Logotherapy in a nutshell

• + - VF Insight
  • not pleasure (Freud)
  • not power (Adler)
  • but meaning is the driver of a fulfilled life
  • confirmed by experience in concentration camp
• + - Will to Meaning
  • choose to have reason for living
  • can be fulfilled by man alone
  • a different (self trascendent) view of man beyond will to pleasure (Freud) and will to power (Adler)
• + - Existential Frustration
  • will to meaning can be frustrated and results in neuroses
  • neuroses can develop in degraded functional ability, substance abuse, depression, suicide, etc
• + - Noogenic Neuroses
  • not psychological but existential in nature
  • not about a sense of self or conflicts
  • missing a sense of purpose
• + - Noo Dynamics
  • homeostasys leads to boredom
  • man needs tension between the current and the possible
  • circunstance that demands action to go from present state to a better future
• + - Existential Vacuum
  • when meaning is lost
  • + - boredom
    • reported in the 1970's by 25% of French 60% of American youth, possibly higher today
  • + - addictions
    • money
    • power
    • sex
    • drugs
• + - The meaning of life
  • Not focused on the general meaning one's entire life (philosophy)
  • + - to be discoverd in individual circumstances
    • how we deal with adversity
    • how we deal with success
    • how we deal with others
    • best said in the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling (written to a son, but equally applicable to a daughter)
  • find your mission
• + - The Essence of Existence
  • the search for meaning/purpose
  • doing a deed
  • experiencing the good and the bad
  • encountering someone
  • by the attitude we take to unavoidable suffering
• + - The Meaning of Love
  • finding meaning thru experiencing goodness created or recognized
  • embracing human uniqueness thru love
• + - The meaning of suffering
  • if you can find a meaning for it, it stops being suffering
  • avoid the burden of being ashamed of being unhappy
• + - Meta-clinical problems
  • The psychiatrist is now confronted with human problems in the past addressed by society and religion
  • Distress from lack of moorings becomes perceived as neurosis
  • Noogenic neurosis
• + - Logodrama
  • 2 women imgining looking back on life at the end
  • A life of struggle can be happy if one can see a meaning in it
  • man's world is the only one where suffering may find meaning, not for apes
• + - The Super- Meaning
  • Endurance is not the objective
  • Ability to willfully accept what cannot be changed
  • use of religion to find positive is risky as patient may turn the tables on the argument
  • Unemployment is similar to prison camp because of the epen ended nature / undefinable duration of the condition therefore particularly difficult to find meaning in it
• + - Life transitoriness
  • Life may be transitory, but so are possibilities. Realizing them makes them permanent. We may be gone, but our deeds' consequences will remain permanently forever
  • good deeds are monuments to our existance
  • the pessimist looks at the shortening future
  • the optimist looks back on what was achieved. Live well to feel that you achieved well
• + - Logotherapy as a technique
  • Fear of death cannot be done away by Psychdynamic interpretation
  • Neurotic state like Agoraphobia can be done away by explanation
  • hyper-intention hinders performance
  • fixation on pleasure kills it
  • Hyper reflection = Eccessive self attention may lead to neurosis
  • orgasm as unintended result of unreflected surrender - or lack of it for lack thereof
  • + - paradoxical intention
    • fear brings about what one is afraid of
    • hyper-intention blocks what one wishes
    • both result of inner excessive concern
    • therapy relies on ability for self-detachment : the one that can laugh at himself can conquer his neurosis
    • writer's cramp and stutter, sleeplessness were fixed by trying to make the problem worse
    • fight anticipatory anxiety
    • hyper-reflection has to be conterd by dereflection which needs a life mission to occur and permit self-trascendence
• + - Collective neurosis
  • every age seems to have its own
  • existential vacuum is this age's neurosis born of nihilism
  • nothing-but-ness = nihilism => feeling of being victim of outside forces
  • not absolute freedom, but freedom to take a stand against circumstances and make the best of it
  • + - my diagnosis of a new neurosis
    • In the US we are experiencing a repeat of the Salem Witch Trials but put on steroids by social media
    • hyper judgemental moralism + FB group-think
    • a cancer on the American mind
• + - Critique of Pandeterminism
  • Faulty because man is self controlling
  • ability to chose always
  • one man's behavior is unpredictable
  • prediction of many depends on biology, psychology and sociology but is statistical in nature. Every individual is free to choose how they want to respond
    • contrary to the concept of Addictive Personality?
    • Critique of the concept of Addictive Personality by Maryann Amodeo
    • Perrhaps not even Nakken, author of The Addictive Personality did not intend it as it became understood and repeated - see above link
  • freedom and liberty must be anchored in responsibleness to prevent becoming arbitrary
  • Statue of Responsibility on the west coast... of all places...
• + - Psychiatric Credo
  • All humans are inherently worthy even when psychotic and ineffective
  • If the patient were not ALWAYS more than a brain, eutanasia would be justified
  • BUT WHAT IF THAT IS THE CHOICE OF THE MAN? Does the "Death with dignity" movement have a valid case?
  • consistent if motivated by love not depressionit
• + - Psychiatry Rehumanized
  • Psychiatrist must view the patient as more than a machine responding to conditions
  • man has potential to be saint and suine. His choice makes the difference and it's his alone
  • Do circumstances determine the path? See the case of the unhumane Auschwitz guard later redeemed in Gulag camp
• + - The case for tragic optimism
  • optimism in the face of tragic triad:Pain, Guilt, Death
  • make the best of any given situation
  • sufering can be turned into achievement
  • guilt can motivate to do better
  • death forces a short time by which to accomplish deeds that will be permanent
  • decision to be happy without a cause = hyper-intention and neurosis - inability leads to sense of shame
  • existential vacuum from enough to live by but nothing to lve for
  • + - unemployment neurosis
    • jobless = useless = no purpose in life
  • existential vacuum => deprression, aggression, addiction
  • find meaning in situations is easier than answering the meaning of life
  • life as a movie. Can see the whole meaning at the end but each even has its own
  • gestalt - perception of a figure that does not exist. Meaning - becoming aware of possibility against background of reality = what can be done
  • + - Lorenz a priori values built in by our evolution
    • may not be easy to sell to thje atheist
    • questionable in light of valuesz and behavior of people that were never taught/shown values and their effect
    • VF - if one can see values, all can
  • doing a deed, experiencing love,
  • rising to the occasion Suffering => achievement
  • directive to unjustified happiness leads the unhappy to being ashamed of being unhappy

  • i broke my neck it did not break me also see the book The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

  • live as if you were living a second time and you acted as badly as you are about to do now. You have the opportunity to do better than the first time around
  • when potential is actualized, deeds (not diamonds) are forever
  • + - dignity and usefullness of man
    • intrinsic value
    • not because of utility
  • learned nihilism - all is a joke, all is meaningless - cycnism is not a defense against nihilism, it is abdication
  • since Awshuitz we know what the world is capable of. Since Hiroshima what is at stake