How Logotherapy Can Help You Find Purpose In Life
In psychology, there is a field of study called existential therapy. This field focuses on addressing human existence’s inherent challenges and empowering people to handle them confidently. One of those existential challenges is finding meaning in life.
Logotherapy is focused on this challenge. According to its creator, a psychiatrist named Dr. Victor Frankl, finding a purpose in life was the greatest source of strength and motivation for everything else a person might do. Having something to live for can make hardships easier to endure and can even lead to a longer lifespan.
It’s worth exploring why he focused on meaning, how Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy can help you find purpose in life, some techniques, and whether it’s the right treatment method for you.
Origins and principles of logotherapy
Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the holocaust through multiple concentration camps. This experience was formative of his understanding of how the human mind works and the importance of finding meaning. Viktor Frankl’s purpose in life through the holocaust was to endure.
Furthermore, and a little more controversially, Frankl believed this meant that anyone, no matter how difficult their situation, could find a way to see a positive purpose in their life, even while experiencing the horrors of concentration camps. This led him to guide people into finding inspiring stories about what their life meant even in the face of tragedy.
- No matter the situation, everyone’s life has meaning and value
- The greatest drive for everyone is the desire to find meaning in life
- No matter the situation, everyone has the ability to control their attitude in response to the environment
These principles led Frankl to conclude that he should develop an approach that focuses on this primary human drive through existential analysis and helps people develop the tools to achieve it by controlling their own attitudes and perceptions of life.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl also outlined the three basic methods by which people can find/create meaning in their lives, based off his experience.
- You can create something or do something for someone.
- You can experience something or have an encounter with someone.
- You can change your attitude towards life’s inherent challenges.
These options may seem obvious, but they are critical for Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy approach. Your ability to achieve the first and second option can be taken away from you in difficult circumstances. Nothing, however, can deprive you of your ability to change your attitude towards your life. This is why Frankl focused on this idea. It is also a clear reminder of how Logotherapy was born out of truly horrible circumstances.
Who is logotherapy for?
The first thing to understand about logotherapy is that it is not an exclusive method of treatment. The application of logotherapy techniques and principles to other treatment methods is a common practice. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for example, has been able to apply some of the techniques in logotherapy without sacrificing the objectives of CBT.
With that in mind, logotherapy itself works on a range of issues, including but not limited to
Burnout
It has been observed to help people overcome feeling burnt out at work. By determining that employees felt disengaged because they stopped seeing any value in what they were doing, researchers could reignite people’s passions for their jobs.
Depression
Unsurprisingly, logotherapy can help overcome and/or manage depression. Those struggling with depression can feel isolated and lost. Rediscovering meaning in life can go a long way in ameliorating that pain. Meaning and purpose were core elements of Frankl’s survival in Nazi concentration camps, making it likely that those concepts underpin the drive to overcome adversity.
Marriage issues
When a couple starts to drift apart, a common problem is two people who no longer believe they want the same things out of life.
Logotherapy can have a reputation for being harsh. Some people take issue with the idea in logotherapy that no one’s situation is so bad that they can’t find a positive purpose in it, as it can come across as unsympathetic.
How forceful your logotherapy experience is in this regard will depend largely on you and your therapist.
How do logotherapy techniques work?
There are specific techniques and general principles that inform logotherapy work.
The general principles are that progress is made via honest collaboration between the therapist and the patient. Furthermore, as may be clear by now, logotherapy is attentive to the things in life that have meaning and value. Finding, moving towards, and expanding those things/people/activities are a huge part of logotherapy treatment.
In addition to these general guidelines, there are some specific methods that a logotherapist may apply to help adjust someone’s attitude towards their life.
Deflection
If a therapist believes that your problems are based on an excessive focus on oneself, they may use deflection to shift your focus to people/places/things external to you
Paradoxical intention
Sometimes, what’s holding you back is an excessive fear or phobia. A therapist may try to help you overcome this fear by “paradoxically” having you talk about the issue often and even joke about it. Paradoxical intention is intended to make the fear seem more manageable, even laughable.
Socratic method
The philosopher Socrates was known to challenge and teach his students by asking a series of questions that pushed their understanding of ideas. In logotherapy, establishing a Socratic dialogue allows a therapist to help patients find new answers to problems by guiding them. The questions should lead to a place where the patient discovers the answer through what they know and believe rather than handed to them by someone else.
How does logotherapy help you find meaning in life?
Human beings lose sight of their purpose in life for many reasons. Sometimes it’s through one or more major events, like a brush with death or a great personal loss. It can sometimes come about gradually, after a long time spent in a sad living situation until one day you realize you’re just not happy. Whatever the reason, we are all susceptible to losing our way.
By starting with an individual’s power to control how they perceive the world, logotherapy necessarily begins treatment from a place that everyone can understand. From there, logotherapy can help you see that whatever it seems like on the surface, your life has not and cannot lose all meaning. You feel terrible because, deep down, you believe you are in a life without purpose, an existential vacuum.
Logotherapy starts on the inherent value of your life and builds on it collaboratively. By asking questions, challenging your perceptions, defining new goals, and shifting your focus, a counselor can help you find and/or create new sources of meaning.
Get support with online therapy
If you believe that your life has no meaning, or if you feel like you are striving for a purpose on this earth, then logotherapy may be right for you. You must be ready to ask hard questions about your behavior. You need to be open to the idea that the real problem is your attitude towards your situation rather than the situation itself. If you can do these things and work collaboratively with your counselor, you can make great progress.
Understanding how to navigate them and determining how they impact you takes practice, patience, and perception. Professional help from people like the counselors at Regain can go a long way in making your exploration of finding meaning in life much more fruitful.
Online therapy from sources like Regain can be a good option for those seeking therapy. In fact, recent research suggests that online therapy can be just as effective as traditional in-person meetings while remaining more cost-effective and comfortable for patients.
Takeaway
When Victor Frankl gave voice to his idea that having a purpose in life had helped him endure the unimaginable horrors of the holocaust, people listened. Over 50 years later, the strength of his ideas and their power to help others continue to show. While his interactions with patients were, in some cases, slightly questionable, his overall goal and theory were sound.
Logotherapy can be a powerful way to explore your purpose and how to make it real.
Frequently asked questions
What does logotherapy mean?
Logotherapy is a type of therapy that attempts to treat clients by developing a sense of meaning. Viktor Frankl, who helped popularize logotherapy and existential analysis, believed that a person who hasn’t discovered their meaning in life would be dangerously vulnerable. Frankl’s devotion to logotherapy was so great that today, there is an establishment, the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, dedicated to his work.
He believed that the tragedies that life inevitably visits upon every person could only be overcome by finding purpose and meaning for oneself, the meaning of life. Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, used meaning and purpose to survive and overcome the atrocities he experienced unfairly. This inspired him to develop further his ideas resulting in much of what we know today as logotherapy.
While expanding his ideas on logotherapy, Frankl became convinced that if a person could ignite a burning desire for life through a self-established purpose, such a person would be equipped with the mental and emotional strength to overcome the past and future existential woes of life. By daring to join the quest of man’s search for meaning, a person can overcome suffering and work towards their ideal with competence and confidence.
Logotherapy is not just fancy philosophy. It is a powerful therapeutic tool that has been recognized by the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Society, and the American Psychiatric Association.
There are three main principles that logotherapy is based on. These are:
- The belief that at each person’s core lies health and power
- The goal of empowering individuals to realize and make use of the latent potential that they possess to overcome any and every obstacle
- The strength to find peace and contentment even in the absence of happiness and fulfillment
Though the bulk of logotherapy involves heavy introspection, Frankl was convinced that the only way to achieve success using this approach is to go out into the world and partake in various experiences, activities, and interactions. Applications of logotherapy shouldn’t be purely introspective. People are often at different levels of self-actualization when they first start to apply logotherapy.
So while some people would spend a lot of time doing internal sorting, others would need a little introspection and more engaging in activities and social interaction. Applications of logotherapy require a perfect balance of the internal and external to be successful.
How do you practice logotherapy?
Logotherapy is a much more humanistic approach compared to more structured forms of therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy. If you didn’t study at the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, there is no need to worry. The principles of logotherapy Viktor Frankl developed are very simple to grasp.
During logotherapy, it is important first to understand the diversity of peoples and cultures and each individual's uniqueness within any group. By attempting this approach from a multicultural lens, success becomes more likely. This is because it deals with the individual’s quest to discover something or someone that will give them a sense of meaning. It uses a person’s specific and unique beliefs and perspective to find meaning and strengthen their psychological health.
Applications of logotherapy meaning also depend on the situation the individual who is receiving treatment has gone through. Some experience intense trauma from the past, while others experience overwhelming anxiety about the future. Some individuals experience difficulty, not in the past or future, but in the present. In all these cases, logotherapy should be applied in different ways. The person receiving treatment should find meaning in whatever condition or situation they have experienced or are presently experiencing. This way, their perspective on their condition will change in a manner that allows healing and growth.
Logotherapy and existential analysis require the patient to be an active participant in their recuperation. This is because a therapist cannot provide meaning or purpose for their client. The client has to search within themself and do a certain amount of exploration to discover meaning in life.
Logotherapy treatment seeks to solve man’s search for meaning by using three powerful techniques. These are:
- Paradoxical intention: This involves helping patients confront and overcome what is preventing them from moving forward.
- Deflection: people dealing with harmful conditions tend to internalize their problems, focusing on themselves and not the actual problem by focusing on themselves and identifying their being as the problem; whether consciously or unconsciously, they become hyper-reflective and unable to face the actual problem. Deflection helps them to deflect internalization and discover the meaning in the external problem.
- Socratic dialogue involves interviews between therapist and client to foster dialogue that will guide the client towards discovering meaning and purpose.
What is logotherapy, and how can this help your client?
Logotherapy is a form of treatment that focuses heavily on the search for meaning in one’s existence. It is a prominent treatment that even has an establishment, the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, dedicated to teaching and expanding the field.
Without discovering the meaning of life, a person becomes vulnerable to life's chaotic nature and existence. This creates stress that can be dangerous to a person’s mental and physical health. However, a person who has discovered meaning and purpose will be able to forge on during the worst of life’s hardships.
Logotherapy meaning will help your client understand that their suffering isn’t pointless or arbitrary. And that their existence can be purposeful and meaningful, even during periods of crisis. This will help them develop the emotional and mental strength required to take part in a life journey.
Logotherapy might seem obscure, but it is still being used actively today. Establishments like the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy still teach this method today.
Is logotherapy humanistic?
Logotherapy is humanistic because it focuses on the individual, refusing to generalize or place a person into a metaphorical box. It acknowledges the individual’s unique existence and the need to search for meaning for one’s self. This makes it very similar to person-centered treatment, emphasizing the individual being an active participant in their treatment. It is a method that mimics human behavior and desire; you don’t even need to attend an institute of logotherapy to understand it.
What are the three main avenues for reaching meaning in life?
Logotherapy provides three main avenues for reaching meaning in life. These are:
- Action
- Love
- Suffering
Action: Actions are a necessary part of reaching meaning in life. It is very common for people to stumble upon meaning while they are performing various deeds. Inaction keeps a person in perpetual stasis. It is impossible to find purpose in inaction; activities are necessary, whether the activity is learning a craft, studying in an institute of logotherapy, meditating, thorough introspection, traveling. Whatever the case may be, man’s search for meaning can only be fruitful while taking part in an experience. It is through the filtering of experience that a person can find meaning in life.
Love: allowing yourself to feel strongly about things can quickly lead to the discovery of meaning. Falling in love with people, things, ideas, places, nature, etc., can give us a clear idea of the path you are to take to find meaning.
Suffering: while this might seem counterproductive, the truth remains that meaning can be discovered in suffering. This is not to imply that one must seek out suffering to discover purpose; rather, when you experience suffering involuntarily, you can extract meaning from it.
We can find meaning in the way we handle suffering and the actions we take after overcoming suffering. Some people who have had tragic experiences in the past have made it their life’s purpose to help people going through similar situations. You can also find latent strength during periods of suffering, and once out of that situation, you can harness that strength as you search for meaning.
How do I find meaning in life?
There are numerous ways to discover meaning. Some of these include:
- Creating things or taking part in creative activities
- Forging relationships with people and allowing yourself to care for them and be cared for
- Finding a way to be beneficial to your immediate society
- Mastering a skill
- Accepting the reality of life and all that comes with it, including suffering and chaos.
- Finding a good cause to devote yourself to
What is Frankl’s meaning of life?
When approaching the meaning of life, Viktor Frankl would draw a link between humanity and their environment. Frankl believed man’s search for meaning could only be successful after the discovery of the thing that would tether you to this world, no matter how chaotic existence might be. The discovery of the thing or person would arrest our devotion, with our full consent and joy. Viktor Frankl believed that a person could only find meaning through the discovery of something transcendent.
His conviction sparked a school of thought that has led to innumerable books and even the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy establishment.
What are Frankl's three general ways to discover meaning?
Is logotherapy still used today?
How does logotherapy deal with spiritual issues?
How do you apply logotherapy in life?
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