Presented by: Dr. Cvijeta Pahljina (1943 – 2022), Psychiatrist, at The Future of Logotherapy Congress, Vienna, 2016.
Translated by: Maria Marshall, Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy, 2023.
Recorded by: Yulianna Sagdieva, Director of the Institute for Logotherapy in Central Asia, 2016.
Published with permission from: Barbara Pahljina (daughter of the presenter).
In 1982, the Croatian translation of “Yes to Life In Spite of Everything” was published. In this book, Frankl expressed the view that the essence of a human being is spirit. Frankl stated that human beings always “stand on the ground with their forehead raised toward the sky.” This means that we are oriented toward values. In this book, he gives a poignant illustration of the human potential for choosing between what is good and what is evil. As a psychiatrist and philosopher, he acknowledged the givens of life. His idea is that the spiritual dimension is an active and dynamic resource that finds expression through our being.
In this presentation, I would like to address the topic of what logotherapy means to the psychiatrist and the psychotherapist and what it means concretely, in my life. As a therapist, I want to work with to build trust and mobilize people’s inner strength with a vision to counteract despair and to break the chain of aggression. I want to work toward mobilizing the community in a sense of the ethos that “the world is not healthy, but healable” (Frankl) and that with small steps we can reach our goals and make progress. In this quest, everything is related and intertwined: values, conscience, freedom, responsibility, meaning, what we hold as worthwhile. I want to illustrate how I translate this into practice.
First, I want to talk about the question of who comes into psychiatric practice, and what kind of people I would be likely to meet? It is people with anxieties, people with psychoses, somatic complaints, addictions, dementia, or people who show symptoms of the ills of society. The emphasis here and the key point is that they are not patients, but people. I use individual or group psychotherapy with a logotherapy orientation to treat them.
The most important guideline is that we heal not only with medications and psychotherapeutic methods, but most importantly, with our own person. In the first place, psychiatrists and psychotherapists should love the people who come to seek their help. They should make them feel welcome. When one feels this love, one radiates it. Everything else that I feel or think should be put away, while I am ready to listen to the clients when they come. Clients expect that whatever they bring to me can be handled. Ideally, that we can handle everything together. One needs emotional stability for this kind of work. Inner calm. Trust that there is a solution. That client already has an intuition for the solution.
What we can offer is our time, care, and the best of ourselves. They entrust us their burdens and we seek to understand these from their position and as we look for solutions. We must be able to grasp life from their point of view, and live life with them.
People are not chemical test tubes in which many elements can be mixed and the wanted results will crystallize. They are not animals on which experiments can be done. There are biological causes that can be influenced with psychopharmacology. There are disturbances in the neurotransmitters of the nervous system. There are psychological causes that are exogenic and can be influenced by psychotherapy. But the person as a spiritual being needs the presence of another person who can understand their pain and look for meaningful solutions. Someone who believes in them that they can find a meaningful solution. Someone who helps them and believes in them. Someone who can differentiate fate from the area of freedom and in the free area acknowledge accomplishments. People develop trust in psychiatrists who welcome them, want to help them, and support them. Trust is essential for further advancement.
As I mentioned earlier, in psychiatric practice, we face a whole palette of difficulties. What can one expect from logotherapy in all these cases. What meaning does the logotherapeutic approach bring? What is specific about it?
We are familiar with the imago hominis [image of the human being] of Frankl, the schema of freedom or fate. This applies to all the cases. As do the concepts of meaning, self-distancing and self-transcendence. Methods, such as modification of attitudes, de-reflection and paradoxical intention can be used. What is always different is the uniqueness of the person and the uniqueness of their situation. The Psychiatric creed: The person never loses their dignity. This is very specific to logotherapy and differentiates it from other psychotherapeutic orientations.
Individual Intervention
First example: A 45-year-old man, locksmith, married, father or two children, ages 14 and 7 years old. The dilemma is whether to orient him toward reality and to insist on it or not. Diagnosis: schizophrenia. First dialogue after he is discharged home, using the Socratic Dialogue.
Psychiatrist: “You say you have seen the Virgin Mary in the middle of the night?”
He: “Yes, she stood over a burning bush in my garden and said to me that I need to run to a priest who lives 25 kilometers away from my house and there I will receive a rosary. I ran, the priest received me, and he gave me a rosary.”
Me: “How did you end up in psychiatric care?”
He: “I did not want to go home, and I was scared because people were following me for a week on the street and photographed me. I don’t know why. Then, the priest had the idea to phone 911 and an ambulance was sent out, so they took me to the hospital.”
Me: “So, If the priest had not phoned 911, would that have been better or not?”
He: “I am grateful to the priest because at that time he saved me from this horrible anxiety.”
Me: “You were in the hospital for three months and you have been at home now 14 days. What is happening with the anxiety?”
He: “Everything is quiet now and no one is following me.”
Me: “What do you think now, were these real people who were following you, or it was part of the illness?”
He: “In the hospital the doctors explained to me that the hallucinations were psychotic, and I had paranoid delusions, and they gave me medication after which the thoughts went away.”
Me: “Can you accept that these thoughts were part of an illness?”
He: “Yes.”
Me: “How about the Virgin Mary and the rosary?”
He: “I did not see her after that. She was so kind and compassionate. I will never forget that. I think that it was the real Virgin Mary and not my illness.”
At home he had specific antipsychotic medications and in two years he had two additional episodes with paranoid delusions and hallucinations. He regained a good stability in his relationship and regularly came to appointments once a month. Since the illness affected his cognitive functioning, he couldn’t continue to work. Currently, he lives at home, and his wife works. They have a family with two children. This works out well with the children. They have a small farm where he is active. His father-in-law also had schizophrenia and he is making sure that he takes his medications as he should. A few years later, I had another Socratic dialogue with him to shed more light on his values that are his guiding principles.
Me: “How do you think about your life, are you satisfied with it, or would you have wanted it to be something different?”
He: “Thanks God, I am healthy. I have a good family. Despite the diagnosis I feel good, I would not want to change anything.”
Me: […There is an affirmation of his life as worthwhile despite the illness. This is an example of the defiant power of the human spirit. He is thankful for his life despite the illness.]
Me: “You received treatment. Looking back, could this treatment have some meaning?”
He: “I could not help the anxieties I was experiencing. That was beyond me. But after the treatment I am at home, my wife is working, and I can help my family more than before.”
Me: […He understands the difference between fate and freedom. I noticed that he developed mild Parkinson’s symptoms because of the medications. However, he insisted that despite the hospitalization, the medications, the Parkinson’s symptoms, his life was worthwhile and good as it was. He said this out of love for his wife, for his children, for his father-in-law whom he is helping. And he was grateful. Even a client with schizophrenia is capable of self-transcendence. He could experience meaning despite his illness.]
Question for the practitioner:
Should a psychiatrist question the client’s beliefs?
Here psychiatrists are questioned in their humanity. The client was convinced that the apparition of the Virgin Mary was real. The main point for psychiatrists to consider is that every person is more than their illness and they are capable of self-transcendence despite difficulties.
Second example: A 28-year-old hairdresser, a lady who was brought to see me by her mother after having been hospitalized at a psychiatric hospital. They were shocked when they the diagnosis of hebephrenic schizophrenia was communicated to them. Her mother was a director of a bank. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she was given only a few months to live. She wanted me to follow-up the treatment of her daughter. The daughter was beset by anxieties, she showed disorganized speech and abnormal speech content. She experienced hallucinations with depressive and manic mood. The father died in an accident when she was 3 years old. The older sister was a doctor who worked nearby. The mother wanted to leave the house to the daughter after her death. She hoped that with some psychiatric help, her functioning could improve to the point that the eldest daughter could care for her. After the death the mother, the client came to my office, and in a suspiring clear voice she said: “When I was a little girl, I asked Jesus to send me an illness so I can save the world. I have been in the hospital for a long time.” She begged me to say the “Our Father” together. We joined hands and we prayed the “Our Father” together. It was unexpected. Then, she sank into her confused speech. Sometime later, she met someone at the hospital who had schizophrenia for ten years. He lived with his parents. They went for walks together. Two times a week they baked pancakes together. He loved her despite her illness.
Questions for the practitioner:
What are the boundaries between mystical and spiritual experiences and psychotic illness? Was the early experience with Jesus an early childhood symptom of schizophrenia that was not diagnosed at that time? How should a psychiatrist react in such a situation?
Although the psychiatrist may not want to question something that the client holds so dear, the psychiatrist must ask about the implications of the experience because it is clearly something very significant. She showed the willingness to “save the world” through her illness. That was her attitude towards her illness. At that point one can stop questioning this religious experience any further.
Third example: A 45-year-old woman, divorced, who has a daughter and two grandchildren 5 and 7-years-old. She lives alone in an apartment in a small city. Her diagnose was Schizoaffective psychosis. [This is a mixed psychoses with manic-depressive episodes and schizophrenia.] She was a policewoman. When she was 27, she saw the opportunity to steal money, which she reportedly did. There were internal investigations. The whole year of investigations left her very exhausted. She was married with a policeman from the same police station, and they had a 2-year-old daughter. The man had an affair with another woman and left her. She decided to move with her daughter to another town where she continued to work as a police officer. She had an emotional and financial crisis. A short time after, she started to experience obsessional ideas that she was being followed. She imagined that the police were going to storm her house and that she would end up in prison. In remission when she felt better, we had this conversation.
Me: “If you had the chance now, would you steal or not?”
She: “Of course not.”
Me: “What can you do now to get out of this problem?
She: “I am still in a financial crisis, I cannot acknowledge the investigation, I could not live with the ridicule of my colleagues.”
Me: “What else can you do then? This is in the area of fate now because it happened in the past. What can you do now to make this good again? When you cannot make it up to the right person, can one make it up to someone else? Can you think of something?”
She: “I am thinking about visiting an old man who lives alone and helping him.”
After her release, she visited this old man and took care of him. She readily assumed this task out of her free will. With time, they became good friends and he sometimes helped to watch her daughter while she had some other work to do. She got a new job in a new place, working as saleslady at a kiosk. For seven years she was in good remission. Then, the old man died, and her grief precipitated a depressive episode. Although medications and psychotherapy helped, she had to be admitted to the hospital because of the depression. She wanted to commit suicide and took an overdose. Her 15-year-old daughter was there with her. In the next couple of years, she had depressive and manic episodes, and she was between lighter depression and suicides attempts and lighter manic episodes. She saw me regularly. Five years ago, her mother passed away. Her father developed Alzheimer’s disease died in a nursing home. Her sister developed depression and committed suicide. She lived through these difficult experiences. She grieved for her sister. Currently, she is in a stable condition, and she lives in her home. Next door to her lives her daughter. She is divorced and has two children. She goes for walks with them from time to time and she has a cat that she loves. She reads the newspaper, she writes cards, and writes poems. The symptoms of depression are the hardest. The suicidal thoughts ease up when she thinks about her grandchildren and her cat.
Questions for the practitioner:
How can the client deal with the responsibility of a past crime?
One needs to evaluate what it is that she was doing at that time and how her actions are different now from those actions, since she is doing something good for the community. She developed a new attitude toward life because of her grandchildren and this change was not easy to make because of her health condition. It was a self-transcendental choice. She could find meaning and she found the steps to make life livable.
Can it be that guilt feelings are still leading to conflicts?
In this case one should find ways to restore her balance. For a practicing Catholic, seeking out spiritual guidance, reconciliation, and making amends can be considered. From the psychiatric point of view, it is important to emphasize connections with people, such as social workers, family, organizations, to remain active in society. The key is to do something from the heart and to live for someone. “Often it is through the ruins, that one can see the stars” (Frankl).
These were three different people with seemingly similar diagnosis, but as we said, unique persons in unique situations.
Group Intervention
In psychiatric treatment, we need to take into consideration the manifestations of dysfunctions in society. As we mentioned earlier, the premise is that “society is not healthy, but healable” (Frankl). For example, in Croatia, a significant proportion of young people live alone and avoid making commitments. This stems from not being mature enough to face adult responsibilities and seeking refuge in isolation from society. Then at the age of forty, realizing that opportunities have been missed and the time for establishing a family is faint, they develop depression and require mental health care. We can treat these people in de-reflection groups where everyone shares the same problem. There is a similarity between the experience of these people and the fairy-tale of the “Sleeping Beauty.” We can use this story to animate a discussion where everyone plays a role.
[For those of you who are not familiar with this fairy tale, it is about a 15-year-old girl who lives sheltered in her parents’ castle until one day wanders into a remote room of the castle where she accidentally pricks her finger and falls to asleep for one hundred years. A thick bush of thorns surrounds the castle. A young prince hears about the story of a princess asleep there and cuts though the bushes that turn into roses. She kisses the princess who wakes up from her sleep and the two live happily ever after.]
The knight who saves the princess comes through the thorns of the bushes surrounding the castle and all the bushes turn into roses. This illustrates that with hard work and goal orientation, the obstacles in life can fall away.
It is difficult to change society but when we do not shy away from our freedom and responsibility, we can creatively use our resources and the results can be very interesting: Volunteering, reading, hikes. The psychiatrist can lead these groups and help individuals in the groups to set meaningful goals.
In conclusion, “What is the meaning of logotherapy for the practitioner?” We can answer this question by recognizing the spiritual dimension of the person and their unconditional dignity. It is a privilege in life to be able to help to someone.
Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (LTEA) can be helpful to prevent burnout as well as to manage the effects of moral injury. Burnout and moral injury are two different entities. Burnout refers to exhaustion from excessive work. Moral injury is the consequence of values transgressions.
Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy, 2020
Burnout is a phenomenon that occurs at the workplace. LTEA, with its focus on the search for meaning, can be useful in its prevention. When people have a sense of meaning and purpose, they can take care of themselves better, and participate in meaningful activities where they actualize values in their lives.
Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy, 2021
Moral injury refers to values transgressions. It can occur in the process of work, or everyday life, when there is a betrayal of one’s personal values by someone else or through one’s own failures. To come to terms with values transgressions it is important that a person recognizes their values and how they are in search of meaning.
In LTEA, search for meaning refers to the actualization of personal values. Values are guiding principles, but if they are not lived, one cannot find meaning in life. Therefore, it is important to recognize what are our personal values and if they are in alignment with universal values. Examples of universal values are human rights and the dignity of the person. When one actualizes values in harmony with universal values as their guiding principles, one finds meaning in life. In the case of moral injury, there is a sense of meaninglessness. The sense of meaninglessness can lead to symptoms such as disappointment, anxiety, and distress. These symptoms are the manifestation that the person is experiencing a lack of such values. The symptoms in themselves are not pathological, but if not managed, they can lead to serious consequences, such as depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder.
LTEA, in the first place, looks at areas of freedom and how a person can respond to a situation. It explores emotions related to values. After identifying the values, a person can decide, out of their freedom of will, what is the best course of action. In certain situations, it is to reaffirm those values, those personal and universal values that a person has, and lives accordingly, or choose a different path, or acknowledge that someone else has trespassed those values. In this way, LTEA can be a helpful complement to other therapeutic modalities like cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The issue with CBT is that we try to reappraise cognitions or look at reality from different perspectives, but in the case of moral injury, the reality is that there has been a values transgression. As we acknowledge this reality, we recognize the emotions in relation to our values and in doing so, we search for meaning in suffering.
On the other hand, with burnout, what we are trying to do is to increase the resiliency of the person. Resiliency means that people can face life’s challenges and they don’t become broken or sick in the face of those challenges. They can step back through self-distancing from the situation and respond according to their values. In many cases, when there is exhaustion from work, it is important that the person takes care of themselves, that they replenish their energies so they can be effective in their work. In other situations, they can analyze what kind of work they are doing and if it is meaningful to them. Sometimes there are repetitive tasks, or monotonous work that is not meaningful, and the person loses their own sense of humanity. When we reconnect with our values, we start to see possibilities within that work environment where we can live our values: In connecting with coworkers, contributing to society, or how we face different challenges.
Burnout and moral injury if left untreated can lead to mental health problems. LTEA offers an approach that can improve life satisfaction and resiliency.
On March 23-24, 2023, Professor Edward Marshall is offering a two-day workshop at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre that will focus specifically on the methods and applications of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. This event is tailored toward health professionals and students who would like to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the uses of this modality in their clinical practice. Registration Page.
The December 2022 issue of the Scientific American features an article by Elisabeth Svoboda on Moral Injury: “Moral Injury is an Invisible Epidemic that Affects Millions.” The article defines Moral Injury as a “specific trauma that arises when people face situations that deeply violate their conscience or threaten their core values.” It presents recent examples from the health care setting, where ethically challenging dilemmas are part of the everyday scenario.
Scientific American, December 2022
The article reviews literature that first identified Moral Injury in the military setting, to its working definition for everyday life and clinical practice. It provides several examples that require a therapeutic approach that goes beyond traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), since the distress is genuine and not the product of distorted thinking. The article asserts that Moral Injury is different from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It does not respond well to conventional trauma treatments, and it requires a more “spiritual approach” that considers the whole of the person.
Proposed models for the treatment of Moral Injury share the emphasis on the search for meaning to overcome its effects. The article reflects on the role of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (LTEA) for the management of Moral Injury. This approach “bolsters a clients’ sense of purpose.” It validates the reality of values transgressions, and helps to find meaning in line with core values as guiding principles. LTEA can be applied alone, or as a complement to other treatment modalities currently employed in the treatment of Moral Injury.
The book, “Logotherapy and Existential Analysis for the Management of Moral Injury,” by Edward Marshall and Maria Marshall, published through the Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy in 2021, reviews the history of the conceptualization of Moral Injury, the development of tools for its assessment, and a review of the treatment modalities proposed for its management. In developing the case for the application of LTEA, the book reviews the evidence base of LTEA, and provides practically relevant principles and methods based on LTEA that can be useful for clinicians when treating individuals affected by Moral Injury.
Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy, 2021
On March 31, 2022, Professor Edward Marshall offered a workshop with over 120 participants on the application of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis for the management of Moral Injury at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, Canadian Centre of Excellence on PTSD.
Awareness of Moral Injury is increasing as examples locally, and globally amount. Validation for the use of LTEA as an evidence-based method for addressing the symptoms arising from moral injury is a welcome sign that the scientific community embraces LTEA to offer a purposeful and meaningful contribution to the treatment of moral injury, one that puts humanity at the forefront of responding to suffering arising from values transgressions.
On March 23-24, 2023, Professor Edward Marshall is offering a two-day workshop at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre that will focus specifically on the methods and applications of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. This event is tailored toward health professionals and students who would like to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the uses of this modality in their clinical practice. Registration Page.
Interview with Elisabeth Lukas, PhD, by Stephan Baier (Grandios Magazine, Regensburg, February, 2022). Translated by Maria Marshall, PhD
How does the capacity to trust arise and grow?
In what ways does parenting affect trust?
Can one do well without a basic trust in life’s meaningfulness and a positive mage of the world?
These are the topics of the following interview that was conducted with Dr. Lukas by Stephan Baier at the GRANDIOS Magazine Studios in February 2022.
SB: Trust; what is this concept? The capacity to trust; are we born with it, or do we have to gradually learn it? And finally, is trust like a talent that one can be endowed with more of, or less with, or is it a decision to trust or not to trust. These are the topics that we are going to discuss with Dr. Elisabeth Lukas. Dr. Lukas is one of the most well-known psychotherapists in the German speaking world, and most certainly, the most prominent student of Dr. Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl was the father of logotherapy, also known as The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.
Dear Dr. Lukas, prior to this interview, you gifted me with this booklet (“Wolken vor der Sonne?” Lukas, 2021), that I would like to cite from, since I found something very interesting here that brings us right to our topic: You write that trusting people live not only longer lives, but they get along more harmoniously with others, and they can tolerate loneliness better than others. Why is this so?
EL: Yes, well, trusting people are of course more sympathetic because when it comes to communication and living together, one gets along easier with someone who is trusting than with someone who is skeptical, and when one meets others with a spark of trust, it is easier to get along right away then if one is met with suspicion. This trust that one grants in advance to the other, perhaps more than what they deserve, motivates the other to do something good in return, not to shatter the expectation. In this way one locks the other in trust that presupposes and expects that something good will happen. Of course, one sometimes pays a price for this, if one gives more trust than what was reasonable, one is going to be disappointed, but one needs to accept this. It is better to let oneself experience a bit of disappointment than to be stuck in a steady climate of skepticism and mistrust.
SL: But how do I become this trusting person?
EL: This question has to do with the basis of trust. You raised the question if one naturally has the tendency for trust, or one has to develop it? In principle, each newborn brings with them the capacity to trust, just as they take their first breath. Even babies are born with this innate tendency to expect help when they are helpless, and we know that human babies are more helpless than any baby animal. They are totally dependent on help. They have to trust that help will come. They only way they can signal if they need help is by crying and then help comes, maybe not right away, but it arrives. And this strengthens the experience that help comes when help is needed.
SL: But is there not a disappointment as well if the parent is not responsive? For example, if a mother responds late but does respond eventually, is it not a rhythmic change from disappointment to trust and from trust to disappointment, this rhythm of back and forth and back and forth between trust and disappointment?
EL: Human babies come into the world with a complex neural system that is incredibly adaptable. First, it makes the connection that help is on the way. That it comes. And learns to observe: Observe lights and shadows, observe movements. Also, to perceive those processes that are going to result in help. For example, they can hear the steps, or when spoken to. They learn to associate words with help. When they are spoken to, help will soon come, they will be comforted. When babies grasp the meaning of the events in the world around them through such associations, they can also wait. Here I would like to highlight a point that I think is important: Subjective sense of time. Subjective time is different from the objective amount of time that may have passed. Subjective perception of time changes in the course of life. For a younger person, the same time feels longer than for someone older. For a 10-year-old, a year is a very long time. For a 60-year-old, a year passes in a blink. For a baby, an hour seems an eternity. When they cry the whole night or days go by before anyone responds to their cries of help, then for the child that affects their trust.
SL: When we experience pain or suffering, time seems to pass much slower than other times.
EL: You are exactly right. For a small child or for baby with a long time of no help and discomfort seems a very long time. Most parents know this and they stay up most of the night and watch their baby and are attentive to their needs. I do not mean to say by this that parents need to be always one hundred percent available and run as soon as their child begins to fuss, there must be some learning on the part of the child as well, of a bit of toleration and waiting for the parent to help. When one has a good communication than one feels integrated in the milieu where one feels safe and protected in the home, one feels at home, and one trusts that help will arrive when it is needed even if it may take for some time to arrive.
SL: The older a child is, the greater the disappointments can get when they understand that the world does not operate according to their wishes. One needs to take this disappointment seriously and learn from it, that the world is not always the way we wish it to be. How can trust grow, despite the disappointments that children and youth need to experience?
EL: A child develops. However, from the beginning, they bring with them a sense of basic trust. This is so deeply engraved in people in all cultures in people from all walks of life and through all concepts and images of God, that there must be behind something or someone that we can trust. I’d like to point out that the fairy tales also do not paint us an ideal world, there are elves, and witches, and dragons, and all sorts of things that occur in them. Yet, what the fairy tales show to us is a clear world. Clear, since there is good and bad. In the stories the good always wins. It always has the final say. People can be saved, changed, and, at the end, the good comes through. This is what reinforces and re-states the notion of basic trust in children. When they grow, they understand of course that the reality is not always like that, the good characters are not always good, the bad characters are not always bad, and between good and bad there are all these ways of in-between, but by that time children have the capacity to distinguish and decide. They can differentiate between their external reality and their inner feeling of trust and security. In the external world, there may be a lot of things that do not match, that do not work, but in their inner reality, there can be something there that wins, that remains. It is otherwise when children from a very early age are subjected to abuse, violence, and aggression, and have experienced grave disappointments, and, as a consequence, they see the world as a hostile and dark world in which the good can not be taken for granted. The negative experiences in this case can stifle a sense of trust that remains hidden inside.
SL: We talked about the positive case, when children feel protected and well taken care of, and parents in such families can also do certain things right and maybe certain things wrong. What can they do to keep trust alive? You gave us one tip, to tell their children stories to reinforce basic trust. What else would you suggest doing?
E.L.: With the example of the fairy tales, I just wanted to illustrate how in the folk tradition there is already a sense of basic trust. In the early years what fosters trust in consistency. This means rules so that children have a routine, and they can tell what is going to happen next. They learn that now it is bath-time, then we are walking for a walk, now it is time to sleep. This works well for the elderly as well; they function better when they have a structure that they are familiar with. Flexibility comes in-between. In the milieu of such structure, children learn to differentiate that certain people have different traits, different behaviors, reactions, but when their own reference person, a person who they trust, act inconsistently, that upsets children. Children can tolerate and learn very well how people have some different ways o reacting or doing things. However, strong emotional outbursts by the same person, or inconsistencies, and inconsistent reactions manifested by their main caregiver are troubling for children. This happens for example if mothers are over-exerted, under extreme stress, or under the influence of drugs and alcohol, where they show instability, lability, and there are outburst of emotion or temper. When the main caregivers have a loss of self-control emotionally, that confuses children because they learn that they can not trust someone if they are friendly because it is not for sure that this friendliness will last and for how long. It makes children fearful and anxious and loose trust.
SL: Caregivers model trust to their children themselves?
EL: There are no perfect families, but we can say that the intact family is the place of the highest feeling of security on earth. The reason of it is that in other places, one is judged according to one’s abilities and contribution. For example, if I have good recommendations as a speaker, I am being sought after. But if I shy away from people and remain in seclusion, no one will think that I am a good speaker. This is not the same in the family. In the family, when it is intact, one feels valued. Regardless of one’s appearance, even if one is unproductive, one is valued for who one is, whether one is young or old, smart, or not so smart, in the family, one is valued because one is part of the family. I know that this is an ideal, but the family is the place of this ideal. What is wanted to express is that in the family, one is valued for one’s personhood and for one’s inherent value. When children experience this, they develop a sense of self-worth, that helps them to face whatever may come their way.
SL: Is this not inherent in every person to want to be loved and accepted for who they are?
EL: Yes, although in the family it is also important to consider the other part of the question. Everyone wants to be loved but one needs to offer love as well to the others. One wants to be understood, but does one understand the other? It must be a two-way process.
SL: When a child does not experience that, then what happens? For most children, they know that they are loved, valued, and accepted. They know that their parent loves them even when they are corrected or scolded. What happens to those who never experience such validation or acceptance? What do they then feel that they can give to the other when they have received little, and how can they then think that the world is still a good place?
EL: This is a fundamental question you are speaking about. One discusses this is psychotherapy a lot, and we need to reach back to one’s view of the human person. The view of the human person influences how one sees oneself and others. It is not true that a person is a “Tabula Rasa” and that everything that a person becomes is because of what their caregiver has written on this board. This is simply not the case. People come even genetically with a lot of influences; we know this thanks to modern research. One brings even psychological tendencies, both positives and negatives, strengths and weaknesses. On top of that one has the influences of the environment, the influence if the parents, influence of media, etc. At any rate, people are not merely the product of their genetic inheritance and the impact of their environment. Frankl always said, there is a third given, and this is the spirit of the person, which is an entire novum. Each person is unique, a new creation.
SL: And here lies our potential, right?
EL: Yes, here lies our potential in spirit, and thus a potential for molding and creating oneself. This is what I wish to emphasize. From the beginning, a young person reacts to their environment and to their circumstances in the way that they develop themselves and use their talents for self-discipline, and for self-development to bring the best out of what a person is capable of becoming. A person can take a stand toward their environment when they give their “yes,” or “no” or when they resist something. In other words, there is a capacity that one has for resistance. This is the case when one may be coming from a very miserable background and one had a misfortune of accumulating negative life experiences, this capacity to develop oneself and change oneself is still there and can be developed. When one distances oneself from such negative influences, quite conscientiously decides to distance oneself from repeating what was mistaken, when one can distance oneself, and one decides “What I do not want” and “This is what I do not want to repeat” that is when Frankl speaks of the defiant power of the human spirit. “I will do it better, and I will do it differently.”
SL: This is a different message, right? If one came to you in psychotherapy and said to you, “I have been totally ruined in my childhood, and for that reason I am unable to go on with my life,” is it that you would have good news for them?
EL: It is a hypothesis that one is “ruined” and comes from being outspoken, but the spiritual person is never “ruined.” They have within themselves the capacity to make everything renewed and different. Also, from the experience of suffering one can develop an advantage of warning. “One knows what not to want, what will not work, and to be even stronger and determined to achieve it. In other words, the new generation does not need to repeat the mistakes of the old generation. They can grow through it and build something new and better. This old sadness may be there and come back at times, but one also has the defiant power of the human spirit through which it is possible to overcome the past and to build something new.
SL: You were talking about basic trust that each person is born with. This can not be destroyed but it can be disturbed. So then if a person seeks your advice who trust has been shaken, what is your advice? How could one correct this?
EL: One question is how I could help someone, as you say, “correct this.” The other question is, how can one help oneself? Two different questions. How would I help a child, for example, shall we start with that?
SL: Yes.
EL: Children are by nature incredibly robust. Nature built them incredibly strong. When they come into contact with a person who has a positive influence of them, they can easily relax and open up. What one can offer, on the one hand, is caring conversations in which one points out connections. For example, a parent is under extreme stress, or ill. By this, what I mean to say, not to gloss over but to speak frankly and honestly, so they can process what happened. To illustrate connections and links, so that they can understand is helpful. When we understand things, we can process them better and is such way one fosters insight that is age appropriate and possible. The second point I wish the emphasize is the importance of building on children’s strengths. You see, children are capable of becoming very enthusiastic and when one notices and encourages their strengths and talents in the areas it may be in, technical, musical, sports, cooking, dance, arts and crafts, then these activities let them remain enthusiastic while their wounds are healing. They discover that they are good for something, they are good at something, and enjoy their activities, which reinforces the view that there are nice things in the world, not only the bad they experienced. Then they go on with life and grow with more elasticity and this is not an exaggeration, but a very helpful bandage for the wounds to grow with.
SL: For us to go on with our tasks, we need to believe that the world is good place, that for me personally, the world is good place, for me it is meaningful, that there is a meaning to discover. Do we need such a sentiment to be able to keep on living?
EL: I will start with the first part of your question, “do we need to know that the world is a good place” I would like to question this. Our world is not a very good place. It has good sides and bad sides. It is not about if the good in the world needs to outweigh the bad in the world. There is a lot of suffering it the world. There is a lot of grief. Frankl spoke about the tragic triad of grief, death, and pain. We all have sorrows, we all make mistakes, and we will die. Realistically, about whether the world is a good place, I do not know. About the other part of your question, if being has meaning, that is a different question. This has to do with a very deep search in people, a wish to find meaning in everything that there is. This is a quite deep search engraved in the human soul. The question is there is a last or ultimate meaning, despite all the grief and suffering. Basic trust is not at all the belief that at the end, everything will turn out fine. Basic trust is the conviction that there is a higher dimension, beyond our dimension, in which even our suffering can have meaning. It is the question if all the uncertainty of our life can culminate in a final harmony, even if we may not be able to grasp the individual pieces. Dr. Frankl, who was a survivor of the holocaust during the Second World War, explained that the prisoners walked to the gas chambers with their heads held high and a prayer on their lips. The prisoners did not think that God will appear and intervene and save them from the gas chambers. They knew that God will not intervene to stop this great injustice, but they entered the gas chambers with a prayer on their lips. This is basic trust. It remains a mystery why there is so much misery in the world and suffering. Frankl said we need to bow in front of this mystery. And we need to trust that in this higher dimension everything retains its meaning.
SL: Do you think it is easier for religious people to accept that there is such dimension? The reality of God in a higher dimension would be perhaps easier to grasp for someone who is religious.
EL: Frankl offered a very beautiful metaphor to illustrate this. Imagine a scale with two arms, an antique scale, with two wide arms. He said, take one side where one can place the idea that the whole entire reality is a nuisance with no meaning. Everything will be lost, the planets will disappear, the suns will get sucked into a dark hole, everything is nothing and leads to nothing. This is on one side of the scale. One the other side of the scale is the conviction that everything has meaning, beyond even human comprehension. This entails the belief that the reality of creation is more that what is available to us and that the whole of creation expresses the will of God. And Frankl said, with logic and reason one cannot decide for one side or for the other. The two sides weigh the same.
SL: Life would be nicer, if this side weighed more.
EL: Well, yes, but Frankl said that the only way to make one side weight more than the other is to place one’s entire existence on one side or the other. This side will, for this person, personally weigh more than the other. There are simply no statistics that will help with the decision. There are statistics of other kind, however. Two of them can be found in my book. One of them is by Stephen Covey who wrote a bestseller that you may be well familiar with, on the habits of highly effective people. These people who do very well in life, Covey found in his research, believe that there is such an ultimate meaning. They affirm the meaningfulness of life. The other research is by Leonard Sargon who followed a large group of people with longevity and found that many factors played a role, and among genetics and lifestyle, he established that a personal outlook on life also played a role. People who lived very long lives confirmed the meaningfulness of life. It appears that it is more helpful to believe that life is meaningful than it is to think that it offers no meaning, or nihilism.
SL: Can we establish then that those people who see a general meaning in life are more likely to experience their own lives as meaningful?
EL: When everything has meaning than of course every small part must have a meaning. Yes.
SL: When someone opts for the other arm of the scale, how do you help them? When everything seems absurd? Where does one reach then? One sinks into depression, or anxieties, or sadness?
EL: We need to know that everyone needs to make a decision for themselves. We can bring arguments, illustrations, and examples, but at the end the decision lies with every person. But every person can have time when they wrestle with the question. At these times it is very helpful what has been recognised in psychotherapy, a method, or the knowledge of the possibility of taking a “leap of faith.” How can one take a leap of faith? One has the capacity for self-distancing. What do we mean by self-distancing? One can step away from oneself and one can observe oneself from a distance in the present or in the past. One can also place oneself into the future and observe oneself there. One can look at oneself from the position that one is in right now and look in the future; my very best version of myself, for example in the future, and see what that would look like, and step by step advance towards that image that one wishes to become. This is the concept of the “leap of faith” [to advance toward something that is chosen and desirable out of one’s free will, to make that a reality when it is yet only in the future as an ideal].
For example, a person addicted to alcohol. How can she step out of tis habit? She must imagine, “One day, I will be sober, and I will stop drinking.” One can give help, but ultimately, people need to do it by themselves. This “one day” they need to live it as if they were already free. But it is not in the reality. They can set it into the reality step by step. The body is still dependent on alcohol but the “one day” can be already alcohol free. Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a year. One day, this can become reality. Or an overly anxious person. How can they break the disturbance? One can help them. But again, there is a point at which they need to do it themselves. They need to go into the depth of the deep of the anxiety and face it. Entering the situation and the moment one dares to face anxiety and realizes that one has strength and freedom that one did not know existed before. He or she may go with trembling knees, and perhaps the second time will be a bit easier than it was the first, and then one can elaborate it in the context of a story such as entering the lion’s den to find out that the “roaring lion” was a in fact a “pussy cat.” The courageous facing of anxiety allows this leap of faith. When I come back to your question about how one can help someone who is experiencing a lack of trust to re-gain that trust, we need to establish that there is nothing that one can do, because one can not force oneself to trust, one can only advise or challenge oneself to live as if one had trust. One leaps into a life of trust and lets oneself be surprised.
I often work with women who have difficulty trusting men because they had a bad experience in a relationship. They may have felt take advantage of, betrayed, used, you name it. Now they have a new man in their lives, and they do not trust this friend. They tell me they have pictures from the previous relationship come to their mind, they fear being taken advantage of, etc. So, I tell them, “But your new friend is of course entirely not guilty of your previous experiences.” The women conclude it themselves that “He does not deserve to be mistrusted,” and “I deserve to get to know a nicer side of life.” At this point then I advise them to take a leap of faith and proceed by being open to the other person with this self who is still experiencing suffering because of the repeating images in the mind, but the “I who I want to be, and can be” in the future. This often works. If there are no further disappointments, the relationship succeeds.
SL: Trust for adults it is a decision-making process then. An adult can decide in their freedom to want to trust and hold fast to this decision. Is this so?
EL: No. To want to trust is not the right word. But to decide to trust is the right word. Decision and trust belong together. This is a pair. When you decide, you must trust. When you trust, you must reach a decision. That is, you would not have to trust if you were always sure that something will work out fine. Thus, always in the uncertainty is that we need to have trust, and in the uncertainty the possibility of a decision is there. When you are applying for a job, you do not know yet if everything will work out fine; when you start a relationship and choose a partner, you do not know if everything will work out fine, and the relationship will be viable. At each point, you need to make a step into the uncertainty, and make a risk and a leap of faith; this is what is basic trust. Trust and decision work together just like uncertainty and taking a risk do. People who lack trust have a hard time deciding. Professor Frankl used a very beautiful expression about trust when he spoke to his American students: One has to act “half sure but who-hearted.” Maybe not sure, but with full trust.
About the subject of will, I like to mention that there are phenomena that cannot be intended. They can not be brought about by will. For example, one cannot intend to intend, one cannot “will” to love; one either loves or not. One cannot want to believe. One can not want to trust. These phenomena have prerequisites, from which they flow. For example, something valuable, brings forth valuing. Something loveable, brings forth to love it. Something believable brings it forth belief. Something trustworthy brings forth trust. So, will is intended toward these prerequisites. This is what we can intend for, to want. We can look for something valuable in the world; something loveable; something credible; something trustworthy. This is what we can want to intend for. This is what we can “will.” We can look in the world to find them; we can seek them out. We can search and find. Whoever searches, finds.
There are a lot of things that are worthwhile in the world. When I find this what is worthwhile, beautiful, and trustworthy, it will automatically elicit my will, and elicit my trust.
SL: How is it with self-esteem?
EL: This is an exciting topic in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has to do with a lot of people who suffer from their confidence being shaken. Self-confidence has to do with the evaluation of one’s own inner resources. Self-esteem can be too low or over-inflated and neither of these has a good outcome. Either one’s level of performance will be low because of low self-confidence, and one does not develop one’s potentials as much as one could, or one over-estimated one’s capacities and one needs to touch ground at some point. However, self-confidence has another aspect that I would like to address. When one accomplishes what one committed oneself to do, this correlates highly with inner satisfaction and well being. One can plan a lot and accomplish little of those plans. Or one can break one’s promises, change one’s decisions, sabotage oneself from accomplishing the tasks that one set out for oneself, and this will have a negative impact on self-confidence. Imagine the example that one orders some work being done and the handyman says he will be there at such and such time on such and such day. You wait the whole day, but they do not show up. You phone them, agree on a new date and time. The time, comes, and they do not show up, but give you all sorts of excuses. The following time, when they do not show up, you will not take any of the excuses but really get mad at them. This is how people who sabotage themselves or let themselves down feel about themselves. When people sabotage their own plans, the feeling is a sense of failure, or impotence, “I can’t do it,” “I can’t do well anything.” So, in therapy how this plays out is not that we have to persuade people who do not trust themselves to make a leap of faith and convince themselves to accomplish small tasks that they can feel good about. Rather, often we have to advise them to request from themselves as little as possible, and as less demanding as possible, but that little that they then really make a commitment to fulfill, regardless of their feelings, as much as possible, so they can develop a healthy stand.
SL: For healthy self-confidence we have to have a realistic view of ourselves and know what we can do and what we are not so good at, right? For example, if I think that I am a great cook, but experience shows otherwise, I need to adjust the view of my abilities.
EL: Yes, for those who over-value themselves, there can be a series of disappointments, and sometimes they need to learn the hard way. The question is how one can learn from experience and adapt self-experience. For example, it could be a learning process for someone who thought they were a great cook but found out that they are not such a great cook after all, to start with something small, a salad and a simple menu that they can pull off with no difficulty. So, it is important that one does not give up and says, “I can not cook at all,” but make it little by little, step by step, try out this and try out that, and end with the conclusion that “Well, not so bad after all.” I think that the more one can learn from one’s experience about the difference between one’s self-confidence and the requirement of situations, the more one can use this knowledge to one’s advantage. In this sense, even negative experiences can be helpful because they can lead to development and growth.
SL: Do we need to be able to trust ourselves to be able to trust others?
EL: You pose very good questions.
SL: Do I need to have a firm anchor in myself to trust others?
EL: Well, maybe not if you take a leap of faith.
We can not say that only those people who have been loved can love. Maybe one is still able to give a positive attempt and make an effort to be positive towards others and, as a reward, receive self-confirmation. To come out of the difficulty does not require convenient circumstances. But to get back to your question, do we need to trust ourselves to trust others? That is a very good question.
I have spent thousands of hours in therapy with patients and I noticed that the pictures that they formed had something in common. Those who had a more positive self-image, had more likely a more positive relationship with others and a more positive relationship with God. Those who had a negative self-image tended to have more unfavorable interpersonal relationships and an image of God as unforgiving and punishing. So, I could conceptualize it in this way: Imagine that in the course of the life of a person one could unroll a transparent film that is lighter or darker in color. All the experiences in life are projected onto this transparent film. The difficult experiences that get projected to a lighter part of this transparent film can still retain their sparkle. While even nice experiences that are projected onto a dark part of this film, loose from their sparkle somehow.
A man who takes a higher position and projects everything onto a dark film, will think of the downside of the new job: the mishandling, the rivalry, the incompetence, etc. But a man who loses his job, but this experience falls onto a bright film, that man may look at this experience as a good thing: “I will find a better job.” So, it has to do with this “the glass is half-full or half-empty mentality.” This is the background onto which the experience is projected that can differ and determines how it will be interpreted. So, self-confidence, confidence in others and in God can fall on a dark film or a bright film. This is what makes the difference.
SL: Very interesting. This far we have only talked about the positive side of trust. Now I would like to bring up its opposite side, naivity. There is an expression that goes with it, we say someone is “gullible.” Are some people gullible because they trust too easily and too much, and they fall for swindlers and robbers and you name it. How can gullibility be avoided and trust somehow trained?
EL: Even in the fairy tales there is a warning about not to trust everyone. Not to trust evil. But I think that today being overly trusting is not a virtue anymore. The internet is full of deceiving advertisement, the news full of fake news. One needs to learn caution and measure one’s trust. Whom to trust and not to trust, which was you question, and how to prepare for making good decisions, has to do with critical thinking. One needs to form opinions and informed choices based on credible sources. Such choices can be made in conversations, observing different options, perspectives, which is possible in democratic countries. Even in democratic systems there is one challenge with finding space and time to calmly consider options and alternatives. This happens when parents in a family are very stressed than perhaps there is little time for such earnest discussions of different sources and information. Honest discussions with others have great advantages. For example, it has been shown that is schools, violence could be reduced through the introduction of a course on rhetoric. It is important to be able to express oneself and put into words one’s feelings; what one hopes for or what one is bothered by. Round-table discussions in politics can also lead to de-escalation. If one can express one’s inner self better, one gains trustworthiness because of the word. Words can be used for lying as well. One can see if one’s words are consistent with one’s actions and vice versa.
SL: Can we apply this in the society about people’s trust in institutions? It has been reported in sociological studies that the trust in major institutions such as the church, government institutions and agencies has dramatically decreased. Do you find this dangerous?
EL: I find this a pity. “Errare humanum est.” When one is human, one makes mistakes. As long as the responsible individuals are making an effort to correct the mistakes that have led to the decrease of trust, I think that is a good sign. I think in most instances there is a willingness to look critically at making good decisions. The understanding of a problem and capacity to solve it go together. Sometimes the attempt to solve certain problems can bring new problems that were not there before. For example, a new road can pose some inconvenience to the habitants. One arrives to the next problem. So, it is not that politicians, or church persons can not do anything at all well, rather they cannot do everything always well. I think it is these instances that need to be corrected because things have many perspectives. In addition, no one can have the capacity to foresee the future. Sometimes, in hindsight is easy to see and to make a judgement, but in foresight it is hard to always see the full consequences. When protesting, one should consider these facts and try not to just negate people in the position of power.
SL: Who I trust and whom I trust, is it then a personal decision?
EL: One can trust institutions, but not to forget that they are led by individuals. Certain individuals are corrupt. Certain individuals are untrustworthy. To make generalisations and to say “all” politicians, or all theologians, etc. is not helpful because it does not correspond to the truth. One can seek out individuals and examine their credibility on the basis of what they say and what they do. I think that it is all right to let oneself get disappointed at times. We also may have at some point let someone down. It is not always that we may have kept the confidence that was invested in us. Wittingly or unwittingly, there are so many misunderstandings that can happen. It is better to look at individual cases because out of these individuals is that the system is made of. The individual influences the system and the institution is expressed in society that influences the institution.
SL: For the final question: Whom or what do you personally trust?
EL: I think that I am fortunate that my chosen film is bright. Therefore, my self-image, and my image of God, carry a rather bright tone. I have also no fear of disappointments. I think I can deal with them well because I am mild on people. In my profession I worked with thousands of people, and I have seen that we can all have weaknesses. A very nice saying comes to my mind, it was said by an author, whose name I now fail to recall, but it goes like this: We are all angels with one wing. One wing that represents all the good and the beautiful we can do. What makes us grand. We have another wing that is just a small stump, that is not well formed. There is something wrong with it. And so, the author continued, if the angels once decided that they embraced each other, then they could have two wings and they could fly. This is what I trust in: that if we embrace each other, and we are not too hard on each other, and we understand that the other also has a wing that is not perfect and has weaknesses, but if we hold on to each other, we have two healthy and strong wings, and, together, we can fly.
SL: Let’s keep flying together. Thank you very much!
“We are each of us angels with one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another” (Luciano de Crescenzo, Italian writer 1928-2019).
If I was to arrange my memories with Dr. Elisabeth Lukas in a photo album, the album would span several decades. In this essay, I will draw out my favorite pictures from the album and share them with you.
My first memory reaches back to 1982. There is a beautiful Christmas tree in my grandparents’ home. It is set on a table with glorious decorations and best of all, marzipan candies covered in chocolate and colorful, shiny wrapping paper. It is comfortable to sit under the tree and listen to the conservation of the adults sitting around the dinner table in the kitchen, adjacent to the living room. My father leads the conversation. He talks about Dr. Frankl and Dr. Elisabeth Lukas. He visited Dr. Frankl a few years earlier and is in touch with him about setting up a local telephone hotline for the prevention of suicides. It is the first initiative of this kind in our region. A lot of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers will collaborate under my father’s guidance. The line will be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so many volunteers are required who are willing to help. The discussion shifts to Dr. Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” and the second world war. The memories of my grandmother are still vivid from the time when children she used to play with on the street were forcibly taken to unknown locations, neve to be seen again. The memories are fresh for my father as well, since his great grandfather perished in Auschwitz and his father came back alive from the forced labor camps. Everyone is silent for a while. My grandmother wipes tears from the side of her eyes. Then, my grandfather proposes to try my grandmother’s pie.
The second picture is from 1989. It is a chilli but sunny, beautiful, spring morning. My father leaves to work on his bicycle early in the morning to start work at 7:30 a.m. at his hospital. I have some time before I need to leave for school. There is a noise at the door as the flap of the mailbox closes. I run downstairs to empty the contents and retrieve a brown envelope with my father’s name and address on it. It is written with a blue fountain pen and impeccable spelling of our address 16 Vase Stajića, Subotica, Jugoslavien. The sender is Dr. Lukas and her husband, Mr. Gerhard Lukas, at the South German Institute of Logotherapy in Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany. I place the envelope on the living room table, ready for my father to open when he comes home from work. That evening, I see for the first time some images of Dr. Frankl and Dr. Lukas in the Jahresbericht (the Annual Report) of Dr. Lukas’ Institute. I sit in a comfortable armchair covered with grey velvety fabric and spend hours taking in the images.
The third picture is from 1991. There is a war in Yugoslavia. Everyone suspected that war would break out, but no one was really prepared for it. As soon as I arrive home for the summer holiday after my first year of university, my parents send me back to Hungary with the earliest train in the morning. All I can take with me is a backpack. They reassure me that they will join me later that day, when they cross the border in their large van with my six siblings, pretending to go on a holiday. They give me the address where I should go and wait for them. The day seems like an eternity. Finally, late in the evening, they arrive. They made it and got through the border safely. The van is packed to the brim. Even then, there is only one suitcase for each person. Inside mine, I discover the few books by Frankl that my father owns and used to read in the dim light at night, with pen in the hand. The books are heavily used, and the pages somewhat discolored brown, with shorthand side notes, and some exclamation marks. The yearly reports from the South German Institute are there as well, the whole package enveloped into a few T-shirts. This is the only literature that travels with us during the next few weeks while we wait to receive the immigration papers to Canada. The waiting seems unending. We wash our clothes in rivers. We sleep in abandoned parking lots or quiet streets, in the car. Finally, after two months of hope against all the odds, the visas are granted. We book plane tickets for nine persons: two adults and seven children, to Calgary, Alberta. We are off to the “unknown.” The suitcases are boarded onto the plane. They fly with us to this new land.
The fourth picture is from 1997. Nearly ten years have passed since we have been in Canada. The date is September 2. I am in the Counselling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Alberta and have just received a list of signatures from committee members who approved that my doctoral research with the title, “The Applications of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy in Counselling Psychology” can go ahead. Six committee members have approved the proposal and recorded their signatures in black ink. I am beyond words, elated. I have no idea that thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the ocean, in Vienna, Dr. Viktor E. Frankl passed away on this day. I do not have e-mail and no internet. But I do have Dr. Frankl and Dr. Lukas’ books with me, and that is enough to get me started in my work.
The fifth picture is from the year 2000. I have just finished my Doctoral Dissertation a few months ago. It is November, and I am walking toward the South German Institute of Logotherapy. Dr. Lukas has invited me to be her special student at the South German Institute of Logotherapy. After participating in several presentations that she offered in Canada, the United States and in Germany, today is the day of the final exams. The class time seems to have passed very fast. It was a stellar opportunity to hear Dr. Lukas speak and demonstrate how she applies the principles of logotherapy in practice. As she talks, my attention is all on her. I soak in every word and every movement. I feel that I understand her very well, even though when she askes me if there are any nettles in Canada, I get so embarrassed that I stutter something like: “I do not think so.,” in German. To which Dr. Lukas says that that maybe I live in places where there are no nettles! There is a wonderful book that she hands out as a present to the class, written by one of her former students. It is about “Ortie” a little nettle who grows up to be different from the other plants around her, and must learn that she too has an important place to fill in the world. In this class, I get to know people who become life-long friends and colleagues. Among them are Dr. Alexander Batthyany, in charge of the Viktor Frankl Archives at that time, and the late Dr. Cvijeta Pahljina, a psychiatrist from Croatia, who knew my father. Everyone in the class is very supportive and I quickly forget that speaking German is not effortless. Will I do well on this final exam? I spent the entire night reading through the books again.
The sixth picture is about the final exam in Dr. Lukas’ office. It is the end of November, and Christmas is approaching fast. We are sitting around a large, round, glass table. In the middle is a candle. Dr. Lukas light it, which gives a reassuring sense of comfort and peace. She asks me a few introductory questions and then to describe the qualities of the human spirit. I do know some things, and she adds a few more concepts about the relevance of the resources of this specifically human dimension in health care. We speak about the first and the second Creed in Frankl’s logotherapy, according to which the essence of the person, the spirit can not become ill. It is a healthy core and resource. A person can become ill, but behind the mask of the illness, the spirit is always present. A person may be disturbed, but they can not be destroyed. At the end of the exam, Dr. Lukas does not tell me if I passed or failed, because this is not a pass or fail exam. I find out why. Dr. Lukas trusts me to keep learning and applying logotherapy and she has confidence in me. We walk to the front of her office where all of Frankl’s book and her books are exhibited on shelves. She invites me to indicate, from among all the books that I see on the shelves, the ones that I already have, and which ones I do not have yet. I am hesitant to admit how many books I still do not have, but I want to be honest, so I point to all the beautiful new editions, one more desirable than the other. One by one, Dr. Lukas lifts the books from the shelf and gives these books to me as a present! I have no words for her kindness and no words to describe how I feel. I am now the proud owner of almost each of her available books, and several new editions of Dr. Frankl’s books in German.
My book collection has been growing ever since. This is thanks partially to my husband, Edward, who has the same love for logotherapy as I do. Together, we direct the Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy in Ottawa, Canada. We have five children ad we distribute our time between taking care of the children, seeing patients, research, writing, and teaching logotherapy and related topics. Our connection with the Vienna Institute is fostered through a bond of friendship and collegiality that has endured the past twenty years.
What was Dr. Lukas’s influence on me? More than what one can express in words and write in an essay. I look up to Dr. Lukas as pioneer in presenting and teaching the applications of logotherapy in clinical practice and transmitting the ideas of Dr. Frankl in their purest form. I admire her work ethic and sound judgement. I admire her wisdom and her peaceful manners. I am in awe of the number of books she has written over the years and the knowledge and experience that she has in the areas of logotherapy and existential analysis that is helpful for clinical practice and for everyday living. I like her charming sense of humor and her sophistication. More than any other female psychologist, Dr. Lukas is a role model whose influence I cherish. Despite the distance in miles, Dr. Lukas feels close in spirit.
Nowadays, I am with Dr. Lukas, each time I cite her books, articles, or presentations. She is mentioned and referenced in most all the books that we have ever published through the Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy. Thanks to technology, I can regularly follow her presentations on the television or radio and get notified about her new publications.
With Dr. Lukas, Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis continues to be an invitation to keep learning, reading, thinking, and comprehending, to be able to give and to give generously. Finally, to live, and to live to the fullest.
“Two roads diverged in the wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”
(Robert Frost)
In “The Will to Meaning,” we find a paragraph where Frankl reports that he has been asked by some of his students about conscience. Specifically, about how Hitler ended up the way he was? He replied that “Hitler would have never become what he did unless he had supressed within himself the voice o conscience.” (Frankl, 2014b:46). He went on to say that “…only an erroneous conscience will demand a person to commit suicide, homicide, or genocide” (Frankl, 2014b:46).
Frankl understood human beings as entities who want to shape their lives in a meaningful way(Lukas, 2000). He made it clear that “Logotherapy is a life-affirming stance” (Frankl, 2014b:46). In the same paragraph, he explained that “…No logotherapist can pretend they know the value and know what makes sense and what does not” (Frankl, 2014: 46). No therapist can impose their values on others. But what they can do is to refer people back to their own conscience to show what is of value and what is meaningful or not.
There is a description of what conscience is in Elisabeth Lukas and Heidi Schőnfeld’s (2019) book entitled “Meaning-centered Psychotherapy.” Conscience has been denoted as the meaning organ, a resource of the human spirit, a specifically human phenomenon, whose function is to intuit, and discern what is meaningful. Meaning is present in a value that stands in relation to a person. In Frankl’s definition, meaning is objective and not subjective (Frankl, 1994). It is subjective only to the extent that it is person, and situation specific. It is an objective reality through which a human being is called every moment and in every instance.
We can be either consciously or unconsciously in search for meaning. The actualization of the value that we intuit is the most meaningful in a particular situation, brings it into the reality, makes it appear in a concrete and visible form this value that we “make our own.” This is the case with creative values, when we put into the word something that was not there before. We literally, co-create. It is evidenced in the case of experiential values, were we take something from the world in relationships with nature, or persons. Attitudinal values represent our inner stand through the defiant power of the human spirit. Meaning is thus actualized in the context of a relationship between a person and a value, in that a person reaches out to a value that he or she intuits, recognizes, and acknowledges as the meaning of the moment.
Conscience has intuitive, aesthetic, and creative capacities. Intuitive refers to the capacity to anticipate outcomes and points to what really matters, a “vision,” of what ought to be. Aesthetics refers to what seems in harmony and flow freely, what “should be.” Creative refers to possibilities, what “could be.” The three aspects of conscience encompass the realms of Intuition (Ethical Conscience); Inspiration (Aesthetic Conscience) and Justice (Moral conscience). These aspects correspond to the aspects of meaning as Truth, Beauty, and Goodness (Marshall & Marshall, 2022). Not every possibility that we can think of or can think of is equally meaningful. In general, what is meaningful to us in a particular moment is what is tailored to our context, our abilities, possibilities, and responsibilities (Batthyány, 2021).
Furthermore, the values that we choose to actualize need to conform to the aspects of meaning: they need to be true, good, and beautiful. At least, we need to aim for the actualization of the best possible alternative in a situation. The best is what reduces the suffering in the world as much as possible, and at least, does not harm the other and does not harm the person. The value that we actualize needs to conform to the “Laws of the Universe” and to the laws of universal values, to be meaningful. Universal values consider the dignity and uniqueness of each person, the value of each life, the dignity of the person. The meaning of the moment must be in harmony with “Ultimate Meaning” (Frankl, 2000). There needs to be a connection and a relationship between the here and now and the eternal, and when this connection is lost, alienation is inevitable (Marshall & Marshall, 2022).
When conscience is ignored, supressed, or repressed, when its voice is not brought to consciousness, or pushed back to the unconscious, one’s actions will not be meaningful. Most likely, they will not be in line with universal values and thus, not in line with harmony in the universe, not in line, in deep spiritual terms, with the “Will of God.”
This can happen when conscience is not formed to conform to the laws of the universe, when the spiritual muscles atrophy, and when a person chooses to turn away from the call to bring out the best that they can, are able to, and are called to, in the world.
The consequence of this alienation is objectification. The person will see their objectives in treating others as means to ends. They can even consider them as replaceable, their value depending on their utility for one’s own self-imposed goals. However, at the root of their actions will be a motivation by primitive instincts and fear, science Basic Trust, a belief in life’s ultimate meaningfulness and value, is compromised.
As the will to meaning remains unheard and frustrated, one may reach to power to enforce one’s ways. Violence, aggression, the blatant disregard for human rights and freedoms, mass murder, can happen when the other is alienated to the point of being objectified, and denigrated to the level of the less than human as one projects one’s own faulty image of the person onto others to justify one’s erroneous and mistaken actions.
When reflection to hear the voice of conscience to discern value is not heard, the loud screams of violence take over. Worse yet, a calculated and cold mastermind can spread suffering and destruction in the world, foreshadowing his or her own demise.
Frankl distinguished between subjective meanings, based on feelings, and objective meaning, that are actualized in the world (Frankl, 1968). He referred to rat experiments that were conducted in California, whereby brain regions of rats were stimulated with LSD, giving them the sensation of instant satisfaction, orgasm, and elation. The rats habituated to the drug very quickly and pressed the lever with increasing frequency, to the point that they cared only for the feeling and rejected actual sexual partners and real food. Frankl explained, that when one resorts to subjective meaning, one by-passes real meaning possibilities in the store because they seek for meaning within themselves, and neglect objective meaning that is waiting as potential to be fulfilled in the world. Once we have actualized the potentiality, we rescued it into the past, where no one can take it away. But the other way it is true: what we did not actualize is lost forever. Within this realm lies our responsibility. No one can always actualize every meaning possibility, but that is part of human reality, of fallibility and vulnerability and does not hinder the actualization of objective meaning, exactly in the face of transitoriness, fallibility, and vulnerability. We have to aim not to pass by transitory potentialities, for once we actualize them, we have rescued them forever (Frankl, 1968).
Only what is meaningful will remain in the world. Only what was courageously suffered, the guilt that was overcome, the consolation that was given, the unavoidable suffering courageously faced, the goodness shared. What is meaningless will remain meaningless and return to meaninglessness, into nothingness, into non-existence.
The basis of existence is self-transcendence (Frankl, 2014a, 2014, 2019). Human beings reach to a value, reach toward a cause to make their own and a person to love, or a difficult situation to handle. Through actualizing creative, experiential or attitudinal values is that they actualize meaning. One of the characteristics of human beings is the ability to make decisions and to be able to reflect on their values and the consequences of their actions. Thus, human beings are free, within their potential freedom as a finite, vulnerable and fallible human being, to “create themselves:” to shape themselves, mold themselves, to re-form themselves. They can make the choice to break an unhealthy habit and to shift from habitual or dysfunctional ways into a new direction. When one embraces meaning, one may travel the path “less travelled.” In other words, it may not be the most convenient, obvious, or easy path. However, one takes this road considering its promise: to conforms to the person in the image and likeness of that which was intended form the beginning—a self-transcendent and meaningful life that shows response-ability, responsiveness, and responsibility toward the self, toward others, toward the environment, toward the world, and the Transcendent.
What one has become, one has become through one’s choices. When one actualizes a wrong possibility, they become that what they chose. A person ordering the murder and killing of others becomes a murderer. A person who steals things from others becomes a thief. A person that does teel the truth becomes a liar, and so on. But they are still a person with the possibility to let meaning imbue their being and per-sonat, sound through their being in the world (Lukas & Schőnfeld, 2021).
The person is conditioned, but not determined. The person retains his or her value. To the last breath, one can bring meaning into the world a flood one’s life with meaning. But for that to happen, one needs to alter course, change heart. Have an honest conversation with oneself in the light of what the rules of the universe demand, what universal human values point to, what one is asked to do. One does not, one can not and one should not invent meaning and create it, because ultimately that is not the truth. It is a self-deception to think that one is leading a meaningful life if one created and fabricated meaning oneself without consulting one’s conscience and acknowledged the truth.
Meaning can not be invented, created, or fabricated. That is where the mistake lies. Conscience is creative because it can help us actualize a value that was intended in the circumstances in ways that it is possible for us to accomplish with our resources that are given and available.
The voice of conscience can be awakened by being present and being with. It cannot be done in isolation, talking to ourselves. It is not just a monologue to oneself, it needs to be in a dialogue with what is meant in an honest encounter in the light of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Quite frankly, “Life is not something, it is the opportunity for something,” Frankl affirmed (Frankl, 2019:50 quoting Hebbel, a German poet 1813-1863).
In a lighthearted way, he remarked, “…I am quite convinced that God knows when someone has made a confusion of Him with oneself…” (Frankl, 1994:284).
References:
Batthyány, A. (2021). La superación de la indiferencia. Overcoming Indifference. Herder & Herder.
Frankl, V. E. (1994). Logotherapie und Existenzanayse. Texte aus sechs Jahrzehnten. München : Quintessenz.
Frankl, V. E. (1968). Subjective and objective meaning. Viktor Frankl Institute Vienna: Videoclip Archives.
Frankl, V. E. (2000). Man’s search for Ultimate Meaning. New York, NY: Perseus.
Frankl, V. E. (2014). Man’s search for meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Frankl, V. E. (2014b). The will to meaning. Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy. New York, NY: Penguin/Random House.
Frankl, V. E. (2019). Yes to life in spite of everything. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Frost, R. (1993). The road not taken and other poems. Dover Publications.
Lukas, E. (2000). Logotherapy textbook. Toronto: Liberty Press.
Lukas, E. & Schőnfeld, H. (2021). Meaning-centered Psychotherapy. Bamberg: Elisabeth Lukas Archives.
Marshall, M. & Marshall, E. (2022). Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis: Theory and Practice. Ottawa: Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy. Peck, S. M. (2002). The road less traveled. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
In addition to crimes against humanity, the irreplaceable cost of the loss of countless lives, the displacement of millions of people, economic downturn, and sending shock waves through the entire human family, the current war in Ukraine rests on a fundamental error and faulty attitudes that lead to a vicious cycle of destruction and self-harm. While the implications of this harm to the self, in addition to others, may not immediately perceptible, its consequences are far reaching and deeper than physical wounds. These are the wounds of the soul. (6) The purpose of this article is to describe the nature attitudes that lead away from meaning and propose and to present possible meaning-centered interventions for altering course.
According to Viktor Frankl, MD, PhD, (1905-1997) an Austrian psychiatrist, a survivor of the Holocaust and the founder of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, the fundamental motivating force for human beings is not the will to pleasure, or the will to power, but the will to meaning. (4) His most well-known book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which sold millions of copies around the world, testifies to the endurance and resilience of a human being to find meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable. LTEA is a meaning-centered and evidence-based approach to psychotherapy that rests on three fundamental assumptions: (1) The Freedom of Will; (2) The Will to Meaning; and (3) Meaning in Life. (1,8)
The first concept, the Freedom of Will, rests on Frankl’s three-dimensional conceptualization of the human being as a body, mind, and spirit entity. In the “Ten Theses on the Person,” Frankl, asserted that the dimension of the spirit is an indelible aspect of human existence that is not a substance but a dynamic.(2) The spirit is the source of the will to meaning, the human capacity for searching for and finding meaning, self-distancing, the capacity to distance oneself from the self and to observe oneself from the outside; self-transcendence, the capacity to reach out toward meaning, and other meta-physical phenomena such as love beyond the physical, gratitude, humor, kindness, forgiveness, hope, and faith. These capacities of the human spirit are, like an inner reservoir, the well spring of resilience, self-transcendence and growth that have a protective effect in crisis prevention and curative effect in crisis intervention. (3)
The first basic tent of logotherapy, Freedom of Will, asserts that humans are not fully subject to their conditions and the circumstances that surround them, but they can, within the limitations of those circumstances, and in view of being a fallible, vulnerable and finite human being, take a stand toward both internal conditions (such as one’s own biological and psychological state, instincts, drives, genetic makeup, thoughts, and emotions) and external circumstances (social factors, the past and what others decide to do). (1) The freedom to take a stand derives from the dimension of the spirit, which in Frankl’s holistic view of the person is conceptualized as the essentially human realm. The spirit is who we really are, over and above the dimension of the body and mind, of what we have. Body and mind are the instruments of the spirit. (1) As spiritual persons humans are infinitely more than reacting organisms, they can choose their stand toward their circumstances and shape themselves and their lives. (2)
The second concept, the Will to Meaning, asserts that, in addition to being free, human beings are free for something, they are free to reach their goals and accomplish purposes. (1) These goals and purposes are present in reaching out for meaning that is present in values that stand in relation to every person in each situation. Realizing meaning is seen as a fundamental motivating force of human behavior. (1) When the Will to Meaning can not reach its target, the feeling is experienced as a nagging feeling, followed by a sense of meaninglessness. (4) There are other forms of existential manifestations of the Will to Meaning being inhibited in its natural dynamics. The term “existential frustration” describes when values that used to be actualized, can no longer be actualized for some reason, and a person feels an inner sense of exasperation. (4) “Existential vacuum” is the feeling of inner emptiness that follows long-standing feelings of existential frustration. (4) “Existential struggle” results from not living up to one’s values or trespassing them. (7) “Existential distress” accompanies existential frustration and existential vacuum characterised by a feeling of despondency. (8) “Existential Angst” has been traditionally used by the existentialist to refer to a sense of meaninglessness (8). “Existential Threat” is used to refer to one’s existence and fundamental values being in jeopardy. The frustration of the will to meaning can lead to the pursuit of avenues that may mimic the effects of finding meaning, such as pleasure, success, or power seeking. (5) It can also result in aggression, addiction, depression, self-harming, and self-defeating behaviors as well as increase the severity of psychological and emotional distress. (1)
LTEA was specifically developed to help people become aware of and to tackle the obstacles that hinder the accomplishment of meaningful goals. (1,4) In LTEA, people are led to areas of freedom where meaning potentials can be found. However, they are not given or offered specific meaning contents because they need to discern and discover these for themselves with help from their conscience and will to meaning. The will to meaning is the strongest ally of the helper because it is that source of vitality and elan that is aimed at detecting realistic meaning possibilities that one can accomplish. (8)
The third principle, Meaning in Life, asserts the belief that life offers purposeful goals worth accomplishing in every situation. (1,4) Meaning is a thought of as a trans-subjective value standing in relation to the person. Thus, meaning is an objective reality that addresses the person, not an invention or figment of imagination or wishful thinking, arising from the soma or mind of the person. (1) Meaning is intuited through conscience and discerned in the dimension of spirit. (2) A person is invited to use their freedom of will and responsibility to make the best of a situation and of themselves. While ultimate meaning is abstract and impossible for humans to fully comprehend, as it is only with faith that one can approach its mystery, the meaning of the moment in harmony with ultimate meaning is a concrete possibility and task that is awaiting each person, linked to their specific circumstances and situation and in a state of change from moment to moment. (5) Thus, instead of finding a general meaning in life, one is invited to keep an open mind and remain flexible to accomplish the call of the moment, and thus shape oneself and one’s life moment to moment and day by day. (1)
There are three therapeutic techniques that form part of the non-specific tool kit of LTEA. These methods have been developed to deal with patterns, tendencies, and attitudes that can block the will to meaning and cause emotional and psychological suffering. Each of these techniques are evidence-based practices. (8)
Paradoxical intention has been used since the early 1930s in the treatment of obsessive and compulsive tendencies, and anxiety. (4, 5, 6) The basic premise of this method is that excessive avoidance of anxiety provoking stimuli can lead to excessive fear. Attempts to ward off this fear can be coupled with fear of fear. Fear of fear leads to a vicious cycle in which self-observation, hyper-vigilance, and hyper-attention, bring about the feared symptom. (4,8) Thus, excessive fighting against, leads to symptom amplification. The way to break the vicious cycle is to create a distance between the self and the fear, face the fear instead of running from it or warding off from it though safety behaviors, identify the trigger of fear, learn how to tolerate fear, and employ humorous formulations to exaggerate it to create even more distance between the spiritual self and the fear, which breaks the vicious cycle and symptom amplification. (1,8)
De-reflection has been used in the case of sleep disturbances, sexual dysfunctions, and anxiety disorders, where the root of symptom amplification had to do with anxious self-observation, anxious rumination, and hyper-intention. (1,5,6) The increased attention and intention, coupled with increased anxiety led to a vicious cycle of hyper-arousal that interfered with spontaneous functioning. Right passivity, though drawing attention away from the physical and emotional self toward areas of freedom and values allowed the spontaneity and natural flow to return. (8)
Modification of Attitudes is focused on identifying and altering attitudes and expectations that block meaning fulfillment. (1,8) Such patterns can be habit forming and alienate a person from being in touch with themselves, with their aspirations and meaning potentials in life, thus alienating them further and further and reinforcing maladaptive a poor choice that are causing suffering to themselves and others. Rather than value impositions, telling people what to do, ordering and commanding them how to alter their maladaptive patterns of behavior, therapists reach to the root of these behaviors in attitudes that are unrealistic, exaggerated, counterproductive, or self-defeating to help them gain new perspectives and outlook that may offer a fresh path to a productive and fulfilled life. The Socratic dialogue is used to challenge old and maladaptive assumptions and to bring up the possibility of re-thinking and re-committing oneself to new ways of seeing and doing that brings meaning into the world. The aim of the Socratic dialogue is to help to re-connect with universal values, and to re-connect with truth, beauty and goodness, aspects of meaning that one can bring into the world. (1,8)
The faulty assumptions underlying the idea of war can be seen in collectivistic thinking, reductionism, and fanaticism. (3) Collectivistic thinking requires to relinquish the individual agency and freedom of the individual to the thinking of the group. (3) In the case of an autocratic style of leadership, individual freedoms and responsibility is required to be relinquished to a central figure.
Reductionism is the idea that complex realities can be understood along lower levels. (3, 5) Such thinking denies the freedom of will of the individual.
Fanaticism is manifested in the elevation of a relative value to the absolute. (3) The danger of fanaticism is an “all or nothing thinking” in which the value on the of a pyramidal system is absolutized, idealised and quasi “worshipped.”
Three vicious cycles are created by the wrong attitudes: (1) “Existential threat,” the one’s values are in jeopardy, are exacerbated by a fanatic attitude in which one value is idealized and absolutized. Fanaticism evokes a feeling of “existential threat,” and the feeling of “Existential threat” reinforces the fanatic zeal to protect this value from being lost. (2) “Existential Angst,” a sense of meaninglessness fostered by reductionistic thinking provokes a fear of fear. The fear of fear reinforces the existential angst. (3) The perception of “existential threat” of the autocratic style evokes “existential angst” and the existential angst reinforces the perceived existential threat.
The will to meaning is temporarily blocked by these three obstacles. Existential frustration surfaces, but the voice of conscience is ignored and continually supressed. In the absence of meaning, the motivation may change to seeking pleasure and appreciation of utility instead of inherent value. Since this path des not lead to meaning, it is frustrated and leas to existential vacuum. In the vacuum aggression, violence, abuse, and harmful behaviors flourish.
In the continued absence of meaning, a will to power may predominate. It reinforces the fanatic zeal, but ultimately, fails to bring a sense of fulfillment and leads to frustration and despair. The consequence is existential despair.
From the perspective of LTEA, without restoring a healthy meaning-orientation, suffering amounts. Pain is inflicted in the self and on others. There are three points of intervention that can help to remove the obstacles from the path of the frustrated will to meaning: (1) breaking the fear of fear through paradoxical intention; (2) modifying the fanatic attitude through the method of modifying attitudes; and (3) re-instating a three-dimensional view of the person in one humanity by de-reflecting from self-interest and considering others. This will fully re-instate the dynamics of the will to meaning.
Paradoxical intention to break the pattern of existential angst and fear of fear can focus on being able to face fear and tolerate it without lashing out and hurting others. It is a normal phenomenon to experience fear of meaninglessness. The fear itself points to the significance of finding meaning. Excessive fear leads to a paralyzed sense of rigidity or attempts to fight the fear by frantic action and acting out. It is a human prerogative to take a distance from oneself, from one’s inner state. It is a human achievement to look fear straight in the face and deal with it, like the bull fighter tackles a bull by its horns. “Take the bull by the horns.” “You are in a unique position like no one else in the history of this world to effect change, and defeat fear by looking not its eyes and defeating it through your resolve to be stronger than it.”
Modification of attitudes can tackle the vicious cycle of fanaticism and the feeling of existential threat. Whenever we idealise a value, and place it on a pedestal, we place it in a position that if it is not possible to achieve, we are risking having no value because we put everything on the line, “we put all our eggs in the same basket.” An idealized value makes us loose sight of the fact that we are not the one wo assign values, but it is life. Rather than placing values, we need to live them. The Socratic Question helps us to reflect on: “Rather than us asking what we an expect from life, we need to ask, what is life asking from us in this moment?”
The third vicious cycle between existential threat and the existential angst that blocks the will to meaning can be alleviated through de-reflection. We think of the future beyond our self-interest. What is it that we want our legacy to remain in the world? According to Albert Einstein, if all the resources that are invested into the war could be put to a good use, the world could be a much better place to live in. Let us imagine and build such a world.
Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust believed that when the basic need for meaning is ignored, disregarded, and shunned, then even success, power and fame will feel empty and futile. (5) In the absence of meaning, falls into the abyss of despair. In the presence of meaning, however, even a perceived failure can lead to a sense of fulfillment. (5)
He outlined three avenues through which life can be made meaningful. (1) Through creative values, to which category belong everything that we bring into the world through work, and creative activities. (2) Experiential values, though which we can find meaning in what we receive from the world, such as its beauty and the relationships we cultivate; and (3) through attitudinal values, the possibility of facing unavoidable suffering with courage. (4, 5) This latter in the highest form of human accomplishment because it offers the deepest possible meaning until the last breath. The attitudinal values are subdivided into another triad: meaningful attitudes to pain, guilt, and death. (5)
As human beings, we are fallible, vulnerable, and finite. However, our essence is not what is fallible, finite, and vulnerable, but that what is eternal—our essence. Surely, what we have done, cannot be undone. However, the attitude toward pain confronts us with the possibility of taking a stand toward fate. In the case of guilt, one has the chance to take a stand toward oneself. Because of our freedom of will, it is a human prerogative to become guilty of a wrongful act, and it is a human imperative to overcome this guilt, to have a change of heart. (5)
As for the third aspect of the tragic triad, life’s transitoriness, Frankl remarks that we usually see only the partial picture:
“Usually, man only sees the stubble fields of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past. In the past nothing is irrevocably lost but everything is irrevocably preserved and saved, safely delivered and deposited. Nothing and nobody can deprive us of what we have rescued into the past. What we have done can never be undone. This adds to man’s responsibleness. For in the face of transitoriness of his life, he is responsible for using the past opportunities to actualize potentialities, to realize values, whether creative, experiential, or attitudinal. In other words, man is responsible for what to do, whom to love, and how to suffer. Once has realized a value, he has fulfilled a meaning, he has fulfilled it once and forever” (5:52).
“Man’s Search for Meaning” expresses trust in the realistic optimism that change is possible. Through the freedom of will, a human being is uniquely in the position to shape and to mold him or herself.
“I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best allows for: (1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action” (4: 129-130).
(2) Frankl, V. E. (1950). Logos und Existenze. Vienna: Amandus Verlag.
(3) Frankl, V. E. (2010). The Feeling of Meaninglessness. A Challenge to Psychotherapy and Philosophy. Edited by: A. Batthyány. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette Press.
(4) Frankl, V. E. (2014). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston. MA: Beacon Press.
(5) Frankl, V. E. (2014b). The Will to Meaning. New York, NY: Plume.
(6) Frankl, V. E. (2019). The Doctor and the Soul. From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
(7) Marshall, E. & Marshall, M. (2021). Logotherapy for the Management of Moral Injury. Ottawa, Canada: Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.
(8) Marshall, M. & Marshall, E. (2022). Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis: Theory and Practice. Ottawa, Canada: Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.
An examination of existential angst and existential threat from an existential perspective reveals that the two dynamics intercept each other at the common point of anxiety. How one chooses to respond to anxiety can have implications for peace-making and healing.
Introduction:
“Existential angst” and “existential threat.” What do these concepts mean and why are they increasingly used in discourse? An understanding of these concepts may shed light on what existential issues we are facing, and what choices we have as we address these phenomena.
According to the dictionary definition, the feeling of “existential angst” is a feeling of dread, impending doom, and anxiety that reaches nearly the levels of panic; a term used by the existentialists related to the human experience of freedom and responsibility (7), and by extrapolation, related to finding and actualizing meaning, more precisely, it refers to the sense of meaninglessness and the apparent lack of meaning (8).
The concept of “Existential threat” has been used by people to refer to their basic needs not being met, a threat to their very existence, when their continued being is at stake or in danger (1). A perception of “threat” involves a sense of impending harm to their being and often involves anxiety and vigilance to ward off the harm.
Let us examine these concepts in further detail to highlight some of their existential implications and correlates.
Anxiety:
There are many forms of anxiety. Some types of anxiety are reasonable and justified. Anxiety is state and an emotional reaction that is associated with feelings, thoughts, and physiological reactions, among which we can list, increased sympathetic nervous system activity, higher heart rate and blood pressure. Release of adrenalin to prepare the body for flight or fight. This is an evolutional response serving the purpose of survival. Psychological states associated with anxiety include vigilance, hyper-arousal, scanning, anxious rumination, catastrophic thinking. In the absence of real or imagined threat, the thoughts usually subside, the thoughts calm, mental clarity returns along with normalizing of bodily states. Homeostasis and a state of rest returns. Only, in the condition of prolonged toxic stress, that is unbuffered by the mediating factors such as a source of safety, security and trust, the body’s resources are increasingly depleted and in the case of lack of capacity to obtain rest physically and mentally, the body’s capacities to reinstate a state of rest will be jeopardized. Increased physical reactivity along with emotional hyper-arousal and vigilance will interfere with rational thinking and reasoning (5).
“Existential Angst:”
When one is talking about “existential anxiety,” we are talking about the existential dimension of the person, with their dimensions of body, mind, and spirit. Spirit is that dimension in which existential dynamics takes place. It is a dynamic that orients a person toward meaning, values and ideals that during the course of their actions one reaches toward to actualize. According to Frankl, meaning is the main motivating force of a human being, the reason of our existence (2,3). When our will to meaning is frustrated, we feel empty inside, thus the expression “existential vacuum” (3). Long-lasting existential frustration can lead to a dreaded sense of an apparent lack of meaning and despair (2, 8). Existential angst is a normal reaction to the sense of lack of meaning and indicates the significance of meaning in our lives. With guidance, one can help a person find areas in which meaning can be found to alleviate the existential angst and re-establish healthy tension between being and meaning and meaning-seeking, where meaning is the pacemaker and guide of our being (2).
“Existential Threat:”
Conceptualized from an existentialist point of view, a feeling of existential vacuum leads to a sense of emptiness in the absence of the perception of meaning and values to actualize. Existential distress is brought about by value conflicts. Existential frustration is the sense of loss of values (2). Existential struggle is related to the trespassing and disregarding of one’s deeply held values (6). In existentialist framework, existential threat can be conceptualized as a perception of the jeopardy of what one is, and what one stands for, such as a threat to one’s values.
When existential frustration and angst persist, people can attempt to find meaning in areas that do not lead to meaning but are shortcuts to a feeling that a sense of meaning would result in: they pursue pleasure or power (2). But since these do not result in a lasting fulfillment, the pursuit increases the level of their intention and their anxiety. Hyper-attention to oneself and hyper-reflection fuels fears that are now related to the intended and demanded results, in the absence of which the experience of “existential threat” intensifies. This threat is perceived whenever one’s needs for security, safety and basic needs are not met, or one’s values are in jeopardy, and is experienced as a threat through one’s functions of survival (notice: not functions of purpose and meaning, but functions of survival).
There are cases of course, when one’s basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, esteem are not met. The existentiality of the person, the existential dimension in such instances would suggest that a person engages in problem solving, thinking, creative and cooperative values-based action. However, when a person’s entire existence is reduced to a capsule of an organism with body and mind and the spiritual aspirations have been denied or ignored, meeting needs may not proceed according to rational, reasonable, and reflective grounds. They will be pushed by instinct and drives, instead of pulled by what is meaningful to do to meet basic needs. A prolonger state of existential angst, whereby reflection on one’s actions and their consequences, reaching out to others and options, choices (self-transcendence and self-distancing) have been lost to an impulsive jerk response of stimulus and response. The existential angst that was there for a prolonged period, and ignored, has given space for a feeling of “existential threat” to sprout and to take over genuine existential concerns.
The existential threat will intensify when values are equated with what one has, rather than what one is. Furthermore, a sense of “jeopardy of values” will surface if one ignores one’s freedom of will choose to live one’s values in harmony with universal values, regardless of the conditions. Thus, without the realization that values can not be given or taken away from a person if they decide to remain true to them and live them in various circumstances, existential threat may become chronic and persistent.
Interaction between “Existential Angst” and “Existential Threat:”
In summary, “Existential threat” is an anxiety about the basic needs of a person not being met and beyond that, that their values are being in jeopardy, without reference to their existential self in search for meaning. When the “existential threat” is accompanied by angst, fear of fear produces a vicious cycle in which the more one attempts to fight the fear, the more intense it will become. Fear produces fear and the fear of fear keeps the person trapped in a highly emotionally charged state that interferes with rational problem solving, blocks the ability to listen access one’s inner resources and increases the frustration of the will to meaning, that remains unheard and unheeded. Blocking access to the freedom of will, ignoring one’s will to meaning, reducing oneself to the level of body and mind, desires, instincts and impulses, and emotions, feelings, and thoughts, leaves out the possibility to choose one’s values and responsibly live them, be guided by them. Therefore, a reductionistic and so called “value blind “ view of the self (and others) reinforces the existential threat and the existential angst.
How does one Break the Vicious Cycle of Anxiety?
How can one bear the grip of fear? One can no longer run from it; one needs to face it. Unless one does, the despair continues, and the vicious cycle pulls the person toward destruction. To face fears, one needs space. One needs to sit down with oneself and have a dialogue with oneself. If one cannot do it alone, one needs help. One needs to evaluate one’s actions. One needs to get in touch with one’s feelings, thoughts, and values. One needs to evaluate the consequences of the actions. One needs to be able to see oneself, as a being with body, mind, and spirit, between functions of survival and function of purpose. One needs to re-discover oneself as a person of worth, wit freedom and responsibility and the possibility to change oneself for the better. One needs to question the reality of one’s thinking when irrational and anxiety motivated, based on assumptions, past experiences or automatic conclusions that are exaggerated or overgeneralised, and result to increase suffering to the self and others. More so, one needs to re-connect with one’s inner self. The freedom of will, and the will to meaning, beyond the will to power and pleasure. One needs to assess and re-assess one’s values in light of universal human values. One needs to re-set oneself. One needs to accept one’s mistakes and assume responsibility for them. Effectuate change and growth. Mold oneself. Shape oneself. “Not to take every nonsense from oneself” (2). Discover the freedom and the responsibility to take a stand toward not only one’s circumstances, but one’s inner self: one’s fears and anxieties. Do not give into them. Do not let them be in control, Re-gain agency. Re-gain self-determination. Only the step in the “right” direction in the direction of meaning can bring about a gradual relief from the existential angst, reinforce a sense of trust and thus gradually ease the grip of existential threat.
Abusive Relationships:
Human relations involve body, mind, and spirit. Physical contact between people is often preceded by emotional connection, exchange of ideas though communication and an implicit or explicit dialogue about goals and values. One feels attracted to people with who one shares similar interests, can share ideas, or have similar goals. One shows open mind, benevolence, and tolerance toward diverse ideas. One shows respect for diversity of thought, ideas and perception of what others think what is meaningful to do in a situation. And this is rightly so, since meaning is always individually given, tailored to the situation and uniqueness of a person. But we know that meaning is not subjective. It is objective and it involves what is good for one and for the other (2). For such reason, one needs to rely on conscience to discern one’s course of action in accordance with values and universal values (2). “What is the best to do in a given situation?”
So, what happens is cases of conflict, where one person imposes on the other what they should do, how they should think, or live? There is a spectrum from mild to moderate to severe imposition, to the point that the other may feel that their will to meaning is not being heard or its dictates can not be fulfilled because of the amount of imposition. This will create tension. The tension can rise to the point of oppression. This can be manifested in words, gestures, and actions. In relationships, we call it abuse, and we recognize several forms of it: physical, psychological, sexual, emotional, spiritual, etc.
Abuse in all these cases presents the other party with suffering. The abuser suffers in their own way. However, instead of solving this suffering and choosing to respond to it by allowing oneself space, determining their response so that they do not harm the other, they may choose to impulsively lash out at the other, threaten the other, attack the other. In relationships, we call this to act aggressively.
What shall the other do? In partner relationships, one assesses the level and seriousness of the threat of aggression or the aggression once it occurred. One considers its history, its manifestation, its possible consequences. One tries to mediate, to negotiate, to find a common ground. However, with severe abuse in relationships, the one that cause the other serious emotional, mental, or spiritual pain, let alone physical pain, intervention is necessary. One does not counsel the abused party to return to the abuser. One does not counsel the abused party to physically fight back. One advises the abused partner to remove oneself from the situation until the other partner is committed to receiving help, accepts responsibility upon being confronted with their actions, and commits to change. Until the abuser learns how to tolerate their inner distress without lashing out, and how to resolve their issues about existential threat and angst within themselves, without harming someone else in the process, the distance needs to remain, lest to perpetuate the abusive cycle.
Concretely, when one witnesses abuse where one of the partners is beaten, and beaten to death, or likely to be beaten to death, one does not stand by. Moral duty and responsibility demand action. Vulnerable individuals need to be removed and protected. A safe space needs to be created between the abuser and the abused person and enforced so that the abuse does not go on. Sometimes, the police need to be alerted, the authorities need to get involved to restore justice and order need to be on the scene. This is the prerequisite of finding a space to re-build lives and achieve peace until the attacking party will assume responsibility, realize their freedom of will and responsibly mend their ways (if they decide to do that).
Conflict Situations:
The same happens in conflict situations between nations. Each situation is different, and each nation has its own “face;” history, culture, and traditions. Mistakes can be made by individuals who bring an entire country into war against another one. We know that this is not a case of collective guilt (3). There are those who oppose to war but have no choice to live elsewhere and suffer the wrong actions of the leadership of their country. To the party that suffers the attack, we cannot say, “it’s your problem, we do not care.” We can not stand by passively because humanity is like a big family. What one does, affects everyone else.
We may say we want to work for peace, and we know how to get there. This ideal, the value of peace, needs to be upheld. However, when the conflict already happens, the fact is that peace has been disturbed. We need to be aware of this fact and face it. To bring peace, it is necessary to reflect and to think. Evaluate one’s values considering universal values. Re-align them if there is a misalignment and disharmony. Tolerate distress without lashing out, until meaning dawns.
It is necessary to have space to think. To create space between two warring parties until solutions can be worked out can be a part of building peace. This value is now actualized in a way that its optimally possible to live up to it, until the circumstances change, until there is a change of heart. It is a human pre-condition for gaining insights and to regain rational thinking to allow space to reflect.
We humans have a strong will. This will inherently helps to find meaning (functions of purpose) that ought to guide how we meet our needs (functions of survival). It can also be stronger than our will to power and will to pleasure to the point that we can accept sacrifices for the sake of the other, for the sake of living together in harmony.
Speaking of survival, survival would be meaningless if it was not for the sake of an ideal for which we are willing to lay down our lives and that is the source and purpose of our existence, the Reason of our being. When we find a strong reason to live, we can withstand frustrations, even if not all our needs are met. Or as Frankl quoted Nietzsche: “Whoever has a why can bear with nearly any how.” (3) It is this “why” and “what” is the most meaningful to do that is waiting for us to ponder in a crisis situation where space between stimulus and response allows to make a choice. This choice is meaningful only if it is the best option among those available, the best for us and for the others involved, since we are one human family.
Working for Peace:
A common goal, a common task– this is what will save humanity from extinction, and extinction not only because of needs not being met or values being in jeopardy but first, because of the self-destructive effect of rage and senseless and uncontrolled actions that follow from angst-motivation that follows from an un-reflected existence, where the will to meaning was not and cannot even be heard in the turmoil. “Existential angst” and “existential threat” require to be acknowledged and guided “toward” something and someone for whose sake we are willing to stop and think.
Peace requires to stop and think. To make space. Physical space away from the noise of battle. Mental and emotional, spiritual space for the voice of conscience (3). Space to listen, and space to discern. Space to heal. Space to get in touch with the inner strength to counter the “existential threat” and supplement it with answers to the existential angst. Search for what is meaningful (what is true, what spreads goodness and beauty), what builds up rather than destroys. Search for values in harmony with universal vales. The more a nation can have this space the more they can advance toward peace. –In a space as large as the heart.
Conclusion:
The opposite of war as an aggressive act is a space in which value discernment can take place and where meaningful decisions can be made. When existential angst and existential threat are not equated with the person, but a distance can be gained from these states to find a response to them, without hurting or damaging another, victory has been won over dread. When a space is perceived between stimulus and response, the agency of the individual is can be called upon to decide in which direction they want to move. When the space is filled with meaning–the actualization of values in harmony with universal values–peace can freely flow.
Screaming “existential angst” and “existential threat” are sure signs that existential dynamics are at hand. To deny them and suppress them would deepen the cycle of anguish and despair. To face them and to respond to them squarely offers hope for a better life.
We can not deny the chance to the party needing inner space to let live, just like we cannot deny the right to life.
“Living itself means nothing than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to–and being responsible toward—life” (4)
Marshall, E. & Marshall, M. (2021). Logotherapy and Existential Analysis for the Management of Moral Injury. Ottawa, Canada: Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought Moral Injury (MI) to the forefront of clinical attention and research. This multi-dimensional syndrome has been first described in the military context and is now understood to affect people in other occupations such as health care, business, education, law enforcement, the legal profession, disaster relief, international aid, social justice, as well as other areas of social and occupational functioning. Moral injury occurs when deeply held beliefs, ethical and moral principles have been trespassed. The violation of universal values and personal principles can be committed by oneself or by others. Witnessing potentially morally injurious events gives rise to guilt, shame, remorse, anger, disgust, feelings of betrayal, spiritual struggles and disorientation, loss of meaning, and despair. The secondary symptoms of moral injury may include anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress. The symptoms of moral injury can vary in intensity and can present from mild to severe, seriously impairing functioning. Moral injury is not considered a mental illness but a syndrome that warrants clinical attention.
Employing a phenomenological hermeneutic method of systematically reviewing pertinent texts, the present study explores the lived experience of moral injury in relation to assessment and treatment methods currently available. Conceptually, research indicates that self care, moral resilience, and social support are linked with factors such as resiliency, post-traumatic growth, and self-transcendence. These factors are correlated with meaning, a key factor in wellness following existential frustration and distress. Thus, a holistic body, mind and spirit approach to the assessment and response to moral injury is warranted.
Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (LTEA) is an evidence-based meaning-centered approach to psychotherapy and counselling that has been successfully applied in the treatment of conditions involving existential issues. The present research examines the contribution of LTEA to the conceptual understanding of moral injury and to its related symptomatology. It details the application of LTEA principles and structured meaning-centered interventions in responding to moral injury. The applications are illustrated with examples that help to position this method into a holistic framework promoting re-connection, renewal, and health.
Notes from an Interview with Alexander Batthyany and Elisabeth Lukas.
On January 15, 2021, Professor Dr. Alexander Batthyany, Philosopher and University Professor at the Universities of Vienna and Budapest, Director of the Viktor Frankl Institute in Vienna, and Viktor Frankl Chair for Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Lichtenstein, and Professor Dr. Elisabeth Lukas, Clinical Psychologist, and former student of Dr. Viktor Frankl, were interviewed by Andreas Obrecht at the Austrian Radio [ORF] with the program title “Saying Yes to Life.” It aimed to provide an opportunity for Dr. Batthyany and Dr. Lukas to present their latest book with the title “Logotherapy and Existential Analysis Today: A Current Standpoint.” [Logotherapie und Exystenzanalyse Heute: Eine Standortbestimmung, 2020].
Dr. Batthyany studied logotherapy with Dr. Lukas over twenty years ago. These two prominent advocates of Viktor E. Frankl’s work collaborated in writing the book that explores the position of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Analysis with respect to our complex reality today. The program provided an opportunity for listeners to express their views and ask questions.
Referring to the current pandemic, Andreas Obrecht explained that “Difficult questions arise in difficult times.” The interview aimed to explore some of the answers that logotherapy and existential analysis can provide in response to these questions. He prefaced the interview with the remark that “Logotherapy and existential Analysis, also known as the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, was founded by Dr. Viktor Frankl, an exceptional doctor, psychiatrist, neurologist, and philosopher.” He then chose one particular crucial point in Viktor Frankl’s life, 1941, when he held a valid visa in his hands that would have allowed him to immigrate to the United States. Since he was of Jewish origin, the visa was very significant for it would have allowed him to escape the horrors of the concentration camps. However, he decided to let it lapse because he wanted to protect his family. In 1942 his entire family was deported to the concentration camps where his wife, parents and his brother perished. He was liberated in 1945 by American troops.
From this brief window into the life of Dr. Frankl, Mr. Obrecht returns to the book in which Dr. Batthyany and Dr. Lukas state that it is hard to characterise Dr. Frankl since “his life was multi-faceted” and he was an exceptionally talented man. Dr. Lukas explains that “… One of the most remarkable qualities of Dr. Frankl was the coherence between his convictions, his teaching, and his life example which gave him a high level of credibility.” Namely, we can see that soon after the liberation when he found out that his loved ones perished, and he was struggling, he established to himself that there must be a ground and a reason for his suffering why he would be in a unique position to shoulder it and he held firm to the belief that a meaning that he can realise must be waiting for him in the face of it. Dr. Lukas explained, “…He had been granted a second life. This was a present. The first life ended in the camps. The second life was a gift of grace that he said he wanted to show himself worthy of it.” He wanted to use it well and so he lived in a way to help others. Another example of the congruence between his actions and words can be seen in the fact that “…he determined that he wanted to keep his heart free from hate and grudge.” Dr Lukas explained that “…hate and grudge dwell in the soul and weighs it down. The only way one can free oneself from both is by focusing on the present and how one’s life in the here and now can be filled with a meaningful content.”
The interviewer remarks how Frankl had written his book Man’s Search for Meaning very soon after his liberation and it become popular immediately after its publication. It is still a widely read book today, perhaps exactly because it offers an example for people on how to deal with suffering and even very intense suffering, such as Frankl experienced in the concentration camps. Dr. Lukas pointed out that Frankl dedicated himself to helping others as a doctor fully respecting each person. He did not ask his patients what their convictions were. His sole aim was “… to help people live a healthy life and this is what helped him to regain his own stability.”
The title of this new book is “Logotherapy and Existential Analysis Today: A Current Standpoint.” From the perspective of this historical vista, one can reflect on the contributions of this psychotherapeutic orientation today. Although the interview allows for only very brief remarks, Dr. Alexander Batthyany, notes that it is relevant to recall that the foundations of logotherapy have been laid before the second world war because this point is often missed or misunderstood. The roots and basic formulation of logotherapy were already laid by Frankl before the war and to think that he developed his theories in the camps or after his liberation emerged with this theory is of course not correct. What Frankl witnessed in the camps is that “…all the methods and therapeutic formulations that he gathered through his experiences earlier were applicable and held up in the camps and after.” Regarding the contribution of these principles today, Dr. Batthyany notes that he had been fortunate to hold presentations on logotherapy in different parts of the world, for example Japan or Africa, and he was always impressed by the realisation that the basic principles and the corresponding therapeutic methods are so to speak “trans-cultural” and timeless. “The basic factors, the basic principles remain, although the conditions may change with time and from place to place.” We live in some countries and on some continents in wealth but not on others and so the circumstances and the challenges may be different. However, the methods that have been applied across several cultures and have proven to be time-tested and effective. The principle what Frankl asserted is that fulfillment can be found “…not by intending that what feels good but discovering and doing what one is good for.” Thus, “…one can not aim for pleasurable activities to overcome hardships because there will be still hardships left but rather to think: how can I remain a human being in the good times and in the difficulties, through the ups and downs, and become a human being who leaves their own contribution to the world?”
One chapter in this book is entitled:” Happiness is what we are saved from.” This is a thought- provoking title. Dr. Lukas explained that it is easy to forget about life’s blessings: “What one experienced in the past is a wealth that was a gift. Each new day is a gift.” Looking carefully at the current situation, we realise that even what we take for granted, for example, our everyday lives, “…normalcy itself–is a present.” Dr. Lukas then asserted that “…even loss has an element of thankfulness about it that is easy to overlook.” Often it is only when we have lost something that we realise how precious it was. For example, if one loses a loved one. Or if one loses a job and realises how much one enjoyed work. These are values in life that we may temporarily overlook. She noted that it is relevant to become aware of the precious things that surround us. It is good to be mindful of everything that we value so that when we need to let go, we can think back with gratitude that we were blessed, and we were given these values as a present.
The first caller is a lady who has attended Dr. Lukas’ presentations and would like to point out another important contribution of Frankl that he summarized with the quotation “Whoever has a why can bear with nearly any how.” An experienced educator, she wondered how this idea could be presented to young people and if the formulation that if we have a reason, we can learn from our challenges could be explored in today’s classrooms. Dr. Lukas affirms her point by remarking that those who can see a task waiting for them can handle frustrations easier as they are searching for where they can responsibly contribute to making our society better.
Next, the interviewer invited Dr. Batthyany to summarize two main concepts in logotherapy: self-transcendence and self-distancing. Self-transcendence, said Dr. Batthyany, is the dynamics of reaching beyond oneself. “…It is an empirically demonstrated phenomenon. As human beings, we are capable of observing and reflecting on ourselves. Beyond self-awareness, we are able to reach beyond ourselves into the world and an area of possibilities in the world. These possibilities represent the area where our area of freedom lies. Not all of these possibilities are of equal value and this is where the element of responsibility enters. Some could be accomplished, some may be possible, and we need to aim for discerning the one task that is waiting for us to become actualised, that only we can bring into reality. This is our contribution. This is when we look not so much for what is good for me, but for what am I good for, what is meant for me to accomplish?”
Reflecting on Frankl’s remark that “responsibility is at the same time frightening and at the same time wonderful,” Dr. Battyany explained that it is a gift that we are able to act and that there are possibilities to choose from in our area of freedom where our values beckon. The realisation that without us acting none of these values can actualised, can fill us with a frightful sense of responsibility. Thus, “…we are all writers, and we write by the minute, the hour and the day our own stories. We decide what title we give to the chapters in our lives.”
Self-distancing, continued Dr. Batthyany, has to do with freedom. We have a physiological and psychological reality. For example, we have impulses and thoughts that may come and go. The question is if we are fully dependent on these psychological or physiological realities, “…do they have the last word, or can we gain some distance from them?” Here is where an area of freedom opens, at least in our attitudes. Dr. Lukas continues the explanation of this concept by referring to Dr. Frankl’s notion of the tragic triad of human existence: pain, guilt, and death. “No one is spared of pain, no one is free from guilt and we all have to face our finality.” In this relation to fate that which we do not have direct control over, or very little or no control over, we have little or no responsibility. We are not the ones who ask the question of why bad things happen to good people. Life does not answer these why questions. However, we are the ones who are being asked by life, what we are going to do in response to fate. “Until the last breath, we have a choice how we answer to life. We can answer with a yes or a no to life. That is what it means to be responsible.” Dr. Lukas explained that “…we can choose to be constructive, loving, or negative, bitter and cynical.”
The next caller asked why there is a strife between logotherapy and psychoanalysis. Dr. Battthyany explained that the roots of the differences go back to radical positivism. Historically, Frankl elaborated on the foundational principles of psychotherapy and the anthropological view of the human person to include the dimension of the spirit and unconscious spirituality along with the resources and capacities o the spirit which logotherapy mobilises. Thus, “…the are clear differences between psychoanalysis and logotherapy.” He goes on to say that “…If we omitted the changes that happened the evolution of psychoanalysis and we still considered it in its dogmatic origins with these principles at the forefront, then the differences would be very marked, indeed.” The differences would be even contradictions, for in logotherapy the therapist’s main concern is not the uncovering of hidden motives or drives. “Logotherapy rest on the recognition that we live in the world and our intentions are not ends in themselves; we are not primarily aimed at achieving homeostasis but that we are directed toward the world.” At the same time there are differences, there are instances in psychoanalytical thinking where we can see that “…the two orientations coincide”, noted Dr. Batthyany, and this is “…because ultimately, we are both talking about people in the world and the aim is the same: to help people. This is a common denominator. We want to understand people and support them. Thus, while there are some differences, there are some inherent similarities.”
The next caller expressed the view that through Frankl’s talks and presentations, one which he was fortunate to attend, there was always a thread of deep-seated trust and faith. Not necessarily in a religious sense, but the deep-seated trust of a believer, that was absent in Freud’s atheistic bent. He recalled the example mentioned at the start of this interview where Frankl shared that when the Vienna synagogue was destroyed [1938], he found a marble piece with on the Ten Commandments engraved into it and it was the one: “Honor your mother and father so that you may do well in the land” and he acted accordingly. He based his decision on his faith and not on positivistic atheism.
The interviewer asked Dr. Lukas about the scientific basis of logotherapy following the findings of her dissertation [1971]. She explained that she measured two parameters. First: “To what extent people see their lives as meaningful?” She developed a test [Logotest] for measuring this first parameter. Second, the mental stability of her subjects. “The interesting finding was that with ninety nine percent certainty one could observe a correlation between mental health and seeing meaning possibilities in life.” Her findings offered one of the first empirical validation of Frankl’s work. This was an early study and since then, evidence for their validity has been mounting, with extensive research on the methods and the applications of logotherapy and existential analysis.
The question arose “What would Frankl say in response to the violence and aggression we see through the media today?” Dr. Lukas replied saying that each time has its negative trends. Frankl said that “…each time has its own illnesses and its own therapies.” Aside from reductionism, he identified fanaticism, fatalism, and collectivism. Nevertheless, there are several positive trends in today’s society as well, examples of kindness and altruism. Thus, we are confronted with the question “…whether to give in to these trends or to join those people who stand for hope and a better future.”
A caller requested to have some more information on the ways in which logotherapy can be applied in the case of treating emotional disorders. Dr. Lukas explained that logotherapy’s principles are applied with the intention to help the person in the present. “…We are not concerned so much with the past, and roots of the disorder but giving first aid in the present and exploring what possibilities the person has in the present.” In facing psychological difficulties and limitations “…we want to point to an area of freedom whereby one can develop a vision for the future.” Thus, logotherapy is primarily present and future oriented and helps to mobilise one’s inner resources in response to trauma or emotional challenges.
A caller who is currently a student of logotherapy and wishes to apply it in the future in his work with young people inquired about whether there is an international network of research and training insitutes in logotherapy? Dr. Batthyany replied that there are about 140 institutes in 40 countries. There are small institutes and larger institutes among them. [The list of these accredited institutes can be found on the website of the Viktor Frankl Institute: http://www.viktorfrankl.org]. There are innumerable publications of book and articles in many languages. However, the main point he wanted to emphasize is that “…the idea is always greater than the institutes.” What Frankl wrote and his students developed on the basis of his thoughts, ”… is wholesome and transculturally applicable.” The second point he made was that, as the saying goes: ‘the taller the tree, the deeper the roots,” and there is a lot of opportunities for an in-depth study of logotherapy and existential analysis.
A caller reported that he developed a program based on logotherapy and positive psychology with an emphasis on gratitude and mindfulness. He was wondering if happiness could be taught and learned? Dr. Batthyany lauded his efforts. However, about the question if to cultivate happiness can be made an intention, he offer this alternative: “…I think that aiming for a fulfilled life would be more realistic [than aiming for a happy life]. Happiness is only a small segment of life. There is also pain and grief. And if we focus too intensely on our own happiness it may cause us to be a bit blind to the suffering of others and the suffering where we could be helpful. …Engenderinghope and being helpful, acting with responsibility and accomplishing something worthwhile that is waiting for us to accomplish is what I think can be helpful.”
[Dr. Batthyany’s proposition stems from Dr. Frankl’ assertion that happiness is the by-product of a meaning-filled life, and it will ensue by itself, we do not need to intend it. It may come as a gift, or unexpected, as a surprise when we least expect it. Such as with the words of C. S. Lewis who said that “At the times of intense suffering we may still be surprised by joy.”]
A person sent in a comment wondering if lack of thankfulness is an overgeneralised statement. Alternatively, if we have the right to ask people in difficult situations to be grateful? Dr. Lukas answered these remarks with a personal example to illustrate that gratefulness does not need to disappear and it can be present especially in the most difficult situations. She related that her husband passed on after 44 years of happy marriage. It was a tragedy for her and “…the only thing that helped me was this great sense of thankfulness about having been happily married for so many years.” Illustrating the way in which gratefulness can be present and helpful, she explained: “…On my left side is thankfulness and on my right side is grief. Whenever grief on my right-side whispers into my ear: ‘You have lost something wonderful,’ gratitude in my left side whispers: ‘You had something wonderful.’ This is of great comfort.”
Another caller was wondering if logotherapy’s applications are too abstract and authoritarian. Dr. Lukas noted that it is one of the basic guiding principles of logotherapy that the therapist can not prescribe or command another person what to do or what should be meaningful to them. “…What we are attempting is to help people connect with their own inner resources, their own inner voice, one can name it one’s conscience or inner compass that orients them toward values and meaning that is inherent in the situation.” People need to discover for themselves best what it is that is a meaningful next step for them. “Therapy is successful when we can bring people into harmony with what they discern to be meaningful with their inner resources and we can help them gain awareness of it.”
The last caller asked if logotherapy can become a religion for a secularised society? Dr. Lukas’s answered this question with an empathetic “No.” “Logotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that is brief and effective. It is open to both religious and non-religious people.” Dr. Batthyany added that “…Frankl very clearly stated that logotherapy is for all people. It helps to intuitively discover meaning though being attuned to the inner voice of our conscience.”
