-known Purpose-in-Life test by James Crumbaugh and Leonard Maholick. We added five scales. Three described ways to find meaning: a) life goals, b) emotional wealth and attractiveness of life, and c) satisfaction with self-actualization. These scales add goals, processes, and results of living to the sources of meanings. The two other scales refer to locus of control. One explores how much the individual is able to control his or her life, the other explores how much life in principle is controllable. All scales correlated well with each other and to the general degree of life meaning, also with the scales of the Personal Orientations Inventory by E. Shostrom. The qualitative research about the +44 +concrete meaning of life agreed with the results of Elisabeth Lukas' Logotest: most often meaning was found in family and children, then profession, then life processes, with other meaning sources mentioned less often. Family, children, and profession totalled about 56% of all responses. 8 The difference between the sexes was small. +Based on my experiences in daily life, theoretical considerations, and experimental research, I have come to several conclusions: The extensive meaning crisis in Russia is caused by the collapse of the Communist ideology which forced on all people a meaning without alternatives. Today this meaning exists only in a few social groups. The majority feels a meaninglessness which mirrors the lack of a desirable life direction. In this situation, meaning found without coercion by an ideology is relatively effective but not sufficient to guarantee a satisfying life. Overcoming the meaning crisis in Russia depends on changes in people's lives that they can gain from their rulers. But this is only a chance. We have the responsibility not to let that chance slip away. +DMITRY A. LEONTIEV, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the Lomonossow University, Moscow, Russia. The article is a translation of the address given at the Viktor Frankl symposium in Vienna, December, 1991. +REFERENCES +1. +Adler, A. (1932/1980). What life should mean to you. London. + +2. +De Vogler, K., & Ebersole, P. (1981). Adults' meaning in life. Psychological Reports, 49, 87-90. + +3. +Frankl, V. (1967). Psychotherapy and existentialism. NY: Simon & Schuster. + + +4. Frankl, V. (1979). Der mensch vor the frage nach dem sinn. Munich: Piper. +5. +Frankl, V. (1984). Man's search for meaning. NY: Simon & Schuster. + +6. +Frankl, V. (1985). Logos, paradox, and the search for meaning. In M. Mahoney (Ed.), Cognition and psychotherapy. NY: A. Freeman. + +7. +Jung, C. G. (1972). Vom werden der personlichkeit. In Gesammelte werke, bd. 17. Olten & Freiburg. + +8. +Lukas, E. (1972). Zur Validierung der logotherapie. In V. Frankl, Der wi/le zum sinn. Bern: Hans Huber. + +9. +Tolstoy L.(no year).ln L. A. Hauff (Trans.). Meine beichte [My confession]. Berlin. + + +45 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 46-49. +SEARCH-FOR-MEANING GROUPS FOR THE HOMELESS +E. Ann Berens +For 11 years I have been working with lay-led Search-for-Meaning groups for emotionally disturbed adults. Purpose: to develop selfawareness and restore contact with the inner self, and so examine and strengthen the foundation from which participants live their lives. The Socratic dialogue helps participants clarify their stand on such topics as values, identity, reality, beliefs, and self-affirmation. +Two years ago I offered a Search-for-Meaning group to a housing facility for homeless families--McKinley House in Berkeley. The participants were selected because of their determination to get themselves and their families back on their feet and overcome their problems. They were ready to think reflectively about their lives. +In Search-for-Meaning groups the facilitator and participants meet on an equal basis. The discussion leads to a give-and-take of talking and listening, and this engenders trust and respect in the group. The leader acts as catalyst. Group members do not impose their own ideas or dogmas onto others. Each responds to questions in their own way, from their own experience, with respect for each other. Each group member is accepted as a unique and valuable member to the human race. +Viktor Frankl's story of imprisonment and deprivation, told at the introduction of each new session, offers a sense of perspective to these homeless people in transition. The Socratic dialogue concentrates on five areas: values, identity, reality, belief, and self-affirmation. +Values. In responding to a question such as "What do you value most in your life right now?" participants turn to their own situation, disregarding everything else, such as the impressions they might make or the expectations of others. +Once they have settled in McKinley House, their basic demands for food, shelter, and warm clothing are met. They have taken the first positive step toward survival and are able to look at what they value. They are given the opportunity to clarify what it is they want, and to focus on meaningful, realistic goals. +46 +As they come to trust the group, they learn to give honest responses. Their response to the question about values may be, "I value my friends most," or "a roof over ny head," or "my TV." In the course of the Socratic dialogue they come to understand that sometimes there is a deeper value behind the first answers they give -need for companionship, security, or escape from loneliness. They listen to each other, examining their own responses and beginning to understand what they most want from life. In so doing they may glimpse areas of meaning they can explore and pursue. +Identity. Questions dealing with identity lead to self-examination and the realization that people see themselves differently from how others see them. A simple question such as "Who are you? How would you describe yourself?" can help them realize that they have an inner identity beyond the roles they play or the job they had. They are reminded that they wouldn't have found a place like McKinley House to live in if they hadn't had the strength to make decisions that help keep their families together. For whatever reasons, they have come through an extremely difficult period in their lives and are beginning to re-establish themselves, aiming at becoming independent, self-supporting, productive members of society again. +The group emphasizes the positive things that have happened. Most participants come to realize how much they learned through the experience of homelessness. Emphasis on the small successes each day helps restore their self-esteem. Many other questions increase self-awareness and acceptance of themselves, such as "What strength do you have?" and "What do you like about yourself?" +Reality (as opposed to illusions or fantasy). Participants are led to see the truth in their situation -to see their reality as strongly influenced by their own freedom of choice. They come to realize that they are not totally helpless victims of circumstances, but that there are areas in their lives where they are in control. We discuss their share of responsibleness in everything that happens to them. They are made aware that misfortune and suffering may lead to understanding their reality, to growth and learning, and that what matters is how they meet the challenge of the moment. +"What is the truth about your situation?" "What are some of the fears that emerge when you look at your present situation?" "Are they valid or groundless fears?" Such questions lead them to see what clouds their reality. Fears may cause them to see the worst, the most negative +47 +possibilities. A single father was fighting for the custody of his two sons. His wife had died two years previously, he had spent time in jail, and his boys had been living with his parents who couldn't cope with them any longer. His in-laws didn't think he was capable of caring for the boys. He felt they were being unreasonable and just hounding him, and he was bitter about it. Through discussion in the group he came to a better understanding of his in-law's point of view and to separate reality from wishful thinking. +Beliefs. Search-for-Meaning groups help participants clarify their own beliefs and understand the effect these have on the participants' actions. One basic question is, "Realizing that what other people believe about me isn't really important, what do I believe about myself?" After some discussion, Bill said, "I always looked at other peoples' beliefs about me, never my own, regardless of whether I considered them right or wrong. Now, at the age of 36, I realize that this was a mistake." To which another member said, "But that's past, we all make mistakes, and learn from them." Bill replied, with wonder and hope in his voice, as if he had made a profound discovery, 'Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have to rethink everything.• +Self-affirmation. This line of search, too, strengthens the positive characteristics of the participants. Making self-affirmations is a means of countering negative thoughts. +A single father, who reached the point of seeking employment and hoping to be able to move out of McKinley House soon, said: "I have some direction now and I believe each step I take is leading me where I want to be. I believe I will find a good position for myself." Another participant said: "I believe I can handle anything that happens." Another single father was able to state that he learned to deal with his mother's criticism and high expectations. He could tell her clearly that he was doing construction work and enjoying it. He had lost his job in an insurance company when he became homeless as a result of his wife's drug addiction and irresponsibility toward their children and their financial situation. He gained custody of the children and was able to take care of his own and the children's needs satisfactorily. +* * * +Lay leaders of the Search-for-Meaning groups come from varied backgrounds such as teaching, acting, social work, etc. Each brings his or her own experience to the group. Common denominators are +48 +sensitivity, interest, and caring for people no matter what their background. +One of the prerequisites to becoming a leader is to have read Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and to be familiar with such logotherapeutic principles as our freedom to choose our attitudes, even in hopeless situations, and our freedom to respond to challenges in our own ways and in so doing take responsibility for our lives. +The five topics discussed can be related to an Infinite number of areas of significance to group members -loneliness, fear, guilt, making changes, being true to oneself. The communication of ideas and experience, in an atmosphere of trust, give encouragement to risk changes that can lead to healing. +E. ANN BERENS [56 El Camino de/ Diablo, Orinda, California 94563, USA] is a volunteer with the Creative Living Center, a Red Cross program for emotionally disturbed adults, and in a transitional housing facility for homeless families, and with the Berkeley (California) Ecumenical Chaplaincy for the Homeless. +49 +The International Forum For Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 50-52. +RELEASE FROM VOWS OF MARRIAGE +AnnWestennann +Editor's note: The healthful philosophy of logotherapy spreads in many, often unexpected directions. Ann Westermann, a member of the Kansas City Institute of Logotherapy, submitted this paper which deserves a place in our journal. +Although we would all love "to live happily ever after" once we have said "I do!" many marriages do not survive "until death do us part." Mine ended painfully after 26 years, and I wanted to bring closure with dignity to a marriage that held great meaning for us for a long time. This ceremony helped me express what I wanted to say to my husband, my children, my friends. +I was fortunate to have had a sensitive pastoral psychotherapist, who is also an ordained minister. Creating this special service was a collaborative endeavor between us. For me, this was the culmination of a long process through loss, grief, pain, and guilt. It was tearfully written and rewritten over a period of many months. It is offered here to those going through the process of separation and divorce, and to therapists in divorce counseling, to help bring about a peaceful parting of ways. +This type of healing ceremony, along the lines of logotherapeutic thought, serves as closure to an irrevocably severed relationship in an attitude of reverence, and also builds a good-will bridge for the future. By emphasizing positive aspects of the past, the still-remaining meanings, future relationships with children who were the result of the union, and ongoing caring for extended family and friends, much of the hurt can be healed and antagonistic attitudes transformed. +This kind of ritual may not have much value unless it is created by the participants as a result of their own process of dealing with their losses. Each marriage is unique, the needs of each couple are different and, to be meaningful, content and location of the ceremony should be individually determined. +When my own process in therapy had reached the stage of relinquishment, I felt the time was right to make a public declaration via +50 +this ritual. The right setting for me was a church. Since my therapist was also a minister it was arranged to hold this special private service in the sanctuary of the church. Thanksgiving was the anniversary of our engagement, and it seemed the appropriate day for the ending of a commitment made long ago. To my deep regret my former husband felt too uncomfortable to personally participate in the service at the last minute and we had to proceed without his active participation. Even so, the ceremony brought healing and meaning to me, the children, and those present. For me, it was this service that "put the marriage to rest" far more than our day in court. The civil decree of divorce appeared as a legal formality compared to the deeply felt "fare-well" expressed through this service. +In retrospect, I cannot say that our three-year separation and divorce process was always "friendly," but it was by and large characterized by an attitude of good-will, which I attribute to keeping the focus on "what's best for all concerned" and this is precisely what creating the ceremony helped to foster. +Excerpts from the Ceremony +Minister. Ann, you and Pete once stood in a place like this and exchanged marriage vows made in good faith and earnest commitment. But sometimes the most earnest vows cannot be kept; sometimes a marriage cannot endure, in spite of the greatest efforts of the partners to save it. You have struggled hard and have born grief and pain on the long path to this difficult decision. It is time now to accept and affirm that decision and to be accepted and affirmed in it. In doing so it is fitting that we stand again before friends and declare release from our vows of marriage. +Ann: I, Ann, do now solemnly and respectfully release myself and you, Pete, from the bond of marriage. I sever the ties that have united us. I am I, you are you. We are separate and free to be ourselves; free +to go our separate ways; free to pursue what we each value in life. +Pete, I release you with love. Go in peace. +Minister. As a minister, I now declare that this marriage has ended. Pete and Ann are no longer husband and wife. Let us therefore humbly respect the breaking of these ties. You are set free to face new futures as separate persons. Carry no burden of guilt or recrimination for what is past; accept grief as it may come, but release the past into the past and receive the future as a gift of new possibilities. +51 +Ann: Pete, I have released you as my husband and ask you to be my friend. I am no longer your wife but I affirm again my love and respect for you. I thank you for the good things you have brought into my life and which nothing can wipe away. I ask you forgiveness for the pain I have caused you and offer you mine for the hurts we have done one another. Your life will always be important to me. +Minister: Though Pete and Ann are no longer husband and wife, they do remain father and mother. What began as a marriage became a family, as Ralph, Audrey, Curt, and Kenny came into the life that Ann and Pete made together, and into the marriage they have now brought to an end. As they do that, it is important to know that the bonds between parents and children do not end with the ending of a marriage. +Ann: Pete, I cherish you as the father of our children, and I call on you to continue to be faithful to that trust. I ask you to love them always and to the utmost of your ability, to protect, guide, and care for them as long as they shall need or want that from you. +Ralph, Audrey, Curt, and Kenny, I cherish you as my children and give thanks for your being. I pledge to love you always. +My dear children, I am sad for the pain that this separation has caused you. I ask you not to blame yourselves or to feel guilty about this, because you are not its cause. I hope that you, too, will be able to forgive us for the pain you have felt. +You are the best children in the world (to use your dad's phrase). Although we are no longer married, we are still your parents and we love you very much. +To you, my friends, I give thanks for your love and faithful support and ask that you continue to care for each of us, not to pass judgment or condemnation, but to accept this decision confirmed here today, and to continue in your caring support. +ANN WESTERMANN is an ordained, ecumenical minister, primarily engaged in therapy work of a spiritual nature, leading growth groups, conducting special worship services, and lecturing in St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently completing her practicum in Logotherapy. +52 +The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1992, 15, 53-55. +LOGOTHERAPY AND WORLD POUTICS +Stephen Sam Kalmar +At the 8th World Congress of Logotherapy Elisabeth Lukas delivered a keynote lecture titled: "From a Wrong Idea to the Desert Storm." Lukas is deservedly recognized and justly honored all over the world for her outstanding work in the theory and practice of Logotherapy and has helped thousands of people through her writings, lectures and consultations. I could not attend the 8th World Congress, but I read her lecture in its German form in her latest book.3 In this lecture Lukas undertakes to define the position and advice of logotherapy for international politics and especially for the Persian Gulf crisis. The first part of her lecture explains how logotherapy can help people to modify a wrong and free themselves from simply reacting to causes and instead to act, guided by their own conscience and free will. The second part of the lecture attempts to show that applying logotherapy in international relations would prove equally successful as it has proved for the problem solving of an individual. +I am full of admiration for Lukas' dedication to logotherapy and her achievements. I also respect her hopes and intentions expressed in her lecture. Yet, I believe that there exists a basic difference why logotherapy is so successfully applicable in the treatment of individuals but not applicable for solving international problems and crises. This difference I see in the fact that an individual is a holistic entity and a nation is exactly the opposite. +Each adult individual has developed his or her own set of values that define the person's attitude toward life. This attitude is applied to every task--yesterday, today, tomorrow. To change their attitude, people may need the help of a psychotherapist, possibly trained in logotherapy. Contrary to the single, definite attitude of an individual which characterizes him or her, a nation consists of a multitude of sections, parties, and economic, religious, or political groups, each with their own set of values, each group trying to influence the government to act in accordance with that group's values. In a democratic nation, the government functions by following the wishes of a majority of its citizens. The democratically elected representatives of the citizens, after listening and analyzing the pros and cons of the proposed solutions, decide by majority vote the +53 +course of action to take. This happened in the Persian Gulf crisis. The United Nations almost unanimously decided first to try to negotiate with Saddam Hussein a peaceful withdrawal from Kuwait, then to warn him of sanctions, then to warn him of force. The United States democratically presented the case to its' Congress and, after exhausting hearings and testimonies, both houses decided with an overwhelming majority to accept the United Nations' vote and to join other nations to use force to liberate Kuwait. Some people remained in opposition to the use of force and applied their constitutional right to demonstrate publicly against it. (Dictators like Saddam Hussein or Hitler have an easier solution, they do not have to listen to opponents--they kill them. Dictators also do not feel to be bound by international agreements. Daladier and Chamberlain believed they had secured "peace in our time" when they made an agreement with Hitler in Munich--and one year later Hitler started World War II. I consider it progress that apparently the world had learned to act early and jointly through the United Nations to repulse aggressions committed by new, brutal dictators. I do not wish to imagine where we would be today if the United Nations had allowed Saddam Hussein time to ready his nuclear weapons, which we now know he was close to possessing.) +I am old enough to remember how, in every nation that faced the threat of Hitler's aggression, there were individuals and groups who for religious or idealistic reasons argued not to use force against him. They were later accused of being traitors, and called "quislings," named after the infamous collaborator in Norway. The fanatic discussions broke up families, made enemies of friends. The same happened when some people in nations threatened by Stalin proposed a policy of "better red than dead" and were accused of being communist fellow travelers and traitors. +Does logotherapy wish to get involved in such battles? Its field of work is clearly defined: to help individuals to find solutions for their psychological problems and train teachers and parents to educate children in a way that they adopt better values, better judgment, better attitudes for their life. Logotherapy, as a school of psychiatry, should clearly remain separated from religion and from politics--or it would break up into bitterly opposed political or religious fractions within its organizations and lose its academic standing. In many of his writings Frankl has taken a strong stand against any attempts of forgetting the limits of logotherapy. Of course, any logotherapist has the right to his or her own religious views or political opinions--but they should not be described as +54 +views supported or required by logotherapy. Logotherapy should stay away from taking political positions and attempts to influence international political actions. +At the 7th World Congress of Logotherapy, I presented a paper in which I started by saying: "My interest in psychology and politics began in 1924 in Vienna as a high school student. This love is still with me. It made me keenly interested in logotherapy."1·P•155 I still have this love today. However, I have learned during more than sixty years it is important to separate the tasks of psychology, politics, and religion. None should attempt to do the work of the others. Frankl declared often that this would be a disservice to each of them.2·P·23 +Conclusions: Logotherapy can help create better relations between individuals. Parents and teachers will have to apply the principles of logotherapy in the education of children and develop in them responsible and responsive attitudes, social interest, respect, and tolerance toward others. Then they will be better prepared to act, and not only to react, as Elisabeth Lukas explained so well in her lecture. Our hopes for better future relations between nations can only be fulfilled when the United Nations will really become united nations and all players in the game will have learned to stick to the rules and not break them as dictators like to do. +STEPHEN SAM KALMAR, Ph.D. is past vice-president of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, Saratoga, California. +References +1. +Kalmar, S. (1989). Logotherapy and the holocaust. Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Logotherapy. Berkeley: Institute of Logotherapy Press. + +2. +Kalmar, S. (1989). The secular character of logotherapy. International Forum for Logotherapy, 11, 23-26. + +3. +Lukas, E. (1991 ). Spannendes Leban. Munich: Quintessenz Verlag. + + +55 +ISSN 0190-3379 IFODL 15(1) 1 -64 (1992) +The International Porwa :for +LOGOTHERAPY +Journal of search for Meaning +The First Published Cases of Paradoxical Intention 2 Viktor E. Frankl +Logotherapy and the Unconscious Other 7 Jim Lantz +The Conscience: Individual and Social 1O Wallace Danforth Joslyn +Logotherapy and 12-Step Programs in Substance Abuse 13 Terresa M. Wadsworth +A Values Worksheet 22 Robert R. Hutzell +The Kane Syndrome 30 Willis C. Finck +Frankl and Jung On Meaning 33 Thomas J. Peterson +The Meaning Crisis in Russia Today 41 Dmitry A. Leontiev +Search-For-Meaning Groups for the Homeless 46 +E. Ann Berens Release from Vows of Marriage 50 Ann Westermann Logotherapy and World Politics 53 +Stephen Sam Kalmar Dissertations/Theses/Projects of Interest 56 \ No newline at end of file