02-05-2012, 04:27 PM
Meaning and Purpose in Life with the Therapeutic Intervention of Logo Therapy
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Introduction
Latin word ‘movere’ means ‘to move’. This word is often used to refer the inner force of something which is capable of moving it from within. In fact meaning in life is an inner force of human beings to lead a beautiful life even when there are so many problems around. When people fail to understand and find the meaning and purpose of life they will find difficulty to move ahead in life especially in facing the painful realities of life. Logo therapy is an effective intervention in order to enable people to face the most painful conditions of life.
Logo therapy
Dr. Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) of Vienna developed Logo therapy and existential analysis in the 1930s, because of his dissatisfaction with both Freud and Adler. Logo therapy is also known as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy”.
A major difference between logo therapy and psychoanalysis is that both Freud and Adler focus on the past, while “Logo therapy focuses rather on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled in his future” (Frankl, 1984).
Logo therapy is a distinct branch of humanistic/existential school psychotherapy, because of its focus on the human spirit and “the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning (Frankl 1984). Frankl gives unconditional affirmation of life’s meaning. The main objective of logo therapy was to facilitate clients’ quest for meaning and empower them to live meaningfully, responsibly, regardless of their life circumstances. Logo therapy was put to a severe test in a very personal way between 1942 and 1945, when Dr. Frankl was committed to Nazi concentration camps. His experience and observation supported the main thesis of logo therapy: “This was the lesson I had to learn in three years spent I Auschwitz and Dachau: those most apt to survive the camps were those oriented toward the future, toward a meaning to be fulfilled by them in the future” (Frankl, 1985b).
His experience in Nazi camps was recorded in Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl, 1984). His personal triumph over unimaginable trauma has been the most compelling testimony to logo therapy. There are no other psychotherapists whose life and work are as inseparable as Dr. Frank’s. He is Logo therapy, and vice versa.
The defiant power of the human spirit
One of the prepositions of logo therapy is that the human spirit is our healthy core. The human spirit may be blocked by biological or psychological sickness, but it will remain intact. The human spirit does not get sick, even when the psychobiological organism is injured.
Part of the human spirit is the unconscious (Frank, 1969, 1986). When it is blocked or repressed, one experiences existential vacuum or neurosis. Existential analysis seeks to remove the block and brings to consciousness the will to meaning.
According to Fabry (1994), the noetic dimension or the human spirit, is the “medicine chest” (p.18) of logo therapy; it contains love, the will to meaning, purpose, creativity, conscience, the capacity for choice, responsibility, sense of humour, etc.
The meaning of meaning
The Greek word Logos represents the word, the will of God, the controlling principles of the universe, or meaning. Dr. Frankl translates logos as meaning (Fabry, 1994). Therefore, logo therapy means healing and health through meaning. But what is meaning?
Specific vs. ultimate meaning
According to Frankl (1967) there are two levels of meaning: (a) the present meaning, or meaning of the moment, and (b) the ultimate meaning or super-meaning. Dr. Frankl believes that it is more productive to address specific meaning of the moment, of the situation, rather than talking about meaning of life in general, because ultimate meanings exist in the supra-human dimension, which is “hidden” from us. He cautions against addressing ultimate meanings in therapy, unless the client is openly religious (Frankl, 1984).