Volume 9, Number 1 Spring/Summer 1986 CONTENTS The Language of Psychotherapy Rudolf Ekstein ................................................7 Understanding Human Nature: Freud, Adler, Frankl Steven S. Kalmar .............................................. 11 Recalling Michael Whiddon Elisabeth Lukas .............................................. 22 Logophilosophy as Preventive Therapy Mignon Eisenberg .............................................23 Logotherapy and the Person of the Therapist James E. Lantz ...............................................29 Logodrama and Philosophical Psychotherapy William S. Sahakian ...........................................33 Logothcrapy East -West Rudolph Krejci ...............................................40 Logotherapy and the Amish: Meaning and the Maintenance of a Traditional Society Henry Troyer .................................................47 Discerning Meaning Through a Self-Discovery Program Florence I. Ernzen .............................................54 Readers Opinions ...............................................58 Keynote Address: Personal Conscience and Global Concern Edith Eva Eger I am standing where Dr. Sahakian was supposed to be. Memory is a hcautiful gift. We remember him, we remember Edith Weisskopf-Joelson, we remember Michael Whiddon, the people watching over us this morning. Also watching us is Viktor Frankl in South Africa doing his job offinding meaning in that part of the world. I woke up this morning and saw three squirrels running around and I remembered taking my children to a Walt Disney movie. It was about three bears and mama bear was raising them, taking them to the forest and leaving them. She took them up on a high tree and ran down quickly so the children couldn't come down. Maybe that's what Viktor Frankl is telling us now: Children. you can do it on your own! And I am going to say to him: Papa. watch me f1y! Frankl sees conscience as a means to discover meaning, to "sniff it out." This is done by each individual but it can be done best ifwe create a climate in which people can have any feeling without fear of being judged. This is what this Congress is all about. We want to create an atmosphere of trust. first on a small scale but working at it so it will spread in widening circles until it covers our glohal village. I went to the pre-Congress seminar and saw people there who practiced logothcrapy as a logophilosophy of life. We arc all a family here. a logo-family. I come here and I feel warm. at home, part of this family. even though we may never finish and accomplish the total work we have assigned to us. We are part of the process of becoming. When we come to the end of the road. I hope we can say. "I've done it. I've done it my way!" As Vik tor Frankl tells us. meaning cannot be given to us by others. There is no way to huy it. it is something we have to discover, everyone through his or her personal conscience. How can it be effective globally? Through example. We have to risk. In the pre-Congress seminar I heard Dr. Heines. a psychiatrist in Germany. who said in his country you cannot become a psychotherapist unless you are a psychoanalyst. Dr. Heines was able to risk. and when we risk we suffer. but I would rather risk and suffer than not risk at all. And he risked to practice logotherapy in his clinic. He is using the ideas Eastern philosophers use in the Aikido method. The idea is: go in the direction the horses arc going. and then bring the horses your way. He was able to face the challenge because he knows that in logotherapy we don't say there arc problems in this world, there arc only challenges. There are no crises. only opportunities. We have many opportunities to examine our lives and examine where we arc, where we want to go. what the obstacles arc. And then go. Risk and go. We do this individually. and set an example. This is what this Congress is all about. 68 One example present at this Congress is Jerry Long who one day was faced with the choice to hecome a victim of circumstances. of an accident that paraly1ed him from the neck down. or to choose to concentrate on what he still had left. He didn't spend much time figuring out whether he would accept his condition and spend his life in a wheelchair. He decided how he could use this opportunity for growth. Jerry is an inspiration for us, for his colleagues in Houston. for many who see him. He demonstrated what logotherapy is all ahout, that you don't merely study words but practice the principles. He is working on his Ph.D. to help others in his predicament -and the sky is the limit. He is the master. never a slave of his environment. Another example present at this Congress is .I im Yoder. the regional director ofthe Institute of Logotherapy in Kansas City. He lost his little girl many years ago. and he took the opportunity to transcend. and hecause oflogotherapy help others when he no longer could help his child. The whole concept of logotherapy is to transcend the me-me-me and the 1-1-L and commit ourselves to someone or to some thing other than ourselves. Last night we saw the "Famous People Players," illustrating the defiant power of the human spirit. a magnificent dance and mime performance by a group of handicapped young people who were treated not as they were but rather as they were capable of hecoming. And how they rose to the occasion! I want to thank the people who had faith in these children. Our children are our best resource. and here at this Congress we can make a commitment to use our personal consciences to show our global concern for the children ofthe world. I am grateful to Tom MeKillop, our on-site chairman. for including so many young people into the activities of this Congress. so they see examples of logothcrapy and can set examples themselves to others. Children don't do what we say. they do what they see. Words can be cheap commodities. I am glad that this Congress has been planned not only to present lectures but demonstrations of logotherapy in action. When I worked with victims from the Vietnam war I wondered if there was ~omething like a survivor personality. Some veterans had practically given up, in wheelchairs. paraplegic, thumb in mouth, in something like a fetal position. And others, with the same symptomology, the same diagnosis, the same condition, had the opposite attitude. They accepted their fate and saw their opportunity to see the world from a wheelchair. To look at the green grass, the sunshine, the patterns of cracks in the sidewalk. to celebrate life again from a different perspective. Logotherapy was founded by a survivor personality, to help others bring out survivor personalities dormant in them. This, too, is what this Congress is all about. I think of my own life. my survival in the concentration camp. It was an opportunity for me to develop my inner resources, to become a more compassionate human being, to be able to transcend the me-me-me and the 1-1-1. People have been able to self-transcend under the most dangerous circumstances. My sister in Budapest, who was a concert pianist, was taken to a camp, and her professor. a beautiful Christian man, chose to listen to his conscience. He put on a Nazi uniform, went into the camp, smuggled her out, and took care of her to the end of the war. 69 What I learned in Auschwitz is that I was able to think independently from a situation I could not change. No Nazi could take away my hopes, my dreams, the manner I chose to respond to external circumstances. As a survivor I have a second chance. I have no time for hate. I take each moment celebrating, thanking God, knowing the risks of freedom. Freedom is scary. When I was liberated I saw inmates standing at the gate, not knowing how to go to their freedom. Freedom, Frankl tells us, goes with responsibility, and people are scared of responsibility. They look for leaders who only take care of their ego needs -I hope our children will never he prisoners of charismatic leaders, the Joneses of today. We'll have to teach our children how to think rather than what to think. I hope we can create a climate of enthusiasm for the wonderful life we have. This, too, is what this Congress is about. Global concern is a precondition of survival. When I went to Europe this year, I saw that Chernobyl has become an opportunity for an opportunity. I saw that some people whine and sit in a fetal position, ready to give in and give up. But l know that people all over Europe now organize, prepared to do something about the threat, they use this as an opportunity. They are organizing to see to it that their children and grandchildren will never suffer. Disasters can be challenges. See what the shuttle catastrophe has done to people. Christa McAuliffe has become an inspiration for young people. Many children want to he like her. They transcend, believe in something, have a dream, reach for the stars. To be or not to be a victim, that is the question. A victim of circumstances, a person who is always against rather than for something, a person who is blaming, pointing fingers, looking for scapegoats, or to he a survivor. to face challenges. and take up opportunities. How wonderful it is to he at this Congress together, to celebrate life and put sparks into one another, and then go out and keep sparking others. We start at ourselves listening to our own conscience. l saw an orthodox Jew last night sitting next to a man from Lebanon, trying to figure out how we can possibly form a human family. This is a special Congress, this is the kind of people that this kind of Congress attracts. You are survivors. too. So from one survivor to another I say that I appre ciate the difference in you, your uniqueness. your one-of-a-kindness, knowing that no one can do what you can do the way you do it. And l hope that, as a result of what you experience here. you will go out and tell the other survivors out there in the world some of the insights of logotherapy: that in a hedonistic society. pleasure has to be sought as a by-product of meaning, and in a power-hungry world, power must serve meaning as its end. Tell the world that we have to transcend the me-me-me and 1-1-1 and listen to our personal conscience in a growing concern that eventually will include all of our global village. EDITH EVA EGER, Ph.D., is assistant clinirnl professor, Department of Psychiatry, Texas Tech Medical School, and clinical director at the El Paso Center for Marital and Familr Studies. 70 Festival Address: Youth -A Continuous Search for Meaning Elisabeth Lukas Youth! What an inexhaustible subject for all generations, wellspring of eternal ionging for some, source of continuous irritation for others, a seething force driven to create the new (with no idea what that might be), without demolishing the old and with little appreciation of what the old has accomplished. We speak nowadays of change, a worldwide sense that something has changed, something to do with our young people. But has there not always heen change, perhaps more gradual than today, hut change that started in youthful hearts and minds? Tensions between old and young are age-old, they are as much part of the rhythm of human existence as tides in the sea. Still, there is something in the air that has never existed before•-in the same air our youth is breathing. This something contains not merely particles of chemical pollution but a spiritual pollution if I may me this term, particles ofa shattered whole that can no longer be put together -the treasure chest of the ethical Good. Youth today is breathing in a skeptical nihilism that results in psychological illness and this, in turn, is causing allergic overreactions -aggression, destructive and vindictive. Similar to physical allergic overreactions, it may be triggered by minor causes and makes living together more difficult. Here lies the problem of the conflict between our generations. There is a '"gap of ~ilence." a non-communication between the two sides which have one thing in common --a sense of resignation. In a lecture last year Jochen Gerstenmaier, professor at the Institute for Empirical Pedagogy and Pedagogic Psychology of the University of Munich, even said: "The only thing parents and their children have in common is resignation." This negative view has some justification. The neurotic conflict between the generations has increased to an extent that is almost unbearable. This is particularly true in our technological, highly developed "First World." This is more than the natural process of the young gaining independence. It is hostility carried out in various ways -not always open confrontation, often subtly offensive, when the two sides refuse to speak to each other. How has it come to this? Three explanations seem pertinent. They deal with the question of meaning and therefore with the essence of humanness. I shall discuss how the unfulfilled quest for meaning is responsible for the general resignation, and also how the fulfillment of the quest for meaning can be a healing factor in the smoldering conflict between young and old. 71 Extended Adolescence But first a few words about our present situation: the first explanation of the existing problem is the "early maturing and prolonged adolescence." It is an observable fact that childhood today ends earlier and adulthood begins later than ever before. This means that adolescence starts soon and lasts longer -in some cases it does not seem to end at all. Fifty years ago adolescence was an appendage to childhood, a short interim period on the way to adult life. Since the mid-sixties it has become a long, tortured phase, full of attempts to "find oneself"; these sexually mature half-children, half-adults stumble from difficulty to difficulty, wildly protesting that life demands too much. Early maturation undoubtedly has something to do with the glandular processes ofthe body, triggered by emotions and the stimulations ofa changing lifestyle. Children receive calory-and protein-rich food while not being required to use their energy by working; they are offered a multitude of toys without needing to be creative in play: they are exposed to the influence of the media, leaving no room for imaginative, childlike fantasy. This forces them to deal prematurely with thoughts that force them out of childhood. Eleven-and twelve-year olds discuss the dangers of smoking, have had free sex education without considering moral values, are bombarded with hot rock music, know all the tricks ofcomputer games, and revolt against the demands of life before they have outgrown the parental home. Frankl comments: "In this fast-moving time one gets the impression that people who have no goal run through life as fast as possible so they won't notice their lack ofgoals." This remark fits the accelerated youthful half-children who are being pushed and push themselves onto paths with no idea where these lead. One of the dangers of early maturation is that part of the maturing process remains unfulfilled because there was not enough time for full maturation. If early maturing meant faster maturing, there would be no objection, but this does not happen anywhere in nature, including human nature. As Frankl has shown, the human is a three-dimensional being of body, psyche and spirit, and we must develop in all three dimensions in order to mature in fullness. Medicine and psychology have shown that the three dimensions in a person develop in relation to one another: Physical maturity must precede that ofthe psyche, and maturity of the psyche must precede that of the spirit. Although all three dimensions progress simultaneously, the physical development must be close to completion before the psychological can approach maturity, and the spirit can fully mature only after development of the psyche is almost completed. Today, however, young people grow into physical maturity earlier than in the past. This starts the development of the psyche before its time, but is blocked because the young face experiences they cannot yet handle. Twelve-year olds cannot emotionally deal with advanced sexual experiences, nor a thirteen-year old with continual conflicts in the family. Thus, the psychic development of an early matured young person sputters like a dying motor, starts repeatedly, roars into life, and dies after a few yards. Psychic development matures with difficulty or not at all, but is indispensable before the spirit can mature. This leads to prolonged adolescence and trouble because it prevents people from assuming control over their lives, from planning 72 reasonably, from mastering difficulties responsibly. It is, therefore, no contradiction to say, with the Swiss p~ychologist Helmut Schulze, that although the young mature early, we live in an "age of infantilism." The Importance of Peers The ~econd explanation of the existing problem we might call "suhculture versusfami!r." Jochen Gerstenmaier, quoted before, has for the past ten years studied hundreds of young people and discovered that they increasingly take role models from their peer group rather than from their families. Peer groups have rapidly increased in importance and constitute a subculture that attracts the young. Gerstenmaier found that, in 1981, 40% of the young were more influenced hy subculture than family; in 1985 the percentage was 55% -15% more. This remarkable shift is described by some researchers as "abdication of parents as role models." Without evaluating thi~ trend as "good" or "bad," two radical consequences for the intergenerational relationship arc worth mentioning. One is the question ¼ hat function -or rather what meaninf{/itl function -parents still can have. Since adolescence begins sooner and lasts longer, young people arc financially dependent on parents for a relatively long time. In Western Germany, in 1950 more than 80o/r of the 16-18 year olds were working or at least were apprentices. In 1985 only 50%. the rest was still in school. If parents have no function as role models and. because of early adolescence, no longer a large function in bringing up children, their only function is financial, and that is rather one-sided for harmonious living together. The consequences are family conflicts that drive the young even closer to peer subcultures. The second consequence of the importance of subcultures is the fact that, because only young people serve as role models, there is no passing on of experience from older and mature persons. The result is that the young must go through hitter experiences which they might have been spared. Nor can they obtain those meaningful values which generations, through laborious thinking and learning, have recognized as reliable and useful. The painful selfexperiences of the young raise anxiety about the future while their parents' inability to pass on anything raises their anxiety, and both lead to resignation. Resignation prompts many parents to give children their freedom, not because they trust them but because they feel powerless. This reduces conflicts in the short run but widens the "gap of silence" between generations. It is not that parents arc unwilling to talk ahout certain "taboos," but rather that the young people are saturated hy their discussions with their peers and wish no discussion with parents. This strange combination of parents financing children without communication has an ironic side effect. Since parents no longer serve as role models and children make their own decisions, parents are not even suitable scapegoats. The less influence they have, the less they can be blamed for failure. Parental abdication is a burden for the young, and they need new scapegoats, so they accuse society. At least, this may partly explain the gigantic protest movement that goes far beyond the past revolts of the students and activist hippies. 73 The Role of Conscience The third explanation of the youth-adult problem is the "Shrinking of conscience and basic trust." In my 13 years offamily counseling I learned much about parental love and suffering. I don't mean that parents are innocent but they suffer at least as much from misguided children as children suffer from mistreating parents. In general, mistreatment ofthe child is cau~ed by a parental conscience that is too strict and narrow, while the parents of problem children suffer from the fact that their children's conscience is too permissive or not listened to. Parents suffer not so much because their children develop slowly, fail in school, or are physically handicapped, but because their children are insensitive, egoistic, mentally lazy, or "drop-outs" from life. In most cases these parents have not been too strict but were trying to bring up the children by understanding their needs. This. however can easily boomerang because if things come easy, expectations and demands increase. Take the car, for instance. Cars make it easy to get from place to place; at the same time people find it more difficult to walk long distances. Now there are machines that make it easier not only for our bodies but our minds, and this is more critical. Autos have gadgets that warn when something is out of order -a fantastic advance that saves the driver independent thinking: But the disadvantage is that if the control system fails, he might drive without suitable headlights or tire pressure. Of course, people arc not spoiled by techniques but by the way they use them. If the forces of the human spirit are softened by comfort, we fall victim to a weakening that keeps us from withstanding hard knocks. In this sense the parental fulfilling ofall their children's wishes is questionable because it makes the young person incapable of "doing without" which is demanded of all of us in the course of growing up. Even more dangerous 1s the fulfillment of desires artificially created by our consumer society. Children are given expensive gifts not because they want them, but because they are advertised. This is dangerous because it leads to consumption without appreciation, and to the attainment of material things without experiencing meanmg. Most of our youth have grown up in a world that did everything to make their childhood as pleasant and easy as possible, and not only in material matters. In most cases they received love and affection. in addition to material things. But what many missed are the opportunities to give, not just to receive. In the greenhouse atmosphere of pampering, hedonism and egoism flourish; the consequence is the withering of the organ that helps us find and interpret meaning ~ our conscience. Need gratification cannot take the place of meaning fulfillment that goes beyond needs and poinb beyond the self. With the withering of conscience goes the loss of basic trust. If everything is measured by our own wellbeing. we feel lost when wellbeing is threatened. If we have not learned to think and act responsibly, we are frightened when faced with unavoidable responsibilities. If we never learned to make sacrifices, any restriction seems life-threatening. Because everything that comes easily demands a continuation of the easy life, the ''easy-liver" considers all difficulties unacceptable. a horror. 74 Youth today is caught in this horror. Facing difficulties makes them panic. They lack the trust that a difficult life can be a successful life, the insight that meaning can be found even in situations of despair and suffering. They are caught between two extremes: on the one hand they go through experiences beyond their age level for which their peer group could not prepare them, and which they cannot work through emotionally, thus causing a block in their psychic development and creating anxiety about the future. On the other hand, they have never had experiences of doing without, sacrificing, persevering that would give them trust in life and in themselves. Possible Solutions This is a brief presentation of our present situation. Now a word on possible solutions. The situation in which we find ourselves cannot be solved or rather dissolved, either by the older or younger generation. But every life situation and social condition offers specific opportunities this cannot be stressed enough in our time of decreasing basic trust. What can and must be removed are the blocks to specific opportunities. so change toward the positive becomes possible. This is our goal. and we must be aware of it: aimlessness following on resignation is the biggest block. I should like to discuss three goals to break the deadlock. Our young people must rise a) from infantilism of the psyche to maturity of spi:-it, b) from peer dependency to family friendship, and c) from need gratification to meaning fulfillment. Everything that brings the three goals closer would be helpful during a complex and extended adolescence. It is not my intention to consider what adults can do to influence the young to approach these goals. We have to admit that our influence today is not strong enough for that. But there are some words on the principle of hope. Today, pessimism seems to be the only acceptable form for a realistic view of the world. This trend may be justified for some aspects of the future. The thoughtless waste of raw materiuls or the wanton destruction of resources justifies fear of the future. The arms race and population explosion also are reasons for serious doubts. Yet there are areas where pessimism is not warranted. These areas allow optimism in spite of everything -true realism does not force us to be pessimistic but requires something like a "tragic optimism." Frankl, at the Third World Congress in Regensburg, 1 spoke about "Arguments for a 1 ragic Optimism." He showed that the present dangerous situation demands a strength of spirit which can grow only in the soil of unbroken trust in the meaning of everything that exi~ts. As long as people hope they behave as if hope existed, and realize that what is reali~tic need not be pessimistic: rather, what is optimistic um become reality. Frankl's argument for a tragic optimism can be applied to today's youth. I want to present arguments that grown-ups, though they have little influence on those growing up, must not lose faith in them. There is reason to hope that young people have the strength to find meaningful goals, even through detours and wrong turns, that they are lovable even when they don't act that way. This 75 seems a better solution to overcome blocks than educational guidelines when education is resisted. What, then, are the arguments that will allow us to counter the resignation of youth? At the basis is an undeniable argument from which other corollaries follow. Youth is on a continuous search/or meaning. This does not mean that grownups do not also search for a meaningful life. But most adults have at least partly succeeded; they have had meaningful experiences and are nourished by what they found. The "full granaries of life's harvest" are among the joys of old age. In contrast, young persons have not had much chance to discover meaning structures. Their existence is full of still unlived possibilities. But just because they have not discovered many meanings the search is more urgent. lfthey want to fulfill innate longings for a meaningful life, they have to start the quest. To start a harvest for their still empty granaries they have to go out in the fields, rain or shine. Grown-ups can be content with half-filled granaries, and rest on their achievements, experiences, and bravely-borne sufferings; the young cannot sit idly in empty granaries. What has motivated the human race through all times and will reach into the next century if we will allow it to take place, is youth devoting itself to a continuous search for meaning. This runs counter to any justification for pessimism. Scientific proof and human experience have shown that we have a reservoir of strength that under normal circumstances is not at our disposal: it becomes available as soon as we see a meaningful task. We then receive additional strength to fulfill this task. A meaningful task is like a key that opens our reservoirs of strength. To put it conversely: if we see no meaning in our actions, we lack the strength to act and so we fail. Some people believe they must first accumulate enough strength before they dare to tackle a meaningful task. They keep accumulating strength but never become strong enough because their inner reserves are not accessible without a meaningful task to live for. Young people today have many opportunities to find urgent tasks. As soon as they become aware of them, they will quickly mature and, from eternal adolescence, become young adults facing a world they can and must be responsible for. It may not he a beautiful world they awaken to. but it will end their infantilism and challenge them to a maturity of spirit beyond our imaginings. This process has already begun. It was the young generation that first drew attention to the task of preventing pollution and the arms race. Their methods were not always the best hut we are at the beginning. To survive, however. humanity needs new ideas and these must come from the new generation. Maturing of the Spirit As stated, the first goal in bridging today's generation gap is for the young to grow from infantilism of the psyche to a maturity of spirit. The older generation can do little or nothing to promote this development. It will take place because the young will become aware of the tremendous and urgent meaningful tasks around them, challenging their "will to meaning" and motivating a proportionate response. 76 There is another argument for a "tragic optimism" of the young: we are approaching our limits. Limitless demands cannot be satisfied on a limited planet, and we are close to the limits of economic growth and social welfare. Experiencing limitations has an amazing effect: It raises the values within existin1; limits. People who carefully tend their small fenced garden plot will not be as careful in unfenced woods and meadows. There they will litter and throw away cans and other refuse of civilization. Limits warn us: "This was given to you, no more!" This makes the gift special and precious. Frankl points out that only the limitation oflife by death gives meaning to our actions. In an unlimited lifespan everything could be postponed and nothing would be done. What is limited becomes precious iflimits arc recognized as such. This is also true for the family. Families have come to dangerous limitations. The high divorce rate makes children distrust marriage, but mutual-consent living together and commune~ have demonstrated limits too. Emancipation often leads to emancipated loneliness. At the same time, a healthy, intact family, where each member has a meaningful function, has become a rarity. But rarities rise in price, not only in dealing with antiques. Thus there is hope that youth in its search for meaning and values will rediscover the value of the family. Actually the family is much more limited than the peer group, in numbers and in scope. But precisely in its limitations the family offers irreplaceable values and a security not available elsewhere. There is a natural law which found expression in the Fourth Commandment and has a psychological impact on modern men and women who have lost much of their instinctual heritage. The law states that inner peace depends on peace within the family. This was once expressed in a counseling session with a father; his sons had rebuffed him, although by working long hours he financed their studies and entertainment. He said: "l count on my hour of death. Their innate wish for reconciliation will bring them back to me." This was his tragic optimism speaking. The ultimate reconciliation with father and mother is an irrevocable precondition ofinner peace. For this reason alone the current silent hostility between the generations cannot be lasting. The peace sought by youth in vain in the outer world depends on peace within. When conflict and disagreements threaten, as they do increasingly, the peer group with its vague commitments will dwindle in significance, while rekindled family relations will provide support in an unstable world. From Peer to Family Ties The second goal of bridging the generation gap -moving away from peer dependency toward closer ties with the family -will be achieved by the young generation without the necessity for the old generation to insist or beg for it. The role for the old generation lies in its readiness for reconciliation, to wait patiently until awareness of limitations makes possible a new-found cooperation. Another argument for a "tragic optimism" for our youth: I mentioned how a greenhouse atmosphere of pampering brings about a shrinking of conscience 77 and basic trust. Many psychologists and educators have described this but few as well as Frankl. He pointed out that the affluent society and the welfare state can satisfy all human needs but one: the innermost need to find and fulfill meaning. If this is true -and confirmation comes from many sources -then the reversal of affluence, certain to come sooner or later, will bring about changes. As long as only luxuries are in short supply, people will fight for what's available but will get adjusted to the new situation. We arc probably in the early stages of this development now. But when necessities will become scarce -or what we have come to consider necessities -a painful era will begin. It will be painful for all but especially for our children. They will have to lower their demands and expectations, and no substitutes will be at their disposal. Hysterical defiance, angry foot stamping, demonstrative refusals, secret pressure on parents, insulting of teachers no longer will help. What will young people then do who have never learned to do without or to make sacrifices? In counseling the young I sometimes feel sorry for them because they are so utterly dependent on good living conditions. During and after the war, my entire childhood was overshadowed by misery, and this turned into an enormous advantage, a treasure ofexperience that will be with me the rest ofmy life. I have learned to do without with no damage to my psyche, and I believe this is true for most of my generation. If tomorrow I had no car. no TV, no butter on my bread, I could still be happy and content as I fulfilled my tasks. Should I lose my job I would not founder in idleness and apathy. Even under blows of fate, the loss of a loved one, I would not be driven to self-destruction. But what will be the reaction of a generation that is disconsolate when the motorcycle breaks down or a soccer game is lost, a generation that needs several TV sets because it cannot bear to miss a program, that considers suicide when grades are poor? It is not difficult to guess: they will try to rebel, and when this leads nowhere, they will profoundly suffer. Suffering will bring change. Their continuous search for meaning will lead in a new direction. From a consumer society where the only unfulfilled "need" is meaning, attention will turn to non-material values since material goods arc no longer available. Books will be read and thought about once more. The magic of soft music will again cast its spell over the young whose musical needs were satisfied by deafening mechanical noises. Virtues like chastity and faithfulness will no longer be scorned as old fashioned, as they are in our present world of sexual unrestraint and personal devaluation. To be able to study in school and work at a job will be appreciated again -the joy of having abilities and the opportunity to use them. Young people will sec meaning in particulars where their whole world seemed meaningless. It almost seems as if the young of today sense the painful path they will have to go from needs gratification to meaning fulfillment -from "to have" to "to be." They are on the way. Those who '\.Jrop out" voluntarily sacrifice luxuries. Religious and meditative practices ha,e ascetic features. Modern sports like jogging and surfing place heavy demands on bodies softened by an easy life. Cross-country skiing and bicycie tours offer opportuinitics for contemplation far from crowds. even though it mean strenuous exercise. This is a welcome 78 trend that promotes qualities like self-control and self-restraint, and directs the young toward higher self-chosen goals. Waiting hehind this orientation toward meaning is the orientation toward one's own conscience. Conscience is that part of a human heing that is least influenced hy egoistic motivations, pointing at something beyond the ego, yet within our responsibility. Conscience helps us discover what is most meaningful in a situation and how to find meaning even against one's own needs. The "will to meaning" is not just one ··need" among many, it is the human attribute which makes us truly human. No animal searches for meaning. There are many languages including animal languages, hut the language of conscience is meant for and is heard only by humans. The "will to meaning" demonstrates our readiness to listen to the language ofconscience. With this readiness comes our basic trust in life. We cannot always expect that life will gratify our needs, but we can hope and trust that life always offers a chance to find a meaning that fulfills us more thoroughly and deeply than anything else. From Gratification to Fulfillment This brings us to the third goal toward bridging the generation gap. As stated, this goal is to move from needs gratification to meaning fulfillment. Here, too, we have reason for optimism within our tragic situation. As affluence recedes, the resulting suffering will wake us up. In the young it will liberate impulses to find new ways to reach our shrinking conscience and regain new trust in life. To sum up: We have no reason to despair or ultimately to doubt our children. We acknowledge that our influence has diminished, and also our chances to guide them to what we consider best. We admit that generatiom of parents have not always guided well even though given the opportunity. Mistakes were made at all times. Today, chances to guide our youth are diminished. Adults bringing up the young have lost their function as role model as well as that ofscapegoat. The function ofmoney supplier has remained and also, I think, something more essential: the task to have faith in our children. The faith that they are on the right path whatever the obstacles and confusion -even without our influence and example -guided by their continuous search for meaning. ELISABETH LUKAS, Ph.D. is director ofthe Southern German Institute of Logotherapy and vice-president ofthe German Society of Logotherapy. The article presents her festival address at the Fifth World Congress of Logotherapy. REFERENCE: I. Frankl. Viktor E. Mans Search/or Meaning. New York, Washington Square Press, 1985. 79 Personal Choice and the Nazi State A Logotherapeutic Approach in the Classroom Claire Hirshfield A course on fascism can be one of the most significant which students take during their college careers. It can have a profound effect on them, forcing them to confront the moral questions which go to the heart of human relationships in the twentieth century. A study of the period, however, often results in a psychic numbing and depression. Some students cope by developing a nihilistic attitude and a cynical belief that no meaning can be found in the chaos ofcontemporary history. Others turn offtheir emotions altogether and distance themselves from the record, pretending that the problem of the individual conscience in conflict with the totalitarian state has somehow vanished in the debris of the Third Reich. At this point the humanistic principles of Viktor Frankl become helpful, suggesting to students that not only the individual life but the historical record itself possesses meaning. These principles illuminate the historical case ,tudies presented in class. and the life-affirming attitudes they inspire transform the atmosphere of the classroom, banishing cynicism and diffidence. The test of success in nourishing and reinforcing such attitudes may well rest upon the degree to which students are able to deal meaningfully with contemporary manifestations of the totalitarian temptation and to the unfinished busincs~ of the Fascist era. For example, my students became more sensitive to the implications ofsuch episodes as the Waldheim election, the capture and impending trial of Klaus Barbie, or the deportation from the lJ nited States of persons charged with war crimes. Some students realize that conscience can survive in even the most unpromising circumstances, that the human capacity for self-transcendence and change is immeasurable, and that suffering can ennoble as well as degrade. "Our generation," writes Frankl, "has come to know man as he really is: the being that has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz and also the being who entered those gas chambers upright. the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his liips."4· 35 The course was constructed around four case studies which appeared most promising for a logotherapeutic approach: • A university student and resistance to Hitler • A German businessman and the use of slave labor • A German soldier and his orders in the East • A Jew in a Polish ghetto. The White Rose Case German university students ofthe nineteen thirties had been so radicalized by economic conditions that large numbers had turned enthusiastically to Adolf 80 Hitler. By 1935 the university had become as much a state institution as the post office, and "duty to the state" became the overarching principle on which education was based. Such a background makes the efforts of the "White Rose" conspirators to fan student resistance to Nazism at the universities of Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna all the more remarkable. Among the ringleaders were a brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl, who produced and distributed leaflets denouncing the crimes of the regime and urging passive resistance to the war. Ultimately discovered and arrested, they were tried for treason in I943 and six, including both Scholls, were executed.ui Some of my students found the conspirators' actions admirable. Others considered them quixotic and foolhardy --better to live than to die, no matter the prize. Hut our consideration did not end here. It is possible to halt the flow as one freezes a frame offilm in order to examine it more closely. We had described an episode taken out ofthe historical record. How could we make it meaningful to apolitical studenb of the 1980\ whose lives arc comfortable and whose freedom is 5ecurc? How can this case study serve to heighten the students' awareness of individual responsibility and cultivate their humanistic approach to life'} Thanks to a biography by a surviving sister of the Schools, Inge, 13 the class was able to extract the full implications of the episode, and establish guideposts to channel analysis and discussion. In the construction of such guideposts, logotherapeutic principles became relevant. We began by considering the implications of a statement made by Sophie Scholl: "Somebody, after all, had to make a start." Both Scholls had been enthusiastic members of Nati youth organizations, and Hans had been chosen to carry a flag at the annual Party Day rally in Nuremberg in 1936, despite the objections of his anti-fascist father. But, according to his sister Inge's account, Hans had returned from~ uremberg morose and moody. Something inside of him ,ejected Hitler's demand for "hlind obedience and absolute discipline," and alter"\'uremberg, his sister noted, he was never the same again. 13 Students who were asked to identify that "something inside." invariably identified it as the inborn conscience of which Frankl writes so movingly. Further expressions of totalitarianism strengthened Hans Scholl's will to freedom -ademand that he burn a hook by Stefan Zweig, the disappearance of a favorite teacher into the Dachau concentration camp fifteen miles from the Scholls' home.7· PP-54-<> 1 Medical school at Gottingen reminded him that in 1837 seven university professors -the famed Gottingen Seven -had issued a flaming letter of protest against the King of Hanover's efforts to restrict the basic rights of the individual.Nothing of this sort had occurred in Germany; no seven had arisen to protest the abolition of academic freedom. and no surge of public outrage had been discernible. The Scholls began to ask the question: "What can one do?" From that question and from the answer which conscience provided, was born the White Rose, a circle of students many of whom had served as medics on the Eastern Front and returned to the University of Munich determined to "let the truth ring out in the German night." The words of one member of the group were especially revealing: "It is our duty by our behavior to demonstrate that man's freedom still exists. We must do it for the sake oflife itself -no one 81 can absolve us of this responsibility. "7 p. 1x2 In discussing the motives of the students and the single professor participating in the conspiracy, the principles of Frankl serve as a preeminent source of enlightenment and clarification. The freedom to take a stand must be converted ultimately into the freedom to take responsibility, as the words quoted above surely reveal. As Frankl indicates, t11e human capacity to will is empty if unaccompanied by its objective counterpart ~ to will what one "ought." The White Rose students found their lives meaningful because they discovered what they ought to do, and acted upon the ",rnght." Thus they actualized their inner values in a cause greater than themselves. They realize the meaning oftheir lives by fulfilling the responsibilities which conscience had revealed to them.4• P· 64 Frankl's dictum that human concern is not to seek pleasure or to avoid pain but to find meaning4· r 72 is one which students at this point in the discussion instantly apprehended. Frank's view is lent further weight by the words of Willi Graf, a martyred member of the White Rose circle: "In every destiny, no matter how hard it may be. there lies a distin•:t meaning, even though it may not be disclosed to us in this world." 7• p. 303 In a wartime diary kept by a despairing Friederich Reck-Malleczewin there is a hopeful entry: "The Scholls are the first in Germany to have had the courage to witness for the truth.... They died in all the radiance of their courage and readiness for sacrifice and thereby attained the pinnacle in lives well lived. We will all of us some day have to make a pilgrimage to their graves and stand before them a~hamed.",. r. 112 As late as 1985 the story of the Scholls was still providing a powerful antidote to the poison of Nazi apologetics. especially when a group of activists, including a U.S. Senator, chose to lay a wreath on their graves at the very moment President Reagan visited Bitburg. For the great mass of German university students during World War I I the conscience was far less powerful than the superego shaped by the Nazi state. These students preferred the classic escape from freedom which totalitarianism provides to the exercise ofindividual choice and conscience. Indeed. on the very evening following the execution of the Scholls, several thousand Munich students gathered to roar their approval of the death sentences and to applaud the porter. Jakob Schmid. who had betrayed the White Rose. At this point I ask my students which response was more rational and meaningful that of the Sch oils or that of the majority, mindlessly applauding the informer'? To move from that ugly scene to the serenity with which Hans Scholl met death, the phrase "long live freedom" on his lips, illustrates Frankl's lapidary statements that "human existence is essentially self-transcendencc"4· r 74 and that "life never ceases to have and to retain a meaning to the very last moment. "4· r. 24 Because "ultimate absurdity or ultimate meaning" is often the only choice open to individuals condemned to live withm a totalitarian society, the action of the Scholls and their friends appears the only sane response to an insane situation. My students agreed that their earlier characterization of the White Rose rebellion as quixotic and foolhardy was fatuous. And the episode itself, which had earlier appeared to be only a footnote to the history of the period, became an affirmation of the human capacity to find dignity and meaning in even hopeless situations -a point well worth making in today's climate. when men such as 82 Sakharov and Scharansky were imprisoned or exiled for upholding human rights. Schindler's List The next situation in which logotherapeutic principles were helpful concerned respecta hie German businessmen using slave labor, leading to the death of millions of defenseless human beings. The consequences to the victims of corporate collusion in slavery are documrnted in such recent works as Wies law Kielar\ Anw Muncli and Sara ;-.;omberg-Przytyk's Auschwitz. Tales from a Grotesqur Land which I assigned to my students as required reading. \t1oreovcr. the postwar leniency accorded to business executives using "clean violence" as opposed to the "dirty violence" of the SS reflects, in Richard Rubenstein\ words. an almost universal bias in advanced technological societies in favor of the "white-collar criminal.":::>. r 20 Many ofthcsc ideas arc interesting to pursue in class, hut they shed little light on why so many apolitical entrepreneurs were perfectly willing to avail themselves of slave labor. other than the universal human motivation of greed. It is, however. possible to show that the choice of "ultimate absurdity or ultimate meaning" was within reach. as exemplified hy Oskar Schindler. a German industrialist in Cracow. Poland. who made a conscious decision to save as many ]!\cs of his Jewish slave laborers as possible. and thus salvaged his own human identity from the debris of the Third Reich. Schindler\ story has become well known through Thomas Keneally\ "docu-novel," Schindler 's List. 9 Schindler used his factory to shelter thousands of Jewish workers and thus saved them from death in Auschwitz. A profligate womanizer and spendthrift who lived on the edge of bankruptcy. a wheeler-dealer who moved easily in SS circles. there was little in Schindler's background to suggest the nobility of character which he ultimately displayed. How can one explain the metamorphosis to undergraduates. except by introducing the possibility of psychic self-repair open to all. and the freedom to change which. in Frankl's phrase, can lead to unpredictable self-transcendence. Keneally suggests that, upon learning of the existence of Bclzec concentration camp from his friends in the SS, Schindler. the easy-going opportunist became Schindler. the rescuer of Jews. He spent the next three years in single-minded serYice to the cause of rescue. thus finding the meaning of his life in deeds and works. an idea which deserves to be brought to the attention of students growing up in a materialistic society. "The more one forgets oneself -giving oneself to a cause or another person -the more human he is," writes Frankl. "And the more one is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself. the more he really becomes himself. "6· r 79 Such words provide an answer to the enigma of Schindler and a welcome antidote to the virus of consumerism and hedonism which afflicts the young today. Following Orders Frankl\ view that every human being has the potential to change at any instant applies equally to the third case study selected for logotherapeutic 83 application. Because every soldier swore a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, students are inclined to sympathize with the claim that they were simply following orders. Since knowledge would require taking a stand while ignorance would not, German soldiers on the Eastern front lost little sleep over the treatment of Slavic prisoners. A few \\-ords about the necessity of rooting out "partisan bandits" quickly quieted their consciences and they either looked the other way or applauded the terrible butcheries being carried out by special SS action groups. 15• p. nx The easy explanation of orders from above has been used to excuse even the crimes of the SS. Thus Colonel Otto Ohlendorff refused at his trial to make any moral judgments upon the mass murders he had directed: "I surrendered my moral conscience to the fact I was a soldier and therefore a cog in a relatively low position of a great machine. 16• r. 64 Yet even SS men occasionally chose to question and even to violate clearly c1 iminal orders. Students were asked to search out examples of men in uniform who had opted to escape the collective mass and to assume personal responsibility. Their research revealed many such cases, ranging from Kurt Gerstein who exchanged his SS uniform for prisoner's rags. to Klaus von Stauffenberg who smuggled the bomb into Hitler's headquarters on July 20, 1944. Among the most poignant cases they turned up was that of Max Frauendorfer. old Party member and SS officer, who joined the conspiracy against Hitler "because of his boundless despair about all he had lived through in Poland; it was so terrible that he could not endure it."x. P· ' 09 Fr auendorfer's case confirms for students the fatuity ofviewing even NaLis as fully conditioned and wholly predictable. Further confirmation comes from Frankl\ dicta that "a man docs not simply 'be' hut always decides what he will be in the next moment"; that "at each moment the human person is steadily molding and forging his own character"; and that "every human being has the chance of changing at an instant. "4· 1'· 01 In each case students were asked to make use of the principles applied earlier to the Scholls and to Oskar Schindler. They analyzed the factors which had impelled such persons to escape the conditioning oftheir milieu, to discover the existence of conscience, to follow where conscience led. to embark on what Frankl calls a self-constructing act in the midst of near-universal destruction and thus ultimately to endow their lives and deaths with weight and meaning. A film was shown that further underscored the power of ordinary individuals to take a stand, and in so doing to free themselves from the depersonalized existence which may in fact be worse than death. Entitled "Joseph Schultz," 14 the film tells of a German soldier who was executed in 1942 by his fellow Wehrmacht when he refused to participate in the murder of Serbian villagers taken hostage during a reprisal raid against partisans. An otherwise unremarkable human being had chosen to follow conscience rather than orders and, in so doing, made a statement which still reverberates, even today when the spotlight rests upon those who seek to excuse moral failure in the Balkan charnel house by leaning on the broken reed ofa soldier's duty. The film is further validated by Frankl's view that "human freedom is in no way a freedom from conditions but rather the freedom to take a stand toward conditions. Therefore choosing a S4 stand toward suffering means exerting freedom. In doing so, man in a sense transcends the world and his predicament therein."4· P-25 .Jews in the Ghetto Frankl\ words serve also to introduce the fourth case study which can be illuminated by ltigotherapeutic principles -that ofa Jew in the Polish ghetto or concentration camp. Studen1' were asked to read first-hand accounts ofJewish life in Furope during the Nazi period and to research various aspects of the ghetto and concentration camp experience, u~ing such works as the Ringel bl um di<1ries.' 1 the Lodz Chronicles.2 and secondary works such as Lucy Dawidowicz's /,Ver Agaim; rhe .Jev.-s.' They grow to understand the many compromises people mmt mah. as well as ,he fact that heroism may be revealed in small acts of will such as a ckci~ion to fast on Yorn Kippur or to marry and have children. Students are cautitnied to avoid gen<:ralization, and instead to attach names and identities to those whom the totalitarian state sought to rob ofhumanness. l his i~ a first step toward repersonalization of the historical record. Students were asked to examine the ways in which each person reacted to the wnditions imposed upon him or her. They discovered that people, no matter the circumstance, invanahiy seek to retain control ofsome portion oftheir fate. E\'en after the Germans hegan to liquidate the ghettos and to transport the inhahitants to death camps. many were ahle to transcend their suffering and to make their impendmg deaths meaningful. Students could identify with the heroics of Mordecai Anielewicz. the leader of the Fighters Organization of the Warsaw Ghetto. ""Mordecai realized that the fate ofthe Polish Jews was sealed," write~ Ringelblum. "The young hut quickly maturing Mordecai understood that at pre~ent there was but one question: What kind of death will the Polish Jew, select for themsclves?" 1•· I' x9 "Man," writes Frankl, "is ready to suffer, if cnl:-he can he ~atislied that hi, suffering has a meaning.''3• r 7x Students perceived that !v1 ordecai in effect took a stand toward conditions and thus exercised the freedom oi which not even the Germ,ms could deprive him. Ho\\ever, student, need to he reminded at this point that it was possible to cxcrcise one's will tu freedom in many ways. Dr. Janusz Korczak's rejection of refupe in Palestine in order to maintain his orphans' school in Warsaw and his decisiun to accompany the children to their deaths in Treblinka is movingly described by Dawidowicz. 1 r ,o4 In a manner different from that of Mordecai A.nielewicz but no less significant, Dr. Korczak had indeed provided a model of htm Jews should encounter death as well as life. In so doing he had shown that C\"Cn the most powerless can assume responsibility for their lives and achieve the logo~ of existence. "He who under conditions of terror and coercion achieved inner freedom.'' writes Pawclczynda, "carricd off the only form of victory possible within the existing situation." JO. r-141 A Hans Sdwll. an Oskar Schindler, a Mordecai Anielewicz, a Joseph Schultz all attempted to shape fate in a creative fashion and in so doing to affirm life. Dr. Korcnk. faced with inevitable doom, like so many others accepted fate nobly and bore his suffering with humility. So singular an achievement enabled them all to transcend the tragic triad of suffering, guilt and transitoriness which humans as finite beings must inevitably experience.4• r-24 Frankl's words endow 85 the issue with cohesion and with a clarity which yields understanding: "Even a man who finds himself in the most dire distress can give his life meaning by the way and manner in which he faces his fate, in which he takes his suffering upon himself. Precisely in this way he has been given a last chance to realize values. This life has a meaning to the last breath. "4, P-128 Such insights assist students in apprehending history not simply as an impersonal force operating according to scientific rules, as the Marxists maintain, or even as a chaotic and nihilistic nightmare, from which humankind, in James Joyce's phrase, is trying to awaken, but rather as the recorded memory of the human race, in which "every life, in every situation and to the last breath" has a meaning. The past thus bears witness to the way in which individuals have successfully overcome transiency and achieved eternity; it becomes a storehouse ofmaterialized possibilities, suggesting the full range ofopportunities surrounding students in the present and awaiting them in the future, as they seek the meaning of their own existence_s. P-7~ CLAIRE HIRSHFlELD, Ph.D., is professor of history, The Penmylvania State University, Ahington, Pennsylvania. REFERENCES: I. DawidowiC?. l.ucy. The War Against the Jews. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975. 2. Dobroszycki. Lucjan. ed. The Chronicle of the /,ad:: Ghetto. New Haven. Yale Universily Press. 1984. 3. Frankl. Viktor. Man's Search/or Meaning. Boston. Beacon Press. 1959. 4. ____ Psychotherapy and Existentialism. New York. Washington Square Press. 1967. 5. ____ The Donor and the Soul. New York. New Vintage Books, 1977. 6. ____ The Unconscious God. New York. Simon & Schuster. 1978. 7. Hanser. Richard. A Nohle Treason: The Revolt ofthe Munich S1udents Against Hitler. New York. Putnam. 1979. 8. Hohne. Hans. The Order ofthe Dea1h~-Head. New York. Ballantine Books. 1966. 9 Keneally. Thomas. Schindler'., List. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1982. 10. Pawclczynda. Anna. Values and Violence in Aus,·hwitz. Berkeley. University of California Press. 1979. 11. Ringelblum. Emmanuel. "Comrade Mordecai." In The1 Fought Back, Yuri Suh!. ed. New York. Schocken. 1975. 12. Rubenstein. Richard. 1he Cunning of' Historr. New York. Harper and Row. 1975. 13. Scholl. Inge. Students Against Trranny: The Resistance of the White Ruse, Munich. 1942. Middleton. CT.. Wesleyan University Press. 1970. 14. Schultz. Joseph. Film available from Audio Visual Services. Pennsylvania State University. University Park. PA 16804. Film number 21906. 15. Windrow. Martin. The Universal Soldier. London. Guincss Superlative Ltd. 1971. 16. Wolfe. Robert. "Putative Threat to National Security as a Nuremberg Defense for Genocide." Annals of the American Academy of Politiwl and Social Sciences, 45. July 1986. 86 A Melanesian Quest for Meaning Wolfgang G. Jilek and Louise Jilek-Aall In Julv 1984, while working in Papua, New Guinea, we travelled to a far-off village in the Gulfof Papua. We had to take a two-hour flight ji'om the capital, then a three-hour truck ride on a bumpy hush road. andfinalzr go another three hours by boat down a jungle river. Upon our arrival the local VJ P:~ assembled, among them a teacher and counselor. When hearing that one ofus originally camefrom Austria, he usked whether we knew Dr. Viktor F;;:,,zkl. His face lit up when he heard that we knew Frankl personallv. He told us that Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, had given him the courage to keep on working in his difficult job. This episode is a reminder ofthe £ranscendental appeal of Frankl 's ideas. Even here. in one ofthe most remote corners ofthe world. in a culture radically dijferent from those of Europe and North America, Frank l's ideas touched a human being and gave him the same kind of spiritual strength that they have given thousands ofmen and women in the Western World. Our previous experience that a logotherapeutic approach can successfully be applied in counseling and psychotherapy with clients from very different sociocultural milieus was again confirmed in Papua, New Guinea where we had an opportunity to assist the Melanesian Institute, Goroka, in the organization of counselor training with logotherapeutic orientation. Why does logotherapy "work" also in tradition-directed non-European cultures, while other approaches, e.g., Freudian psychoanalysis, usually do not? One reason may he that major personality-forming ceremonials in these cultures have significant logotheraputic aspects. Initiation ceremonials have a logotherapeutic function in tradition-directed cultures hy warding off existential frustration and socio-cultural identity confusion in the young, from which noogenic neuroses and anomic depression arise in "modernized" societies. This is achieved by a process of social learning in which a sense of personal re~pomibility for the conduct of one's adult life, and concern for one's elders and peers, is instilled through direct and indirect teaching, revelation of ancestral secrets, testing by ordeal, ego-strengthening rewards. In the initiatory psychodrama of death and rebirth, structurally patterned archetypal symbols are skillfully transmitted by the elders and gain direct access to the initiate's unconscious. The process of initiation helps the young person to establish firmly a sexual and socio-cultural identity as well as a strong conviction of meaning and purpose in life. 87 The Papua New Guinea Paradigm In the process of Westernizing modernization, the tribal populations of the Third and Fourth World experience an undermining and degrading of their traditional values. They are offered alien ideologies which are contradictory, and the promise of a good life which is obtainable only for a few. Rather than to true acculturation, rapid Westernization more often leads to deculturation, to anomie, the lack of any value system guiding human behavior. Such a societal situation provides the socio-cultural background for that psychopathological state which in North American Indians we have described as anomic depression. 6-10 Anomic depression is a noogenic neurosis, 1,2,3.4 a chronic dysphoric state with feelings oflowered self-esteem and existential frustration experienced in a life which is perceived as devoid of socio-cultural meaning. Anomic depression is often associated with somatizing symptoms in women and with aggressive acting-out in men, leading to suicidal or randomly homicidal behavior under alcohol influence. The peoples of Papua New Guinea have only in recent times been exposed to rapid social change under Westernization and have therefore not yet experienced cultural disintegration to the degree experienced by the native peoples of North America. However, under the combined influence of modernization and steadily rising alcohol consumption, the erosion of traditional cultural values is fast progressing_s.9 In tradition-directed societies, initiation ceremonials are designed to impress upon the young the priority of group needs over and above individual interests and to implant in the adolescent a sense of personal responsibility vis-a-vis the extended family and the ancestors. The initiation period in tribal cultures is analogous to formal schooling, as formulated by Weiser-Aal115 in her study of ancient Germanic youth initiation. The didactic function of initiation is reflected in the verbal and nonverbal teaching of the values and mores of traditional culture with precise definitions of age-, sex-, and status-dependent rights and duties, so that the formation of a social conscience may finally compensate the egocentric strivings of the young individual. The initiate is familiarized with the cultural inheritance of his tribe in order to arouse feelings of pride in his ancestors and loyalty toward his people. In tradition-directed societies it is the young person's task to obtain the ancestral insignia of social maturity in the psychodrama of initiation. Youth initiation is a process of sophisticated cultural learning, in which structurally patterned collective symbols, sanctioned by mythology and skillfully manipulated by the initiators, gain direct access to the young person's unconscious. Social learning, revelation of ancestral secrets, and testing by ordeals, followed by ego-strengthening public rewards, create a feeling of group solidarity. We became aware of the important psycho hygienic functions of this traditional rite de passage through personal observation oft he social and psychiatric problems experienced by members of tribal societies under the impact of rapid Wcsternintion in North and South America, Africa, and the South Pacific. We studied the preventive and therapeutic aspects of youth initiation while working and living among the Amerindian people of the Pacific Northwest. 7 When working in Papua New Guinea we had again the opportunity to appreciate the 88 psychohygienic functions of traditional ceremonials. Youth initiation in Papua New Guinean cultures. as in other tradition-directed tribal societies, aims at the transformation of an egocentric youngster into a socialized personality. Paraphrasing Levi-Strauss'12 famous title "Le cruet le cuit" (the raw and the cooked) it could be said that the initiate is passing from a "raw" to a "cooked" ~tate (this indeed nearly happens in the Wahgi Valley of the New Guinea highlands where initiates arc exposed to the effects ofextreme heat and smoke). Objectives of youth initiation arc expressed in an initiation song from the Sepik area, recalled by the first Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea: 13 "When you live under your mother's leg/ You do what you like/ You have what you want / You ask for food I You receive it / You ask for water .· You receive it / You come and cry / You want to eat a big fish · Your mother cooks it for you/ But now/ Now you come under your father's leg ; Now you pay / For being treated softly at home / A new time begins for you .' When you must know / That you will be a man." The unveiling of the sacra (i.e.. the sacred and secret objects) was the central event of the initiation into the mystery cults of classical antiquity. 14 Similarly, the secret and sacred musical instruments, and the myths surrounding them, are revealed to the initiates in Papua New Guinea: flutes, slit-gongs, water drums, bull-roarers and whistles. Plutarch's word. "To become initiated is to die," is as true for initiation ceremonies in Papua New Guinea as it was for the mystery cults of ancient Greece. But to be initiated is also to be reborn, to find a new identity and a culture-congenial meaning in life. One of the most powerful universal symbols of humankind ~-rebirth -stands for the primordial idea of psychic transformation in dreams and in initiation rites of all cultures. as recognized by Carl Gustav Jung.0 The initiatory systems of New Guinea emphasize a clear distinction of the sexes int heir socio-cultural roles and the importance of a well-founded psychosexual identity. To safeguard the survival of the group, New Guinean cultures have developed symbolic structures which strengthen the male ethos hy psychological compensation for the lesser biological endurance capacity of men. Thus. a myt ho-logical need is perceived to correct a structural assymetry of nature -namely the birth of females and males from females only -by providing for symbolic rebirth of male adolescents from male relatives. In order to create mature men out of male adolescents, feminine traits have to be symbolically eliminated. Removal of the "female blood" which the male child received from his mother at birth, is a declared purpose of blood-letting from ritual cutting or puncturing ofskin, tongue, nostrils, or penis, which are at the same time tests of manly self-discipline. With this so-called "female blood," the male adolescent sheds the mother-oriented world of his childhood in favor of his identification with the world of adult men. Scarification by superficial skin cutting is made according to traditional patterns which have mythological significance and which are markers of maturity and prestige. 89 We were able to observe a traditional initiation ceremonial in the East Sepik area. The skin cutting ceremony was preceded by several weeks of preparation and fasting. For the main initiation procedures, the candidates -teenage boys -had to enter the haus tambaran (spirit house, Neo-Melanesian Pidgin), shielded off from the view of women and children by a high fence. The haus tamharan represented a gigantic supernatural being. Passing through the front opening, marked by a mask with gaping mouth, the initiates were "swallowed up" by the spirit monster. Inside the haus tamharan, in the monster's "belly," they were immersed in the spiritual world of their forebears. Surrounded by masks and carved figures representing ancestral spirits, and exposed to the sounds of the sacred instruments, they listened to the elders' moral teachings and revelations of secret tribal lore. After having endured their ordeal with dignity, and behaving in accordance with traditional custom, the initiates eventually emerged from the rear end of the spirit house, passing through the legs of their male relatives in a symbolic birth act. Now finally reborn as mature ad ult males they are the pride of their village. Women rejoice at their sight and a sing-sing feast is held in their honor. The women had been excluded from the initiation procedure and were forbidden from entering the haus tamharan. However, they did not appear intimidated by the eerie "spirit noises" their men produced inside the fenced-off compound. To the psychodrama of initiation with its protagonists (initiates) and directors (initiators), the women clearly lent themselves as a cooperative audience. The Meaning of Initiation in Men's Quest for Meaning Traditional cultures have developed the institution ofyouth initiation, for it is during the period of adolescence and young adulthood that young people are confronted by two major tasks, ( I) they have to achieve a sense of psychosexual and socio-cultural identity; (2) they have to acquire a basic orientation toward meaning, i.e .. the personal conviction that there will be meaning in their lives. Going through initiation in a tradition-directed society, young people are helped both in their quest for identity and in their quest for meaning. Through the initiation experience, they are prepared for finding meaning in their lives by transcending themselves in the service of their community. This enables the young later on to authentically realize their existence in the sense of Frankl's dictum that "self-transcendence is the essence of existence. "2· P· 82 Initiation takes place at a critical stage in personality formation. The dangers of this stage are anomie, role confusion, an existential frustration, which lead to noogcnic neuroses. especially to anomic depression, and which are mainly responsible for the increase in juvenile psychosociopathology and suicide. In tradition-directed societies, it is the logotherapeutic aspect of youth initiation which counteracts such dangerous developments. In societies where the traditional guiding institutions have been undermined or destroyed by outside influences as is happening now in tribal populations --or where these institutions have lost much oftheir credibility -as in the West -it is often the parent alone who can transmit values and present a role model to the child. But cultural values are not transmitted just by theoretical instruction. they must be lived. Parents who are uncertain about their value system, cannot provide 90 guidance: and parents who are confused ahout their own psychosexual or ,ocio-cultural role. can hardly serve as a model for identification. Morejuvenile pathology. juvenile alcohol abuse. and juvenile suicide is to be expected in societies where traditional guiding institutions, such as youth initiations, have disappeared in the course ofrapid modernization. This is the background to the otherwise inexplicable self-destruction among young people in aboriginal 11 North America. Australia, and in the South . Ersatz Religions In the West we also sec youth without effective traditional or parentai guidance left to drift into an existential vacuum in a life perceived as without meaning. The young person's unfilled need for guidance, identification and selftranscendence is then exploited by some "charismatic" sectarian prophet or demagogic juehrer-type. It is true. of course, that the techniques of decisively influencing young people in cults and ersa1z-rcligions arc similar to those cmployed in trihal imt i,H1ons: a hove all the skillful use of structurally patterned archetypal symhoh to transmit the personality reshaping message to the unconscious mind. However. as Frankl stated, "what matters is never a technique per sc but rat her the spirit in which the technique is used."J. r 24 Whereas traditional initiations in tribal societies are built upon the experience ofgenerations and supervised by the most respected elders responsible to the community, sectarian cults and totalitarian movements are usually built around one single person who has unchecked control over his followers and who is responsible ,rnly to him-or herself or to hidden interest groups. Furthermore, youth init!at ion in tradition-directed societies is typically sponsored hy the kingroup and hridges the generations, while a youngster's seduction into a sectarian cult often leads to alienation from family and community. Lastly, the purpose of initiation i~ the creation ot rcsponsihle and mature adult members of the community, while cult leaders tend to surround themselves with overly dependent a11d subservient believers who arc condemned to perpetual emotional and social immaturity. Modern \Vestern and Westernized people have, as Frankl-' reminds us, no conventions. traditions and value~ that tell them what to do. Young people in the Third World are now also losing the compass oftraditional guidance: many no longer have a traditional initiation into a meaningful existence. To save the young generation from drifting in an existential vacuum cit her to self-surrender or self-destruction, our advice to the educators, counselors and health workers of the Third World is to resort to logotherapcutic counseling in the family, at school. and in primary health care. This advice is based on our own experience that logothcrapy is effectively applicable in cultures as divergent as those ofthe Europeans, Euro-Americans, North American Indians, and Papua New Guineans. WOLFGANG G. JILEK, M.D.. M.Sc., F.R.C.P.(C) is clinical professor, Department ofAychiatry, andfaculty affiliate, Department ofAnthropologv, Universi1y of British Columbia. LOUISEJILEK-AALL, M.D., D. Trop. Med., FR.C.P.(C)isclinicalprofessor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. 91 REFERENCES I. Frankl. V. E. Theorie und Therapie der Aeurosen. Wien, Urban & Schwar1enberg, 1956. 2. ____ Psrch01herapv and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapv. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1967. 3. ____ The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherap1·. New York, New American Library, 1969. 4. ____ Das Leiden am sinnlosen Lehen. Freiburg, Herder, 1977 5. Jacobi. .J. The PJychology of C. G. Jung. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968. 6. Jilek, W. G. Salish Indian Mental Health and Culture Change. Toronto, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974. 7. ____ Indian Healing: Shamanic Ceremonialism in the Pacific Northwest Todar. Surrey, B. C., Hancock House, 1982. 8. ____ Alcohol Abuse in Papua New Guinea: Socio-cultural Factors. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review. 23: 79-83, I 986. 9. ____ Psychosocial and Cultural Aspects of Alcohol Alrnse in Certain Tribal Societies of the Circum-Pacific Region. Cur11re (in press). 10. ____ & L. Jikk-Aall. Logotherapeutic Aspects of the North American Indian Guardian Spir,t Ceremonial. in Analecta Frankliana: The Proceeding, ofthe First World Congre.,s of Logotherup_\ 1980. S. A. Wawrytko (Editor), Berkeley, Institute of Logotherapy Press, pp. 311-321. 11. Jilek-Aall, L. Suicidal Behavior Among Youth: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. Journal of Operational Psrchiatrr (in press). 12. Levi-Strauss. C. Le Cruet le Cuit. Paris, Librairie Pion, 1964. IJ Somare, M. Papua Ne11· Guinea. C. Ashton (Editor), Port Moresby: Papua New Guinea Office of Information, pp. 2-~ 14. Van Gennep, A. The Rites of Passage. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960. 15. Weiser-Aall. I.. A ltgermanische Juenglingsweihen um/ Maennerhuende. Buehl, Baden. Konkordia. 1927. 92 Reasons Versus Causes As Explanations of Human Behavior Jerry L. Long, Jr. The history of psychology is full ofexplanations ofwhy human beings behave as they do. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the first "psychological" laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. He sought to discover the physiological bases of human behavior and the nature of consciousness. As Rubin and McNeil state: "Wundt and hi, followers were called "structuralists," because they were interested in the anatomy or structure of conscious processes ..."20-r 7 Early Theories In the early twentieth century, Sigmund Freud popularized psychology and hypothesized the "inner dynamics" of Id, Ego, Superego, Unconscious, Subconscious, and so forth as the determinants of our behavior. 16 Such concepts quickly became reified: the "ego" became a thing governing and explaining behavior. Freud postulated concepb such as instinctual biological urges, psychic energy, and intrapsychic conflicts, as "drives" for our hehavior. 15·16 Indeed, Freud maintained that "man is lived by the unconscious ..." 19 At approximately the same time, John B. Watson experimentally demonstrated that human behavior could be controlled, manipulated, developed, and extinguished by altering one's environment. He demonstrated the applicability of classical (or respondent) conditioning to human beings. Theoretically, we could be shaped, conditioned, and manipulated to emit virtually any behavior based upon exposure and repeated association with even the most benign of correlates. Furthermore, Watson established the behavioristic precedent that the only proper subject matter for psychology was observable behavior.20 Building upon these premises, B. F. Skinner laid the underpinnings for radical behaviorism. This philosophy maintains that our behavior is determined (or caused) by the antecedents and consequences of every specific behavior (or in Skinnerian terminology, an operant) that we emit.22 Ifa behavior is positively reinforced (positive consequence) then the frequency, intensity, and duration of that behavior will increase. Likewise, the opposite is true. Our environment (including people, places, things) determines our behavior: "Man does not act on the environment; it acts on him. "22 The consequences select behaviors; we do not choose to behave a certain way.21.24 The Existential View In sharp contrast to this perspective is the existentialist view of human behavior. Thi, philosophy posits free will: our behavior is not caused by environmental contingencies, hut instead it is freely chosen from a multitude of 93 6•13 18•20 21 alternatives.4· ---27 We determine our own fate. Yalom further delineates characteristics of existential psychology (and existential psychotherapy): Existential psychotherapy is a dynamic approach to therapy which focuses on concerns that are rooted in the individual's existence .... the problem of definition ... is resolved ... by listing a number of themes relating to existence (for example, being, choice.freedom . .. [Author's emphasis].27. PP-5-15 Among the tremendous number ofexistential •'schools ofthought" logotherapy is particularly relevant to a discussion of reasons versus causes as explanations of human behavior because it specifically addresses this issue within a theoretical context.3.9.10.u Logotherapy maintains that the primary motivator of human behavior is the search for meaning. 12 We actively seek a meaning in our lives, a reason for what we do. Our ability to find meaning is unconditional. Even in the most difficult circumstances or the harshest environments we can still derive meaning.26 One of the most powerful arguments supporting this notion is the example ofthe life of logotherapy's founder, Viktor E. Frankl. From 1942-1945 Frankl was imprisoned in various Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau. The prisoners were subjected to 12-15 hours of hard labor each day, often in subfree1ing temperatures with ragged clothing. Their rations consisted of a small cup of watery soup and perhaps five ounces of bread per day as they hourly awaited extermination. Frankl describes how his comrades reacted to the cruel situation confronting them. Indeed, as Freud had postulated, some regressed to an animalistic level of functioning. They fought with others and, through any possible means, scavenged for food. If there ever was a testing ground for discovering how environmental variables affect human behavior, this was it. In a strictly behavioral vein, all contingencies of reinforcement were exi~tent to produce, shape, and maintain aberrant, destructive, and hostile behaviors. But, how do we explain the behavior of those who, in Frankl's words, "became virtual saints"?4 Founded on personal experience, Frankl describe~ how some individuals, living in identical conditions, unselfishly gave of themselves to aid their fellow prisoners. They comforted those in pain; they listened to friends grieving the loss of loved ones: they gave away some of their own pitiful food, and in some cases willingly gave their lives. Here is one example as told to me by Frankl: Some rotting potatoes had been stolen. The guards offered to refrain from punishment if but one person would indicate the guilty party. Not one finger was raised nor one voice heard! The entire camp prisoner population would not betray the man. This action served to antagonize the guards who then decreed that every tenth man would be gassed. Down the line they went -number I, number 11, number 21, and so on. They came to a man who was known to be one of the few whose family was still alive. Instantly, the man behind him -a Catholic priest named Father Colby -stepped forward and asked to be gassed in the man's place. Since the guards were interested only in numbers of prisoners, it was allowed, and Father Colby quietly walked to his death. Why did he do this? If his conditioning history mandated that he sacrifice 94 himself to save another, then why did so many with similar theological training fail to give even minor aid to others, much less give their lives? Ifhis superego, by instantaneous conflict resolution, prescribed this action, then why did other incarcerated members of the helping professions remain emotionally disengaged from the entire camp? Perhaps the best explanation can be offered by logotherapy. Logotherapy maintains that one's life may be retroactively flooded with meaning up to the final breath. As such, meaning can be derived in a fraction of a second. 7 I contend that Father Colby (later canonized and granted sainthood) sacrificed himself not because he was caused to do so by drives or conditioning but because he saw a reason for choosing to take the man's place ~ he could actualize the ideals of his training, he could transcend the unavoidable conditions of the camp, and he could help a man live to see his waiting family, and a family could have a living father. Father Colby was afforded the ultimate challenge of life~ to face unavoidable suffering with dignity and to transcend his self for the enactment of unselfish love toward a fellow human being. 5-12 His unselfish behavior was decided on in less than a second. As Frankl says: It should be made quite clear that there cannot exist in man any such thing as a moral drive, or even a religious drive, in the same manner as we speak of man's being determined by basic instincts. Man is never driven to moral behavior; in each instance he decides to behave morally. I doubt that they (the saints) ever had it in mind to become saints. If that were the case, they would have become only perfectionists rather than saints.4-P· 1sx There was a reason for the priest's behavior, but not a cause. To illustrate how reasons and causes operate on different dimensions of existence, I draw upon the following analogy taken from Frankl. 13 Causes and Reasons Cutting an onion, we cry because of the chemical relationship between the juices of the onion and the biology of our eyes. There is a cause for the tears. But we also cry at the death ofa loved one. But, instead ofa cause, there is a reason for the tears! We do not feel sorrow while crying as a result ofpeeling an onion, whereas sorrow and griefarc seemingly omnipresent at the death of a loved one. When examined from the perspective of this analogy, a more clear demarcation between reasons and causes begins to evolve. Human beings arc the only living organisms who have a conscience. Psychoanalysts refer to this component (and causal factor) of human behavior as the superego, whereas the behaviorists maintain that conscience is the total conditioning history of the individual with regard to issues judged "right" or "wrong" by society. Skinner maintains that the ultimate goal ofscience is survival ofthe society. 22 According to psychoanalysis or behaviorism, human behavior is caused by environmental determinants or intrapsychic mechanisms. Human behavior is a plaything of forces beyond our control, and conscience is but a conditioned, societally imposed factor. We are "driven" to certain behaviors, or we fall prey to the illusion that we are "choosing" to behave a certain way. According to some 95 behaviorists, we merely have failed to identify a given behavior's antecedents and consequences which have formed a conditioning history determining the frequency, intensity, and duration of that behavior. In sharp contrast to this causal perspective, reasons operate on a dimension of human behavior which includes the dimension containing causes. That is, the dimensionality of reasons is higher than its causal counterpart. Causes implicate a mechanistic view of human beings, reducing them to a product of instincts or environmental variables. However, reasons provide the cognizance that humans are infinitely more than animals or machines. Reasons allow for self-transcendence of our uniquely human capability to go beyond "drives" or circumstances or, more specifically, to go beyond our self toward something (i.e., an endeavor) or someone (a loved one) greater than ourself. Frankl4 observes that prisoners who had a goal of some kind were those most likely to survive the rigors of the concentration camp. They could see not a cause per se, but a reason for their suffering. For some the reason was family, for others an unfinished work, and for still others, to "hear their cross." They could see beyond their own "ridiculous naked lives. "4 Buss summarizes the reason-cause distinction: Causality is a useful and necessary notion in regard to explaining social behavior. When it is totalized and thus transformed into unquestioned dogma, however, it becomes an ideology that obscures and hides, rather than enlightens and informs.2-p. 183 Seeing one's potentials requires far more than a dominant superego or proper conditioning. It requires the ability to look beyond (i.e., transcend) one's self. Behaviorists maintain that "potentials" are merely the product of our reinforcement history ~ what reinforcements are correlated with what specific behaviors (and consequently, what behaviors are likely to be reinforced, or "have potential"). Logotherapists view potentials as representing the uniquely human ability to see reasons for sufferings bravely borne, for deeds proudly done, for others genuinely loved, or for a death faced with dignity. Another distinction between reasons and causes as explanations of human behavior concerns the human ability to observe one's self. Indeed, selfobservation occurs during behavior modification techniques (i.e., self-monitoring, daily logs) and during psychoanalysis (dream interpretation, examination of one's childhood), but self-observation indicative of selfdetachment necessitates a reason to transcend the self. This concept can be illustrated with an example from medicine. Cancer victims during the final months of the disease often exhibit an unusual set of behaviors. They don't monitor activities or amount of pain, but are frequently overcome with a sense of calmness. This serenity often results in diminished tumor size and fewer requests for analgesics. Logotherapy explains this phenomenon as self-detachment: by marshalling their uniquely human capabilities (their human "spirit") they separate themselves from their disease, thereby reducing its negative effects. 96 A Three-Dimensional Human Picture To recapitulate: human behavior does have causes, and much of what wc do and why we do it has been explained historically in terms of intra psychic conflict resolution ("drives") or by environmental contingencies (external determinants). However, by restricting ourselves to these seemingly bipolar explanations we view the human being in terms of a two-dimensional continuum, thereby reducing humans to less than they are (and what potentials they may have). Only when we consider reasons for explaining human behavior, do we view humans in their real capacity~ as multidimensional beings. This includes those qualities which are uniquely human such as the ability to self-transcend, to observe the self in a detached manner, and to draw upon our "noetic dimension." Only then can we truly search for a meaning to our existence. Franklu draws the analogy between contradicting viewpoints as diametrically opposed figures (a circle and a square) representing the projections of a threedimensional cylinder. Fig. 1 Frankl's Dimensional Ontology Logotherapeutic Reasons Environmental Contingencies of Reinforcement To analogize, the.: circular plane of environmental contingencies of reinforcement suffices to explain human behavior unidimensionally. The square plane of intrapsychic drives serves to explain human behavior in a similar unidimensional manner, albeit using different terminology. Only when viewed in a three-dimensional framework, can we begin to see the cylindrical, multidimensional juxtaposition of the circle and the square forming a figure which is transcendent to drives or environment. This transcendant figure represents the logotherapeutic approach to the explanation of human behavior. That is, the cylinder represents infinitely more than a mere combination of drives and environment. If it were merely their combination, we could simply lay the square and the circle side by side. Instead, logotherapy transcends such unidimensionality by venturing into areas such as meaning in life, a human spirit, and seeing reasons (as opposed to causes) for a more comprehensive and inclusive explanation of human behavior. Unequivocally, logotherapy emphasizes that "something extra" which is not "scientific" or easily operationalized. The area we have entered with our logotherapy ... is a borderland between medicine and philosophy. Medical ministry lies between 97 two realms. It therefore is a border area, and as such a no-man's land. And yet -what a land of promise!6-P-2s3-2s4 When we view human beings in a purely scientifically formulated conception of psychology, we remove them from the specifically and uniquely human dimension. We relegate the explanation of human behavior to a constellation of causes. We reduce the human being to a thing whose behavior is unwillingly and unknowingly determined, whereas viewing human behavior in the uniquely human dimension allows for the inclusion of reasons to explain behavioral motivations and choices. 13 Explication ofthis contention is given in the analogy which contrasted tears caused by onions with weeping whose reason was the death of a loved one. Logotherapy is not the only subdisciplinc of psychology which openly challenges the validity of psychoanalytic or behavioral assumptions. However, in sharp contrast to those who merely criticize these perspectives on human behavior, logotherapy may claim a more tolerant attitude in a two-fold sense. First, logotherapy views its contribution not as entirely substitutive, but rather complementary (especially with regard to psychoanalysis as reviewed by Frankl).6 Second. logotherapy offers specific criticisms and explanations of how it accounts for these perceived shortcomings ofother "schools of thought." In fact. logotherapeutic principles have been utilized in psychotherapy of a behavioral orientation. 1.P A Case Study In conclusion, I submit the following case study in support of the logotherapeutic contention that reasons, not causes, constitute the more valid (and human) explanation of human behavior. I know ofa young man who, at the age of seventeen. was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident. He had worked on a ranch and had aspired to a possible career in professional baseball. Ofcourse, these sources of meaning were immediately excluded from his future when he broke his neck. He tells of an incident shortly after his injury when he lay completely immobilized with metal tongs screwed into his skull, and there came a time of decision making in its most fundamental sense. He faced the decision whether he should give up (and probably die within six months) or whether he should at least try to make something of his shattered life. He says, "I thought everything out and decided that I should at least try. There's no way I could discover what's out there if I didn't try." Here was an individual stripped of his ability to voluntarily urinate, or to scratch his nose. or to feed himself. not to mention the loss of his ability to ride horses or throw a baseball. He wanted to live not because he was "caused" to live by contingencies of reinforcement, but because he saw the possibility ofpotentials and the reasons to go on. Tenuous though they may be, these are the reasons he decided to go on. I happily report that since then he has graduated high school, graduated college. completed one year of graduate study pursuant to a doctorate in clinical psychology, published several articles, formed meaningful and la~ting relationships, counseled others, travelled abroad, is living independently, and regards his life as heller than it would have been. He states, "My life is abundant with meaning and purpose," and I know this to be true for the individual about whom I write is me. 98 JERRY L. LONG, Jr. is pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston, TX. REFERENCES: I. Ascher. I . "Application of Paradoxical Intention by Other Schools ofTherapy." International Forum for Logotherapy, 5 (I). 1981. 2. Huss. A. A Dialectical Psrchology. New York, Irvington Puhl., 1979. 3. Fabry, J. B. The Pursuit of Meaning. San Francisco. Harper & Row. 1980. 4. Frankl. H.F. ,Wan'., Searchjor Meaning. Boston, Beacon Press. 1959. 5. _____ "Beyond Self-Actualirntion and Self-Expression.".fournalofExistential Psychiarn. 1. 5-20, 1960. 6. ____ 1he Docror and the Soul. New York. Alfred A. Knopf. 1965. 7. _____ "Logotherapy and Existential Analysis: A Review." American Journal ofPsychorherap1. 20, 252-260. 1966. 8. _____ "What i, Meant by !\1eaning0" Journal of t),istentialism, 7 (25). 21-28, l966. 9. _____ Psychotherap_1· and Exisrenrialism. New York, Washington Square Press. 1967. 10. _____ The Will to Meaning. New York and Cleveland, The World Publishing Co., 1969. 11. _____ "Determinism and Humanism:· Humamtas, 7, 23-26, 1971. 12. ____ 7he l'nconscwus God New York, Simon & Schuster, 1978. IJ. _____ "Logotherapy on its Wa} to Degurufication." In Analecra Frankliana, Sandra Wawn tko. ed. Berkeley. Institute of Logotherapy Press. 1982. 14. ____ "l"he Rehumani73tion of Psychotherapy." Speech before the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, May 24. I985. J'i. Freud. S. Cil'ili::ation and its Di.,cuntellf.1. New York, W. \V. Norton & Co.. 1966. 16. _____ /ntrodw 101T LRcrure, on Psrchoanahsis. New York. W.W. Norton &Co.. 1966. 17. Lanrus. A. BehU\·ior Therapy and Beyond. New York. McGraw-Hill. 1971. IR. Maddi. S Personalirr Theories. Homewood, IL. Dorsey Press, 1980. 19. Ma\, R. "The O11gins and Significance of the Existential Movement in Psychology." In L-.;i.,rence. May. Angel. and Fllcnhcrger. eds. New York. Simon & Schuster. 1958. 20 Ruhin. Z. and E. McNeil. 7he Ps_\"Chulog_i· ofBeing Human. New York. Harper & Row. 1981. 21. Schultt. D. P. "frank!\ Model of the Self-I ransccndent Person." In Growrh Psycholog\': .Hodel, ufrhe Heail/11 Penonaliry. New York, Van Nostrand, 1977. 22. Skinner. B. S, ien,·e and Human Hehavwr. New York. McMillan. 1953. 23 _____ Bciond Freedom and Dignlly. :\ew York, Bantam Books. 1971. 24. ~----"Selecti,in hy Consequences." Behavioral and Brain S,.·iences, 7, 477-481. 1984. 25. Soder,trom, D. "Religious Orientation and Meaning in Life." Dissertation, Utah State University. I 976. 26. Starck. P. l.. ""Patients· Perceptions of the Meaning of Suffering." 17w International Forumfor Lugorherapr. 6 (2). 110-116. 1983. n. Yalom. I. D. Fxistenrial P.lnlwrherapi-. New York, Basic Hooks. 1980. 99 Logos and the Farm Crisis in America Joseph Graca The severe crisis among farmers in America, caused by years of high interest rates, inflated land values, and commodity prices below production costs, has resulted in an alarming increase in farm bankruptcies and bank failures, especially in the midwest. A conservative estimate is that more than one-third of all farmers in the mid west will be forced out of farming in the next two years. This economic crisis has created a spiritual crisis among farmers that severely tests their feelings about life meaning, purpose, and values. Every farm family that has lost its farm has gone through a personal tragedy. What has been taken away is more than land and a few buildings. Farming represents more than a job or occupation; it represents a way of life and a family history. As a clinical psychologist living in a small farm community in Iowa I have seen the human consequences of the farm crisis firsthand. For the past year I have assisted another therapist in conducting a weekly farm support group. From this experience I have come to appreciate the strong values that farming represents. Common values shared by most farmers are helping others, appreciation of nature, trust, family, and community. The farming lifestyle has given generations offarmers a sense of identity, and has rewarded their hard work by offering a strong sense of meaning and purpose. As a trained logotherapist I have been able to turn to the principles of logotherapy in order to understand the farm crisis in human terms and to develop an approach to help these farmers in crisis regain their sense ofmeaning and direction. Experientially the loss of a farm is comparable to the loss of a loved one in your family. The coping stages that farm families go through when threatened with loss of their farm, are similar to the stages followed in coping with death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Because many farmers value independence, self-reliance and self-responsibility, they react to the threat of loss with self-blame and depression. Others respond with unfocused anger and hostility accompanied by a strong sense of injustice. This hyperreflection on inward or outward blame for the farm crisis can p,ychologically cripple a farm family and prevent its members from going through the healing proce~s of dealing with their sense of loss. To allow the healing process to occur, so a sense of meaning and direction can return to their lives, the first step is to assist farm families to recognize and identify what they feel is being threatened by the loss oftheir farm. The question needs to be addressed "what life values are being threatened?" Frequently it is the values offamily, tradition and heritage -they realize they will not be able to 100 pass on their farm to their children. What inevitably occurs is a questioning of their values system, especially the values of honesty, trnst and self-reliance. In dealing with this crisis in values and the threat to their sense oflife direction and meaning, logotherapeutic principles can be applied to assist in coping. For example, when a farmer states he has lost his ability to trust others, through a Socratic dialogue the person can be led to realize that he has become more guarded in trusting others yet still holds trust and honesty as important to his value system. Many farmers who participate in our support group have become peer counselors. They have found a new way to fulfill the value of helping others by reaching out to other farmers in crisis. Through the assistance of the group and the support and understanding that it provided. many farmers have been able to maintain their sense of identity and value system. They are now able to struggle with finding new jobs, interests, and relationships that are congruent with their value system, thus re-establishing their sense of meaning and direction. It is important for others to appreciate the human tragedy of the farm crisis among farmers and the threat it represents to their meaning orientation. America's farmers, stricken by an economic crisis that is largely beyond their control, are leading a trend that is sure to continue. In a sense, America's source of values and tradition is dying, and the farmers are only the first to go. Coal miners. oil field workers, steel workers, and longshoremen are also facing a loss of tradition and a way of life. As American society continues to place technological progress above tradition, America may slowly lose its collective meaning and purpose. A philosophy as offered by logotherapy can help people maintain their value system in spite of this aiarming trend. JOSEPH G RA CA, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Knoxville, Iowa. The Encounter with Meaninglessness in Crisis Intervention Roberta G. Sands Meaning is an intrinsic part ofcrisis intervention theory and practice. People go into a state of crisis when their needs, values, and goals are threatened by a precipitating factor and stressful life events.3·17 During the state of crisis, they experience a sense of meaninglessness. Resolution of the crisis involves facing meaninglessness and finding meaning by changing the meaningless situation where possible, or by changing one's attitude where it is not. The work of Viktor Frankl is germane to this process. Although crisis intervention theory has been anin1;. Nc1,1 York. Washington Sqtwre Press. l9X4. 7 ~---~ l'.1_1'< lwrhi'l'a/>.1 and E,i,1e111iali.1111. :',;ev. York. Washington S<.Juarc Press. 19(,: 8. ho,t. R. "(iod\ Speech to .lob." In S. Rournan (ed.). One !lwulred .Hodcrn l'ue111.1. '.'ic1,1 Y,,rk. Mcntm. 1949.1.121.1.1. 9. Garfinkel. H .\1L1dies in f-.'1hnome:lu•dulogr l·.ngic,\ood Clift< 1\'J. Prentice-Hall. 1%''. 10. Goflman. L /i11n11 u/ folk. Philadelphia. Univcrsit, ot Pcnmyl,ania Press, 19X.1. 11. Golan. 1\'. 'Jrea1111e1Jt 111 (n.11.1 S//uatiu111. :\cw York. f-ree Press. 1978. 12. Gurnpc17..J. J. /)is, 011ne c\trtllt'!{in. Carnhri