PSYCHOTHERAPY and EXISTENTIALISM
(Selected papers on Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl)
A survivor of the Nazi death camps, Frankl saw that in
the case of survivors there was a relatively stronger innate will to live, in
order to complete their life work, as it were - that there was a sense of
meaning in their lives which allowed them to transcend their trials which
others, having no such driving sense of unfulfilled meaning, through apathy
gave up the struggle. He called his
philosophy LOGOTHERAPY, the LOGO based on the Greek 'Logos' interpreted as 'meaning'
and also 'spirit' - thus the therapy of establishing the will for meaning
for one's existence at the deepest, or spiritual, level. In effect it is an extension of the
therapies of Freud (will to pleasure), Adler (will to power) and Jung
(archetypal forces) all of which employ extensive deep psychoanalysis to arrive
at reasons for the client's state of being (based on past events) i.e. the
"what is?" without the result being contexted as to meaning
within the patient's own reason for living.
It is estimated that 60/70% of today's psychological
problems relate directly to existential grounds, wherein the patient has 'lost'
his unique, personal goal in life, or is deeply confused as to how to organize
his life so as to acknowledge the goal and move towards it. The chief dynamic of this emptiness of
purpose in life is called "existential frustration", and is created
by a vacuum of perceived meaning in personal existence, often manifested as
boredom. According to Frankl, the
essence of human motivation is the "will to meaning"; when meaning is
not found, the individual becomes existentially frustrated.
Philosophically, logotherapy is based on three
fundamental assumptions which form a chain of interconnected links:
2.
Will to meaning
3.
Meaning of life,
Frankl's approach (and that of his 'school') is to
focus the patient's attention and eventual confidence on his own self-curative
powers, rather than developing a dependency on the 'external' curative powers
(authority) of the doctor. One of
Frankl's techniques in dealing with anxiety, neurosis, phobias and
obsessive-compulsive conditions is a technique called Paradoxical Intention,
wherein the patient is taught to understand the symptom, and, in effect,
ridicule it rather than fear it, to the point that the power of fear is frustrated,
fear loses its power to manifest itself through involuntary actions (sweating,
insomnia, stuttering, allergies and the host of phobias e.g. agoraphobia) - and
through the patient ridiculing the symptom for its inability to appear on
demand, the patient establishes the authority of his own will as opposed to
that of the involuntary symptom which eventually 'extinguishes'.
If there is a reversal (i.e. the patient 'jumps back
into the old groove'), the logotherapist has taught the patient reinforcement techniques,
e.g. not to fight the symptom, thereby making it stronger, but to ridicule it
i.e. daring it to manifest (if I sweat a litre on meeting Mr. X, make me sweat
10 litres when I have to meet Mr. Y) and thereby establish who is in control
(i.e. the conscious will, or the unconscious involuntary system). By the patient learning how to assert his
own self-curing will, as opposed to the involuntary fear ruling his life,
either through phobias (where the patient avoids the fearful situation), or
through obsessive-compulsive reaction, where the patient devotes all his
attention on fighting the fear (e.g. wash hands 300 times per day); long term
cure of specific symptoms was approximately 90%, with the lessons behind
'paradoxical intention' available beneficially elsewhere in the patient's
life. Paradoxical Intention technique
is a practical manifestation of the overall aim of logotherapy to establish the
"will to meaning within one's life".
A patient summarizes what, to him, was instrumental in his recovery as follows: "If I had to sum up what got me well, I would say
1.
the confidence that this
therapy works after you have presented some case histories to me and after I
talked to one of your patients whom you cured having been worse than me;
2.
your teaching me to
apply Paradoxical Intention in the various situations;
3.
accepting my neurosis (I
am a nervous type) instead of fighting it;
4.
my change in attitude
toward my symptoms. This way I could
take them out of my body and set them aside and laugh at them. Humour has helped me a great deal;
5.
your changing my wife's
attitude." [Frankl asked her to
join him in encouraging her husband to practice Paradoxical Intention and she
took a humorous attitude toward his symptoms, instead of anxiously watching him
to see if he became worse.]
6.
"You made me do
things and you let me talk about my symptoms.
My previous psychiatrists would get angry when I talked about them. They always wanted me to talk about the
past;
7.
the things I was so
worried about and ashamed of, what I had thought was so awful, you broke them
down to natural things;
8.
I never left your office
confused after a session because you did not "interpret" my symptoms
and give me new things to worry about.
I left many sessions happy and relieved.
9.
I developed
dependability on myself with Paradoxical Intention. I cured myself and I learned to use Paradoxical Intention any
time I need it. I carry it always with
me. I developed no dependency on you as
I did on other doctors. If you called
me to change an appointment, I would not 'die';
10. “My willingness to be sick and dedicate my suffering
to God relieved me tremendously."
(Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live (or suffer) for can
bear with almost any how.")
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