Logotherapy: Humanism In Psychiatry

Famed Psychiatrist Victor Frankl says," Man can no longer be seen as a being whose basic concern is to satisfy drives and gratify instincts nor can the human reality be understood merely as the outcome of conditioning processes or conditioned reflexes. In logotherapy (literally “therapy through meaning”) man is revealed as “a being in search of meaning - a search whose futility seems to account for many of the ills of our age".

In traditional psychotherapy, the question of meaning in life is not taken at its face value but is seen as mere rationalization of unconscious psychodynamics. It is not seen that if a person has found a meaning in life, he is prepared to suffer or even die for it. Conversely if there is no meaning in life for him, he could, in spite of his apparent success in outward life, be inclined to take his own life.

Logotherapy insists that in neurosis, though psychodynamics as well as conditioning processes play their part, but beyond these factors there is also a dimension of specifically human phenomena such as man's search for meaning and unless we recognize that frustration of this search may also cause neurosis we cannot understand let alone overcome the ills of our age. The unfulfilled need of meaning in spite of all affluence has created an existential vacuum symptomized in mass neurotic triad of depression, aggression and addiction.

There are three basic tenets of logotherapy: The will to meaning; a meaning to life and freedom of will. Traditional psychology considers man as a being who is either reacting to stimuli or abreacting his impulses. They do not consider that actually man is responding - responding to questions that life is asking him and that way fulfilling the meaning that life is offering.

The will to meaning is not only a true manifestation of man's humanness but also a reliable criterion of mental health. Being human is being always directed and pointing to, to something or someone other than our self, to a meaning to fulfill. Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence is he truly human or does he become his true self. It is not the pursuit; it is unintended effect which matters. The pursuit is self defeating, more we target it, more widely we miss it.

Meanings are discovered not only in creating a work or doing a deed or in experiencing something or encountering someone. Meaning in life can be found when confronted with a hopeless situation as its hopeless victim, when facing a fate that cannot be changed, in transforming a tragedy into a personal triumph. Suffering can have a meaning if it changes oneself for better.

Famous Physician Paracelsus says "Disease originates in the realm of nature but healing come from the realm of spirit". In human dimension, freedom and determinism are compatible as man has unity in spite of diversity. In man we are confronted with various aspects at various levels and planes, but at a higher plane, in human dimension "contradictions do not contradict". There is determinism in psychological dimension and freedom in human dimension. There is freedom in spite of determinism. But human freedom is finite freedom. He is not free from conditions, but free to take stand in regard to them. He may as well rise above them and by so doing open up and enter the human dimension. It is he who decides whether he will face up or give in. "All choices are caused but they are caused by the chooser".

If we are tangled in the web of "pan-determinism" the door to meanings and values is closed and self transcendence is denied, reasons and motives are replaced by conditioning processes and it is up to the "hidden persuaders" to do the conditioning, to manipulate man. This leads to eductionism, which is nothing-but-ness. Man is said to be nothing but - a computer, or a naked ape or this or that. In psychology for example conscience is nothing but the result of conditioning process. Here is a story. Two contenders go to an arbitrator. One contended that the other's cat had stolen and eaten five pounds of butter, which the other denied.
"Bring me the cat" the arbitrator ordered. They brought the cat.
"Now bring me scales". They brought him scales.
"How many pounds of butter did you say the cat has eaten?" he asked.
"Five Pounds" was the answer.
Thereupon the arbitrator put the cat on the scale and it weighed exactly five pounds. "Now I have the butter" the arbitrator said "but where is the cat?"

This is what happens when eventually reductionists rediscover in man all the conditioning reflexes, conditioning processes, innate release mechanisms and whatever else they have been seeking. "Now we have it" they say like the arbitrator in the story "but where is the man?” There is more to being human than being a pawn and plaything of conditioning processes or drives and instincts. We may learn that being human means being confronted continuously with situations which are each at once chance and challenge, giving us a chance to fulfill ourselves by meeting the challenge to fulfill its meaning. Each situation is a call, first to listen, and then to respond."

I end this reflection on Frankl’s work by Bliase Pascal's words (quoted by Frankl):
"The heart has reasons that reason does not know".