[PASSIONSWEGE] “Stations of the Passion” Radio Talk
Veronika Bonelli’s Interview with Alexander Batthyány
February 21, 2024
Translated and summarized by Maria Marshall
Key points:
VB: “The World is not Well, but it can be Healed” is the title of Alexander Batthyány and Elisabeth Lukas’s book with the subtitle: “Mastering Difficult Life Situations.”
VB: “Stations of the Passion” [PASSIONSWEGE] seeks to accompany suffering individuals when spiritual resources are relevant to overcoming crises.
AB: Most people see suffering in negative terms as something that must be accepted because it’s unavoidable and not possible to alter. What consumer society misses is that suffering always occurs in the context of being connected with others. We human beings are interrelated. In suffering we can recognize something that is yet not fulfilled and not complete, waiting for our answer. In being there for something and for being there for someone, we can respond to suffering. There are examples of kindness, mercy, generosity, and goodness that can be actualized even while there is suffering.
VB: Frankl quotes Nietzsche in stating that “Those who have a why can bear with nearly any how.” He found this statement to be true even in the most extreme situations. How did you come to know logotherapy?
AB: I was always interested in questions of meaning in life. When I was in high school, I came across an audio cassette that Frankl recorded when he was eighty years old. He spoke to the younger generation and the essence of his message was that a more important question than how to live to live well and to have it good in life, is the question of how to live so that we do well in life, and that we live so that we are good for something. In how we live, we have to find our own answer to the question of why I am here and what I am good for. This message was condensed in 19 minutes and really influenced the rest of my life. Later, I heard that Frankl lived and taught in Vienna and when I moved there, I was able to attend one of his lectures. What impressed me most about Frankl was his trustworthiness and the conviction with which he spoke. He spoke with great enthusiasm. Even though he must have presented the same topic over a hundred times, he talked with the same enthusiasm as if he spoke for the first time, or for the last time. Later, I wrote a letter to him in which I told him that I knew that learning from him would have a significant influence on the rest of my life. In reply, I received a letter in which he told me to go to an optician and to present myself there and say, “Dr. Frankl has sent me.” So, I went to this place, and I said that Dr. Frankl had sent me and there were three or four books waiting for me, beautifully signed and dedicated.
VB: Dr. Lukas is one of the most well-known students of Dr. Frankl.
AB: Dr. Frankl and Dr. Lukas are two very different personalities. It was very reassuring for me to see this in the view that most schools of psychotherapy die with the death of their founder. However, in the case of Dr. Lukas and Dr. Frankl I could see that the same techniques and methods worked with the same effectiveness, regardless of who it was who used them. Dr. Lukas has an incredible goodwill toward people. She has an amazing capacity to see the good in them. I think this has to do with a basic attitude that one adopts and chooses. She had this wonderful healing strength emanating from her, which I would not describe as charisma, but rather an act of will and a basic trust to see the good in others and to seek what is for their good. This is what she lived, and what she taught her students to do. I have been in touch with her for the past 23 years. This latest book that we wrote was written in response to first the corona virus and then the war in Ukraine, where we reflected on the questions of how to respond to these crises. We noted that everything can be lost very easily. However, what is meaningful, remains. Responsibility remains. The question is, “What are we responsible for?” and “What is asked from us in such situations?” There is an area that we do not control, and that is not where our responsibility lies. Next to that area of fate, there is an area that is still open and available, with possibilities in it. Therein is where our area of responsibility lies. The key to happiness in this case is in our hands. We have to choose the key that brings happiness not only to us but to others.
AB: The first step is to acknowledge the reality of suffering. Not to look away from it, not to run away from it. We have to avoid toxic positivity because with it the demand for happiness can be so ingrained that one cannot express the feeling when things are not going well. So, the first step is to acknowledge suffering. Not with the words, “Do not worry,” but rather, with the words, “I can see that this is a great challenge for you.” Thus, bring awareness and acknowledge what lies in the area of fate.
AB: Second step in logotherapy is to look for possibilities in the area of freedom. Frankl said this in one of the presentations that I attended that we have many possibilities, but we should not actualize every one of them. In fact, some possibilities are better if they never become reality. Meaningful is only something from which something good can come into the world. Something that would be a pity not to actualize.
AB: In one of his last lessons, Frankl remarked that young people have a lot of possibilities still in front of them. Old people have realities behind them.
AB: The economy of love does not follow the same rules as financial laws—the more I give away, the poorer I become. On the contrary, with kindness, the more I give away the more I will have. With kindness I do not have to wait for others, I do not have to say, “I cannot give what I do not receive.” I can take the first step and make a change that will make a difference in my life. Despite suffering, I do not have to be the victim of my fate. Life does not need to happen in the future, somewhere and somehow. It happens now. Life is not answered in the when and where, but here and now. We make many plans about our trips, or future, but what is meaningful, what is waiting for us is not abstract and hidden but happens right now in our everyday life, or nowhere.
AB: I would like to mention that suffering does not always have a nice face. Sometimes it is not attractive, and not convenient. Nevertheless, one needs to see and go at times where one would rather not have gone. We need to remember that self-actualization is not the goal. We are not to seek to help others so that we may have it good. The intention is the good of the other.
AB: Heidegger visited Frankl when Frankl had just returned from Australia and held a boomerang in his hand. He gave it to Heidegger as a present with the explanation that the boomerang is a hunting tool. It comes back to the hunter only if it misses its target. The same with kindness toward others. It intends the other, not the self. The same can be seen in the work of a psychotherapist. It is offered for the good of the other. Likewise, a sacrifice is offered for the sake of something or someone else. Dostoevsky said that “to love the other means to see them as God intended them to be.”
VB: Finally, to quote from your book, old age is the time of saying goodbyes. Time of looking back at what was accomplished. Gratitude for everything that was possible to save into eternity, for what remains. In the words of Francis Bacon: “It’s not the happy people who are grateful. It’s the grateful people who are happy.”
