MAIS 701 Athabasca University

FRANKL’S LOGOTHERAPY

AND ITS

PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS

Submitted by: Isabella A. Smejda

On: October 13, 2004

For: Dr. W. Kisner

© 2004 by I.A.Smejda

In-text citations are in the format: (author, date of publication/date of translation, page of quoted passage); those that do not include an

author’s name are from Frankl’s works.

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Gratefully dedicated to the memory of my mother,

Elisabeth Smejda-Glass (1922-2004),

whose life, rich in meaning,

continues to amaze, delight, and inspire.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1 FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS OF LOGOTHERAPY.....................................................3

THEORY OF THE PERSON ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 FREEDOM OF WILL-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 THE PRIMARY MOTIVATIONAL FORCE: WILL TO MEANING --------------------------------- 7 THE MEANING OF LIFE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9

LOGOTHERAPY’S PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS ..........................................14 THE PHYSICIAN AS METAPHYSICIAN ----------------------------------------------------------- 14 THE MEANING OF MEANING --------------------------------------------------------------------- 19

LOGOTHERAPY IN PRACTICE................................................................................25 CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................27 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................29

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INTRODUCTION

Neurologist, psychiatrist, and doctor of philosophy, Viktor Frankl (1905-1997),

convinced of the importance of self-transcendent purpose in life as a human motivation,

used meaning as a basis upon which to develop a theory and a practice of medical

ministry. These he described in a book that was destroyed when he was sent to the Nazi

concentration camps. During the three years that he was an inmate in those camps, he

observed and engaged in behaviours that confirmed the central importance, indeed, the

survival value, of an individual’s will to meaning.

In 1946, Frankl published a second version of his manuscript: The Doctor and

the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. In it, he describes the basic concepts

and some of the practices of logotherapy, so named because

“logos is a Greek word that denotes ‘meaning1’! Logo-therapy […] focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s2 search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, the striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man” (1959/1972, pp. 153-154).

In that work, Frankl spends considerable effort in distinguishing logotherapy from

Freudian and Adlerian psychotherapy. In 1959, what was to become Frankl’s most

1 In 1938, Frankl named his process method ‘existential analysis’, but when the term was used to describe the work of others, he renamed his method ‘logotherapy.’ In doing so, “Frankl has narrowed the signification of the Greek word considerably. Logos is the nominal form of the verb legein, which simply meant ‘to say.’ Hence logos is connected to speaking and to language, a connection apparently lost in Frankl's definition” (Kisner, 2004a). According to Bigger, logos also means ‘ratio’, thus connecting it to measurement, another connection Frankl did not make. 2 Frankl and other authors quoted in this paper use ‘man’ as an inclusive term for humans of both sexes; when quoting them, this paper preserves their usage.

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famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy3, was

published in English. It is a slim memoir of his experiences in the concentration camps

and how they confirmed logotherapeutic concepts. The experiences described in that

volume are sprinkled throughout his other works, as he uses them to illustrate and

support his theory. A decade later, Frankl published The Will to Meaning: Foundations

and Applications of Logotherapy, in which he clarifies and refines his theory and

provides descriptions and examples of logotherapeutic techniques. “Logotherapy is

based on the following three concepts4: (1) the freedom of will; (2) the will to meaning;

and (3) the meaning of life” (1969/1988, p. vii); underlying those three pillars are

Frankl’s view of the person, the crucial importance of the spiritual dimension, and his

contention that “life has meaning to the last breath” (1946/1986, p. xix).

The list of logotherapy’s three pillars is laden with words that have been the

source of philosophical debate for millennia and thus poses an invitation to explore its

philosophical underpinnings, which is what the second part of this paper will do. First,

however, it will describe logotherapy’s foundational concepts and their

interrelationships, and touch on some of the ways that Frankl contends logotherapy is

different from other theories of human motivation. Its third part will briefly describe

some features of logotherapy in practice.

3 Original 1946 edition published in German: Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrazionslager. Original English title: From Death-Camp to Existentialism. 4 Elsewhere, Frankl describes logotherapy as “trifocal. It describes three fundamental facts of human existence: a will to meaning, a meaning in suffering, and a freedom of will” (1949/1997, p. 123).

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FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS OF LOGOTHERAPY

Theory of the Person

Frankl claims that “every school of psychotherapy has a concept of man,

although this concept is not always held consciously. It is up to us to make it

conscious” (1946/1986, p. xxiv). Given that claim, it seems appropriate to start with

logotherapy’s theory of the person, which holds that “man lives in three dimensions: the

somatic, the mental, and the spiritual” (1946/1986, p. xxi). The somatic dimension

“encompasses the organic action of cells and biological-physiological body functions”

(Lukas, 1998/2000, p. 9). The mental, also called ‘psychological’ or ‘psychic’,

comprises “emotional states, […] moods, sensation of drives, instincts, desires [,…]

intellectual talents, acquired behaviour patterns and social impressions” (Lukas,

1998/2000, p. 9). The spiritual includes “the freedom to take a stance toward one’s […]

states, independent decisions of the will […], material and artistic interests, creative

design, religious and ethical sensitivity […] understanding of values, and love5” (Lukas,

1998/2000, pp. 9-10).

Frankl takes care to point out more than once that the word ‘spirit’ as he uses it

“does not have a religious connotation” (1946/1986, p. xvii), and sometimes substitutes

the Greek word noos6, “meaning mind [… to denote] anything pertaining to the

‘spiritual’ core” (1959/1972, p. 159). The spiritual dimension is one of the “three

5 It is interesting to note that love is seen as situated in the spiritual dimension, not in the mental with other emotional states, nor in the physical. This reflects Frankl’s view of love as an encounter with another’s wholeness and an actualization of an experiential value.

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factors [that] characterize human existence as such” (1946/1986, p. xxiv), and the

human ability to take a stand toward one’s own physical and mental phenomena, toward

oneself, is seen as evidence of the noological dimension. The noos, which Frankl

claims is unique to humankind, is that which enables what “most deeply inspires man

[…] the innate desire to give as much meaning as possible to one’s life […] the will-to-

meaning” (1946/1986, p. xvi), and is the focus of logotherapeutic theory and practice,

although some logotherapeutic techniques may be used for somatogenic or psychogenic

symptoms.

Although Frankl uses terms such as ‘lower’ dimensions, or ‘more encompassing

dimension’ that imply a hierarchy, he denies that his use of such terms implies a

judgement about the value of any one of the dimensions or their relationship to each

other. On the contrary, he stresses that the dimensions of a person are not to be

considered as hierarchical or layered, but as permeating the whole: “just as three-

dimensional space, width, height and depth mutually penetrate each other at every point

[….] one could not maintain that the spatial dimension ‘width’ begins where the spatial

dimension ‘depth’ ends” (Lukas, 1998/2000, p. 9). Frankl names this approach

“dimensional anthropology” (1969/1988, p. 22), and describes two laws of what he

terms “dimensional ontology” (1969/1988, p. 22) applicable to it:

“One and the same phenomenon projected […] into different dimensions lower than its own is depicted in such a way that the individual pictures contradict one another […].

6 Also written ‘nous’ in some translations.

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Different phenomena projected […] into one dimension lower than their own are depicted in such a manner that the pictures are ambiguous” (1969/1988, p. 23).

Frankl illustrates the first law by considering the two dimensional shadows cast

by a three-dimensional cylinder: the shadow cast on the horizontal plane suggests a

circle; the one on the vertical, a rectangle. He illustrates the second by considering the

shadows cast on the horizontal plane by a three-dimensional cylinder, cone, and sphere,

respectively: all three are circles. Even so, Frankl concludes,

“once we have projected man into the biological and psychological dimensions we also obtain contradictory results. For in the one case a biological organism is the result; in the other one, a psychological mechanism. […] Of necessity the unity of man – a unity in spite of the multiplicity of body and mind – cannot be found in the biological or psychological but must be sought in that noological dimension out of which man is projected in the first place” (1969/1988, p. 25).

Dimensional anthropology and ontology underlie the three pillars of logotherapy

because they require the physician to respond to the noos and to approach crises

originating there as valid concerns of human beings, not as illnesses to be treated with

drugs nor as neuroses to be treated with psychoanalysis. This is not to say that there are

no somatogenic or psychogenic illnesses that are properly treated by physical or

psychological therapies, just that there are also noogenic illnesses – particularly what

Frankl called the existential vacuum caused by the frustration of the will to meaning –

that are properly treated “sincerely and earnestly instead of being traced back to

unconscious roots and sources” (1959/1972, pp. 160-161).

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Freedom of Will

Having defined the person as having three dimensions, Frankl goes on to the

first pillar of logotherapy, something that is unique to humans because it derives from

the noos: freedom of will and consequent responsibility. Frankl intertwines them:

because humans are free, they are responsible for the attitudes and moral decisions that

shape their lives. The freedom of will that Frankl stresses is strengthened – perhaps

even constituted – by the “uniquely human capacity of self-detachment”7 (1969/1988,

p. 17), which makes it possible for a human being to choose an attitude toward himself

and his circumstances, thus allowing him to

“shape his own character […] responsible for what he may have made out of himself. What matters is not the features of our character or the drives and instincts per se, but rather the stand we take toward them” (1969/1988, p. 17).

Humans, Frankl contends, are free “in the face of three things: (1) the instincts;

(2) inherited disposition; and (3) environment” (1946/1986, p. xxiv-xxv). Although he

recognizes that humans are not perfectly free, that they are “subject to conditions and

determinants […] be they biological, psychological, or sociological [… however, as a]

survivor of four […] concentration camps […,] I bear witness to the unexpected extent

to which man is, and always remains, capable of resisting and braving even the worst

conditions” (1969/1988, p. 16). Indeed, Frankl is not the only one to bear witness to

such unexpected responses. Although many survivors tell stories of degradation,

7 As previously described, Frankl considers this capacity to be uniquely human and evidence of the noos.

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betrayal, and “the most primitive forms of struggle for survival” (Lifton, as cited in

Frankl, 1946/1986, p. xxv), others bear witness with tales of heroism, altruistic

behaviour, of “social bonding and interchange, […] collective resistance, [and…]

keeping dignity and moral sense active” (Des Pres, 1976, p. vii).

Frankl contrasts the concept of the freedom of will to the “principle that

characterizes most current approaches to man, namely, determinism” (1969/1988, p.

16). As evidence of determinism in a current approach, and of its inability to

adequately explain human reality, Frankl writes:

“Freud once said: ‘Try and subject a number of very strongly differentiated human beings to the same amount of starvation. With the increase in the imperative need for food, all individual differences will be blotted out, and, in their place, we shall see the uniform expression of the one unsatisfied instinct.’ But in the concentration camps we witnessed the contrary; we saw how, faced with the identical situation, one man degenerated while another attained virtual saintliness” (1946/1986, p. xxv).

Human freedom and responsibility are cornerstones of human existence and of

the relationship between logotherapist and patient. Insisting on freedom and

responsibility makes impossible the “cheap escape from guilt feelings” (1946/1986,

p. 7) that is provided to purported “victims of biological, psychological, or sociological

conditioning processes” (1946/1986, p. 7).

The Primary Motivational Force: Will to Meaning

It was Frankl’s observation of and interest in the choices of those in the camps

who achieved the above-mentioned "virtual saintliness," of those who did take

responsibility, that led to logotherapy’s second pillar: the contention that with their

freedom of will, humans choose the will to meaning as their primary motivational force.

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Frankl is careful to point out that the will to meaning “always implies decision-making”

(1969/1988, p. 43) and so cannot accurately be called a drive, which implies an action

over which one has no control. There is a “fundamental difference between being

driven to something on the one hand and striving for something on the other”

(1969/1988, p. 43).

Further, Frankl argues, it is part of a “characteristic constituent of human

existence to break though the barriers of the environment of the species […] Man is

reaching out for, and actually reaching, finally attaining, the world – a world, that is,

which is replete with other beings to encounter, and meanings to fulfill” (1969/1988,

p. 31). It is Frankl’s position that humans are basically drawn to the tension of reaching

out, of striving, rather than to equilibrium, and that human striving is

“profoundly opposed to those motivational theories which are based on the homeostasis principle […] According to them, man is basically concerned with maintaining or restoring an inner equilibrium” (1969/1988, p. 31)

and provides as examples of such theories Freud’s focus on the will to pleasure and

Adler’s on the will to power or status.

Not only are humans not seeking equilibrium, but it is self-defeating to pursue

either pleasure or status because “pleasure is …an effect, more specifically, the side

effect of attaining a goal8” (1969/1988, p. 34) and “a person who displays his status

drive will sooner or later be dismissed as a status seeker” (1969/1988, p. 34). Both

pleasure and status, Frankl contends, “are mere derivatives of man’s primary concern,

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that is, his will to meaning… the basic striving of man to find and fulfill meaning and

purpose… Only if one’s original concern with meaning fulfillment is frustrated is one

either content with power or intent on pleasure” (1969/1988, p. 35). This distinction

between meaningfulness and purposefulness is important to Frankl’s theory, and will be

explored in greater detail in the next part of this paper.

Self-actualization, according to Frankl, is also a by-product of meaning

fulfillment, an “unintentional effect of life’s intentionality” (1969/1988, p. 38) toward

the meaning found in striving for “self-transcendence [which] is the very essence of

existence” (1969/1988, p. 50). Self-transcendence, like self-detachment, is another

uniquely human ability. Frankl believes that any theory of human motivation that does

not put the uniquely human abilities at its core risks diminishing human beings, and,

because it does not consider the full dimensionality of the person, is bound to

misdiagnose symptoms.

The Meaning of Life

Logotherapy’s third pillar is the contention that the meaning of human life is

achieved through the self-transcending actualization of values that are discovered rather

than self-created. According to Frankl, only if values are discovered rather than self-

created can they be self-transcending. These values are not “mere projections…

designed and invented by man” (1969/1988, p.60), but arise out of the uniquely human

dimension of the noos and the characteristics and capabilities related to it: freedom of

8 Frankl credits Kant with pointing out “pleasure is not the goal of our aspirations, but the consequence of attaining them” (1946/1986, p. 35).

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choice (attitudinal and moral), self-transcendence, and self-detachment. Not only do the

values exist in themselves, but there are some universals:

“there are meanings which are shared by human beings across society and, even more, throughout history […] [These] refer to the human condition [… and] are what is understood by values. So that one may define values as those meaning universals which crystallize in the typical situations a society or even humanity has to face.” (1969/1988, p. 56).

However, the actualization of the universal values is “related to a specific person

who is entangled in a specific situation” (1969/ 1988, p. 54). It is the task of every

person to discover how to do that, how to respond meaningfully to the unique

challenges encountered. However, the true extent of the values themselves may never

be discovered:

“Objective values become concrete duties, are cast in the form of the demands of each day and in personal tasks. The values lying back of these tasks can apparently be reached for only through the tasks. It is quite possible that the whole, of which all concrete obligations are a part, never becomes visible to the individual person” (1946/1986, p. 42).

There are three universal value categories identified by Frankl: creative,

experiential, and attitudinal, and “in life the opportunities to address oneself to this or

that group of values vary from hour to hour. …. At one time we are called upon, as it

were, to enrich the world by our actions, another time to enrich ourselves by our

experiences” (1946/1986, p. 45), and sometimes, in extremity, to realize the

“achievement of suffering” (1946/1986, p. 113).

“Creative values are actualized in the form of accomplishments that bear on

community” (1946/1986, p. 132); the act of actualizing them may be simply described

as giving. “As long as creative values are in the forefront of the life task, their

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actualization generally coincides with a person’s work. Work usually represents the

area in which the individual’s uniqueness stands in relation to society and thus acquires

meaning and value. The meaning and value, however, is attached to the person’s work

as a contribution to society, not to the actual occupation as such” (1946/1986, p. 118).

That is to say that even the most humble work often offers the opportunity to make a

meaningful contribution to society, as described here:

“When I was a graduate student, I worked as a drugstore postal clerk in a poor neighbourhood. […] I did not care for the job or the customers. I could not see the meaning in licking stamps, weighing packages and writing money orders. […] A woman well into her 80s asked me for a money order. I distractedly asked her how she was doing. She answered by telling me about her daughter who was dying of cancer in a nearby hospital. […] After an exchange of short and tender words, […] putting her small, feeble hand on my forearm, she said: ‘Thank you, son, for being so kind. You do know, don’t you, you made my day’” (Izzo, 2004, C1).

This young man had not previously seen the meaning potentials of his job. Every

interaction with every customer had offered him an opportunity, or, in Franklian terms,

life was calling to him, and it was only with this last experience that he heard the call

and began to respond. Does this mean that exploited workers must whole-heartedly and

cheerfully throw themselves into their miserably paid work and consider themselves to

be actualizing creative values? Such an interpretation does not appear warranted. The

concept here is only that the mere fact that work is not highly valued in the marketplace

does not necessarily mean that the work does not offer opportunities for meaningful

engagement, nor that the worker is precluded from realizing creative values. People

engaged in paid work which gives them no opportunity for meaningful engagement can

find a way to actualize creative values in other types of endeavour: in hobbies, in

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volunteering, in the work put in to the family home. All of these will allow a person

whose daily work is repetitive, dull, or oppressive9 to define a unique place in the world

of creative values. Thus, the actualization of creative values would appear to be both a

personal and a social good but defined more by its social than its personal value. This is

entirely consistent with Frankl’s concept of the importance of community to the

individual: “the meaning of individuality comes to fulfillment in the community… the

meaning of the community is constituted by individuality” (1946/1986, p. 71), just as

object and ground require each other to be fully defined. The meaning of individuality

can come to fulfillment even in the face of a community that is hostile or evil: in the

concentration camps, for example, individual deeds of valour and mercy were sharply

defined by contrast to what surrounded them.

Experiential values are “realized in experience… for example, in surrender to

the beauty of nature or art” (1946/1986, p. 43); the simple description for the

actualization of these values is the act of receiving. How these values are actualized

within the individual may be culturally influenced, but do not bear on the community

without a further creative act. So, for example, the rapturous contemplation of a sunset

may well be affected by the prevalence of poetry about sunsets, but the experience of

being awed is internal and can only be shared with others by a further act of

communication. There are also “experiential values which by their very nature are

9 Even slaves may find ways to actualize creative values, just as Epictetus and Spartacus did. Another approach to dull and oppressive work is to see it as a meaningful sacrifice one performs for the sake of the well-being of one’s family or as a trial to be endured. These appear to change the value one is actualizing from the creative to the attitudinal.

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reserved to community experience. These may rest upon a broader basis (comradeship,

solidarity, etc.)” (1946/1986, p. 92). In Frankl’s system, love is such a one:

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. […] By the spiritual act of love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and, even more, he sees that which is potential in him, that which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. […] Love is not understood as a mere side effect of sex but sex as a way of expressing the experience of ultimate togetherness that is called love” (1959/1972, pp. 176-177).

Frankl describes the actualization of attitudinal values as being seen at those

times when humans respond in a meaningful way to one of the elements of the “tragic

triad: […] pain, guilt, and death” (1969/1988, p. 73). But, warns Frankl,

“speaking of the ‘tragic’ triad should not mislead the reader to assume that logotherapy is as pessimistic as existentialism is said to be. Rather logotherapy is an optimistic approach to life, for it teaches that there are no tragic and negative aspects which could not be by the stand one takes to them transmuted into positive accomplishments” (1969/1988, p. 73).

In responding to pain, individuals may realize “the achievement of suffering”

(1946/1986, p. 113), they can “remain […] brave and cheerful” (1946/1986, p. 113). It

is important to note that Frankl is not describing suffering that can be avoided: it must

be absolutely necessary, otherwise it is “masochism rather than heroism” (1959/1972,

p. 180). In responding to guilt, individuals may take a stand toward themselves and

shoulder “the responsibility to overcome guilt” (1969/1988, p. 73) by “shaping and

reshaping” (1969/1988, p. 73) themselves. In responding to death and the transitory

nature of life, individuals are encouraged to remember the “full granaries of the past”

(1969/1988, p. 74), their deeds done, experiences had, and attitudes taken. These are all

realized values, meanings that have been fulfilled in the past cannot be undone; they

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exist forever, are “irrevocably preserved and saved, safely delivered and deposited”

(1969/1988, p. 74) and continue to exist, even if no one remembers them: an

achievement does not disappear simply because there is no audience; it exists in and of

itself. Attitudinal values are an individual good but, by serving to set an example to

others, by inspiring, elevating, and ennobling the human condition, even in extremity,

they are also for the community.

LOGOTHERAPY’S PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS

Frankl intertwines many different strands of western religious and philosophical

traditions to underpin logotherapy. In his description of the three dimensions of the

person, he draws on the familiar Christian tripartite division of body, mind, and soul,

though his definitions of what comprises each are particular to him, as is his concept of

dimensionality rather than hierarchy.

The Physician as Metaphysician

In arguing for freedom of the will, Frankl engages with a “basic metaphysical

problem” (Hollingdale, 1979, p. 48) with which philosophy continues to wrestle: do

humans have free will? Ballard argues that the very concept of human must include

some position on freedom and determinism:

“a concept of man or humanity, then, contains among its constituents one of the many possible compromises between the extremes of total or unrestricted freedom and a thorough, natural determinism. The more closely the human being is assimilated to the natural or animal, the less his human or rational power appears to influence his behaviour, and the less his will is thought to be free” (Ballard, 1983, p. 162).

The answer to the question of free will is considered to have major implications: for

“autonomy and dignity” (O’Connor, 2002); for ethics; and for “desert for one’s

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accomplishments” (O’Connor, 2002). These last two because without free will a person

can be held neither morally responsible nor deserving of praise or blame for

achievements and failures; a human life would reflect merely received gifts or chance.

The two extremes of freedom and determinism – and the full range between

them – have been argued by philosophers, although both

“have so far encountered grave difficulties and objections. The determinist soon finds his determinism an insuperable handicap in dealing with any of the issues which seem to him of importance in human affairs. […] The advocate of free will […] has against himself the impressive accumulation of evidence in favour of at least some degree of determinism” (Hollingdale, 1979, p. 49).

One of the issues that determinists must face is the seeming logical inconsistency of

presenting and arguing their position if its acceptance or rejection will be determined by

prior events rather than by the strength of their arguments.

Psychiatry as a deterministic theory has had recent philosophical support.

Hospers, for example,

“advances impressive empirical evidence, drawn from typical cases of the kind long familiar to psychiatry, to show that our very desires, volitions, and even deliberations are the product of unconscious forces, compromises, and defenses which are not only not within our control but whose very existence is usually unsuspected by those – all of us – who are their victims; that they were for the most part implanted in us in our earliest years, to which our memory does not even extend; and that our after-the-fact explanations or reasons […] are mostly illusions and wishful thinking [… He] claim[s] that virtually all significant behaviour is of the same order as kleptomania and other familiar compulsions” (Taylor, 1967, p. 368-369).

Since Hospers, the authority of psychiatry and its explanations of behaviour have been

questioned on many grounds, and confidence in them has also been eroded by the work

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of behaviourists and findings that link illnesses of the mind to physical events rather

than psychological ones10.

Behaviourism claims that “the sources of behaviour are external (in the

environment), not internal (in the mind)” (Graham, 2002). It relies upon the concept of

behaviour as a learned conditioned response; its methods are particularly successful in

teaching rats and pigeons simple behaviours and in helping human patients modify

specific unwanted behaviours such as bedwetting or drug use. Skinner (1904-1990),

one of its primary proponents, claims that humans can never be entirely free and that

“control is always there, positive or aversive, direct or subtle. […] We are […] beyond

freedom, when freedom is taken to mean beyond control. It is self-defeating for man to

mistake the struggle for freedom from aversive control for the struggle of freedom from

control altogether” (Sagal, 1981, p. 63). Moreover, Skinner claims, once humans accept

this, they will understand that they are also beyond dignity and credit, and will accept

non-aversive controls (designed by behavioural scientists) that will ensure that all

members of society behave with “automatic goodness” (Sagal, 1981, p. 72). What is

required to achieve societal harmony, in Skinner’s view, is simply proper conditioning.

Behaviourism’s view of the exclusive importance of environment is challenged

by physicalists, who consider human feelings, thoughts, and actions to be determined by

the genetic code, chemical reactions, and electric impulses: the body, including the

brain. Taken together, they argue, these form an inescapable human nature that shapes

10 For example, a recent finding links significantly elevated rates of schizophrenia to maternal influenza during pregnancy (Tanner, 2004).

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human responses to conform to instinctive drives, notably those of survival and

procreation. Dawkins holds that those instinctive drives are at the level of the ‘selfish’

gene rather than of the person, and that human behaviour is the expression of the genes’

drive to replicate. However, even sociobiologists concede that the overlay of culture

makes it difficult, if not impossible, to discern the physical bases of behaviour:

“students of biology are generally agreed that a human ‘biogram’ exists. But one aspect of man’s biological make-up – the capacity to modify perceptions and behaviour through culture – makes the rest of the biogram difficult to identify” (Des Pres, 1976, p. 196).

Indeed, that intertwined reality is an issue for all of these determinisms. All

three claim to be scientifically based, but none of them can fulfill one of the basic

criteria for scientific proofs: there is no human being without both environment and

biological being, so there can be no control group to test their hypotheses. The theories

can neither prove their foundational position nor conceive of an experiment, even if all

ethical constraints were removed, that could. Because of that, falsificationism, a theory

of science developed by Popper (1902-1994), would consider them to be hypotheses

that are irrelevant to science. That, in itself, does not mean they are wrong, but simply

that their basic premises must be accepted on the basis of compelling logic or faith. To

date, none of them has made a compelling logical argument for ignoring the others, nor

for ignoring the noological dimension.

Frankl cautions against “the pretense of totality […] What we have to deplore, I

would say, is not that scientists are specializing but that specialists are generalizing”

(1969/1988, pp. 20-21) and the consequent reductionism which leads to a view of

humans as much more restricted in their freedom of will than they actually are. What is

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missing with each of these determinisms, Frankl argues, is due regard for the

dimensionality of humans, including the noos. Logotherapy, by contrast, acknowledges

many disciplines and many dimensions:

“Sound findings of research in the lower dimensions, however they may neglect the humanness of man, need not contradict it. This is equally true of approaches as distinct as Watsonian behaviourism, Pavlovian reflexology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Adlerian psychology. They are not nullified by logotherapy but rather overarched […] and rehumanized by it (1969/1988, p. 26)

Frankl stresses that it is in its view of the dimensionality of the person and its

acceptance of the noological dimension that logotherapy distinguishes itself from the

positions of those who “speak […] of the ‘nothing-but-ness’ of man” (1969/1988,

p. 21).

Frankl’s perspective on freedom of will is that it is intrinsic to the noos and is

supported by the human capacity for self-reflection. In this, he presaged Frankfurt’s

argument that “the central difference between human and merely animal activity is our

capacity to reflect on our desires and beliefs and form desires and judgements

concerning them. […] key to understanding both free action and free will” (O’Connor,

2002). Frankl’s view of free will appears to be influenced by Kant, who suggests that

we consider the person to be free and accountable despite “defective education, bad

company, […or a] natural disposition insensitive to shame” (Smith, 1958, p. 477). We

do this, Kant claims, “based on a law of reason whereby we regard reason as a cause

that irrespective of all the above-mentioned empirical conditions could have determined

[…] the agent to act otherwise” (Smith, 1958, p. 477). Frankl, too, does not claim that

the person is free of all constraints; consistent with the position of logotherapy as

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willing to consider the evidence of other theories and disciplines, and, presumably, with

his own experience as a prisoner, he accepts that people are subject to many constraints,

both inherited and environmental. Nonetheless, he claims, there is always some small

area of freedom, minimally, the freedom to choose how to respond, what attitude to

take, what moral position to hold.

However, Frankl’s free will is not based only in reason, but is intrinsic to the

noos, the uniquely human dimension. In this, his position is similar to Ballard’s, who

argues that "natural freedom is the determining gift to the species […] liberation from

the instincts which care for and guide other animals at every critical turn […] this

freedom […] is nothing less than the human possibility itself" (Ballard, 1983, p. 191),

and is “essential to anyone’s envisaging himself as the protagonist of his own drama […

of] becoming oneself through decision, struggle, and insight” (Ballard, 1983, p. 192).

The free will that Frankl describes is an ongoing one, a characteristic that seems

to draw on existentialism, which holds “the doctrine that in the case of man existence

precedes essence. […Man is] not merely free to create his own nature but actually

compelled to do so” (Hollingdale, 1979, pp. 158-159) and claims that the person,

responsible solely to the self, is fearful of the responsibility inherent in freedom. Frankl

echoes this position, but in his view the responsibility is not to oneself only, but to the

meaning of life.

The Meaning of Meaning

In common with the German phenomenologist Reiner, Frankl sees the question

of the meaning of life on two levels: of human life in general – “a significance or

meaning which ‘attaches to life as such’ and […] cannot be destroyed by any accident

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of fate” (Edwards, 1967); and, of an individual’s life – a question “which arises only for

a person who is already in existence” (Edwards, 1967). Reiner goes on to say that “our

search for the meaning of [… human life in general] is identical with the search for a

logically compelling reason why it is better for us to exist than not to exist” (as cited in

Edwards, 1967). Reiner believed that he had a logically compelling reason in this

argument: humans are moral beings; “since that which is morally good contains its

meaning and value within itself, it follows that it is intrinsically worth while” (as cited

in Edwards, 1967); what is morally good cannot exist unless there are free moral agents;

thus, the existence of humans, being free moral agents, is better than their nonexistence.

Frankl does not make this argument, but relies on faith in the concept of ‘super-

meaning’ to signify something that is beyond definition and description, but required by

humans:

“the meaning of the whole [universe…] goes beyond the comprehensible. […] our minds require its existence at the same time that it is to our minds unfathomable” (1946/1986, p. 31).

Once humans believe in a universe that has meaning, in super-meaning, then the

existence of humankind in that universe must be seen as inherently meaningful: “to

such a faith there is, ultimately, nothing that is meaningless” (1946/1986, p. 33). It is

from such a faith that Frankl derives the firm belief “that the content of […] [each

human] life is somewhere preserved and saved. […] the transitoriness of the years,

cannot affect its meaning and value” (1946/1986, p. 33). As Frankl points out,

religious people believe in a super-meaning and the consequent meaningfulness of

human existence through their faith; secularists are often less certain.

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A recently-described conceptualization that could be used to support Frankl’s

view of the intrinsic meaningfulness of human life is that of the middle voice, an Indo-

European grammatical form that views something as simultaneously created and

discovered and simultaneously being and becoming11: “the middle voice is the voice of

processes that happen to a subject which are neither willingly or unwillingly entered

into, in which one participates in full awareness, and in which the future can be forced

by seizing affective and/or rational alternatives” (Bigger, n.d., pp. 6-7). Using the

perspective of the middle voice, it is possible to view ethical systems, virtues, arts, and

concepts as being both created and discovered in our responses to them. For example,

“the medial (middle voice) character of justice shows itself insofar as it is constituted in

and through the human response to its call. Alternatively, its ‘call’ to responsibility is

only heard in the response. Justice is not something that is first ‘there’ and then humans

respond to it. Nor is it merely fabricated by humans. Both response and call arise

together in their mutuality” (Kisner, 2004b). The specific content of the virtue, art, or

concept is influenced by culture, but there is a transcendence that is both being and

becoming that is acknowledged in the response. How the virtue, art, or concept is

actualized in the world is adjusted, altered, and amended by an evolutionary process.

11 “We here open up what is perhaps the ultimate question considered by philosophy: the question of the nature of being. ‘Being’ may be defined as ‘that which is’ – not a very satisfactory or enlightening definition, but is seems that we can say no more about ‘being’ than that is it” (Hollingdale, 1979, p. 50). “Permanent existence – ‘being’ and constant change – ‘becoming’ both seem to characterise the world as we know it, yet both cannot be fundamental. If being is fundamental, then becoming is illusory, if becoming is fundamental then being is illusory” (Hollingdale, p. 72). The middle voice considers them to be simultaneous.

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(So, for example, how 'justice' was meted out in the Middle Ages was different from

today.)

In this case, the process that lends itself to the middle voice is the

conceptualization of human life as meaningful: humans perceive their lives to be

distinct from the lives of (most) other lifeforms; they perceive human lives to have

meaning potential; they respond to their own lives and actions and the lives and actions

of other humans as though they have meaning. Taken all in all, humans conceptualize

human life as a vessel for meaning. Because of that conceptualization and the way in

which humans respond to it, human life is and becomes a vessel for meaning. Each

human chooses to fill the vessel, either with trash or with treasure or, most likely, a

combination of the two. Exactly what is chosen will have a great deal to do with one’s

time in history, one’s culture, and, of course, one’s own moral and attitudinal choices.

A metaphor provided by Bigger is that of a play: a script exists, but the performance of

the script is a process of discovery/ creation that will be particular to time, place, and

participants. Similarly, Frankl repeatedly stresses that the meaning universals (the

script, in Ballard’s metaphor) are actualized by the individual’s responses (the

improvisation) to the challenges of his/her own life.

In responding to the question of the meaning of life at the level of the individual,

Frankl appears to draw on Reiner’s concept of the meaningfulness of human existence

as intrinsic to moral agency, and uses the word ‘meaning’ to signify right purpose, not

just purpose of any kind. Frankl is explicit in stating that a life focused on the

acquisition of power or money or on experiencing physical pleasure or in pursuing joy

for its own sake is not actualizing meaning (right purpose), nor are lives focused on

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conformism or totalitarianism. People pursuing these goals may think they have

fulfilled their will to meaning, and they may even act purposefully and self-

transcendentally (as, for example, fighting for the cause of totalitarianism), but they are

not actually fulfilling the meaning (right purpose) of their lives. Only those actions and

attitudes that respect the entire person and the persons with whom the subject interacts

are actually meaningful (right purpose). This judgement is clear in all of Frankl’s

works, though the authority upon which it rests is less clear.

Right purpose, in Frankl’s view, requires that the person choose to actualize

his/her humanity by giving to, receiving from, and dedicating him/herself to what exists

outside of the self, and to do so with due regard for others. It insists that a person be not

merely self-referential, but a moral interactor with the world (including other

interactors). The interactions, connections, and attempts to connect are ripe with

meaning potentials that can be actualized through creative acts, experiences, and

attitudes that demonstrate a commitment to the human dimension (one’s own and

others’), and its attitudinal and moral freedom and consequent responsibility.

The middle voice concept could also be applied to determining the content of

right purposes. Frankl argues that the meaning universals he identifies are not only part

of the Western European tradition, but of the human tradition. There is no person

without a society. All societies known to us today (either directly or through their

literature or artifacts) have asked their members to act as moral agents, to give to the

community, to engage in love relationships, to be receptive and responsive to the

world, and to address the tragic triad of guilt, suffering, and death. Thus, the meaning

universals are known to all humans, are asked of all humans: they arise from human life

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as such and over millennia humans have evolved an understanding of what sorts of

actualization are right purposes and what sorts are not. The middle voice of humanity

has discovered/ created a being/becoming ethical system which defines right purposes;

the performance of those right purposes in any one life will be an improvisation on the

script, which in turn only exists in and through such improvisation. “Thus the middle

voice allows us to conceive of meaning creation and meaning universals without

metaphysically positing an origin in predetermined active agents or subjects on the one

hand nor in some transcendental or divine source on the other” (Kisner, 2004a).

Frankl does not mention the middle voice, but rather insists that the values (in

the sense of right purposes) are discovered. He relies on what he identifies as a

phenomenological argument:

“the transcendent quality of the object in the intentional act is always already present in its content. If I see a lit lamp, the fact that it is there is already given along with my perception of it, even if I close my eyes or turn my back to it. In the perception of an object as something real is already contained the implication that I recognize its reality independently of its perception by myself or anyone else. The same is true of objects of value perception. As soon as I have comprehended a value, I have comprehended implicitly that this value exists in itself, independently therefore of whether or not I accept it” (1946/1986, pp. 40-41).

Possibly sensing that merely comprehending a value is not enough to ensure that it is

also a right purpose, Frankl makes liberal use of descriptions of his experiences as

prisoner and doctor to illustrate the actualization of meaning (right purpose) universals.

These are immediately recognizable to most readers as ethical and even altruistic

actions: they tell of sacrifice, of doing one’s duty, of respecting, considering, and

comforting others, of using one’s talents as fully as possible, of being alert to the call of

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life and responding wholeheartedly to its meaning potentials. Frankl’s stories are not

about doing what the society at the moment deems to be meaningful, but about

participating in the meaning of humanity: ethical self-transcendence and the exercise of

freedom of the will in the face of the tragic triad.

Frankl’s use of the word ‘meaning’ to denote right purpose can cause some

confusion to those examining his logotherapeutic system. In reading Frankl, it is

important to remember that neither purposefulness nor significance is the same as

meaningfulness. A purposeful person may be striving toward meaninglessness; a

significant person may have led a meaningless life if the significance has been based on

power, pleasure, or a will to evil.

LOGOTHERAPY IN PRACTICE

Because Frankl recognizes that illness may spring from any of the dimensions,

he does not claim that logotherapy should be the only therapy in use: “It is, of course,

not the aim of logotherapy to take the place of existing psychotherapy, but only to

complement it, thus forming a picture of man in his wholeness – which includes the

spiritual dimension” (1946/1986, p. xvii). In practice, Frankl sees logotherapy as

focused on “making men conscious of their responsibility – since being responsible is

one of the essential grounds of human existence” (1946/1986, p. 25), and says its aim is

“medical ministry” (1946/1986, p. 270). The emphasis on responsibility underscores

Frankl’s belief that a person who feels responsible will choose right purpose and will

not slip into an existential vacuum. Frankl cites research results to support his

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contention that the existential vacuum12 “is a phenomenon that is both increasing and

spreading” (1969/1988, p. 83); he attributes this to the convergence of three things: “no

drives and instincts tell man what he must do [and…], in contrast to former times, no

conventions, traditions, and values tell him what he should do; and often he does not

even know what he basically wishes to do” (1969/1988, p. 83). Without that

knowledge, people may choose to live as conformists (doing what other people do) or

submit to totalitarianism (doing what others tell them to do), or suffer from “the main

manifestations of existential frustration - boredom and apathy” (1969/1988, p. 85). The

role of the logotherapist is to assist the patient in defining the available choices and

exposing the consequences of each insofar as possible. It is not to make decisions for

the patient or to diminish the patient’s responsibility to choose. In fact, the

logotherapist must “guard against imposing his own outlook upon the […] patient”

(1946/1986, p. 275), and

“remain […] noncommittal on the question of ‘to what’ a person should feel responsible – whether to his God or his conscience or his society or whatever higher power. And [… logotherapy] equally forbears to say what a person should feel responsible for – for the realization of which values, for the fulfillment of which personal tasks, for which particular meaning to life” (1946/1986, p. 275).

Left unexplained is how a logotherapist would respond to those willing to take

responsibility for evil acts, an omission that may reflect what appears to be Frankl’s

12 Existential vacuum is a noogenic illness encountered when the will to meaning is frustrated. Its main manifestations are boredom and apathy. It is to be noted, however, that having a purpose that appears to fill existence is not the same thing as actualizing right purposes, or meaning.

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belief: that human beings who actively choose to be responsible will also choose to

actualize meaning (right purpose).

Frankl’s warning that the logotherapist should be noncommittal is at distinct

odds with his contention that “the moment the doctor commits himself to such a

‘psychotherapy in spiritual terms’ his own philosophy necessarily comes to the fore

[…]” (1946/1986, p. 11). This is most distinctly evident when fulfilling the function of

medical ministry, particularly to patients who are in existential despair and are

considering suicide. In such a situation, a logotherapist is not noncommittal: “it would

be dangerous, if not fatal, […] to leave the decision entirely to the patient. No doctor is

going to abandon a person in great despair […] for example, in a case of potential

suicide” (1946/1986, p. 279. In such a case, the logotherapist’s authority should be

exercised in favour of life; suicide is not a meaningful option. Existential crises

precipitated by various blows of fate – such as the death of a loved one, loss of work, or

illness – are also met with the full authority of the logotherapist’s belief in the intrinsic

meaningfulness of human life and the potential of suffering and trial to allow the person

opportunity to actualize meaning. It is in exercising this function that logotherapy may

be seen as a surrogate for religion, though Frankl insists it is not.

CONCLUSION

Frankl was first and foremost a physician. His goal was to help patients

overcome their existential crises, to offer them comfort when they were faced with

unavoidable suffering or death, to treat them with dignity and respect, and to reassure

them that “there is no need to feel ashamed of existential despair because […] it is not a

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neurotic symptom but a human achievement and accomplishment. Above all, it is a

manifestation of intellectual sincerity and honesty” (1969/1988. p. 91). To support the

motivational theory at the heart of logotherapy, Frankl freely relied on various

philosophical and religious arguments and on a myriad of empirical evidence, including

that derived from his cases and his experiences as concentration camp inmate.

Beginning with the uniquely human noos, Frankl identified the freedom of will, the

chosen will to meaning, and the meaning of life as the three pillars upon which to rest

his theory and practice of medical ministry.

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