Logotherapy: Humanism In Psychiatry

A very interesting review. You have 'higher' realizations of Psychiatric edeavours, that is great. What does Victor Frankl say about drug-use in Psychiatry? Is what I would like to know....Quest for Meaning...that is grand, but even Gurdjeff says it in "Meetings with Remarkable Men" [Excellently captured by Peter Brook, all parts available on YouTube, for any Sufi Mystics here]
So how does Frankl sense this rather mystic idea in psychiatry? Curious.
In the nearest language, it always works.

Re: # 41 drsohail
Dear Dr. Khalid Sohail,
There is no need for us to agree or disagree or agree to disagree or disagree to agree … you know, it sounds arguing like “an old married couple� or two ‘in throes of an anguished love� (note the quote marks) …
I appreciate your work and writings and I thank you for your compliments and I know you do not mean disrespect or anything like that … all I was trying to communicate was the fact that exchange of ideas become more pleasurable when we let go of ourselves. In a good, really really good sex, you do not focus on yourself or on your endowment … you just let go and let your molecules transcend their determinism.

My approach to life is not the approach of what Martin Bauber has termed 'I' and 'IT' approach. Mine is of 'I' and 'Thou'. I confront life in a partnership. I do not subject it as an object. So I stand not above - neutral and objective – but I stand in confrontation and embrace. I do not try to de-neutralize it to my liking.

You may as well have written the sentence "the meaning of my intention and the meaning of your perception" as 'the meaning of my intention (in my mind) and the meaning of how it came across (on paper)' … do you see what I mean …

I did not think there can be a shared meaning (in general) … MEANING is totally an individual thing … SHARED MEANING is a dangerous land, filled with mines … like that of Afghanistan

Comparing priest (or should we say , moulvis) and psychotherapists, you said, "… a psychotherpaist believes that human beings have the choice to make their lives meaningful" Q – do all psychotherapist have this belief? How can you say that? There are so many schools of thoughts – do you think there are no nihilist psychotherapist?
Does bringing meaning in life is a matter of choice?
Now, this may lead to the topic of free will and determinism, another discussion from forever to forever, another area where MEANING will lend itself to understanding only if we are able to see through the paradox … not in the black and white, not in the manifest, not in the linear thought - and it is not an easy task.
The biggest paradox is that words are meant to express meaning, but they end up hiding it.
Sincerely,
Mutaal Mooquin

Re: # 42 Leadenwinter
Your propensity towards ‘collective over individual’ and your susceptibility towards ‘paranoia’ may somehow be related with each other. Just an observation. Don’t take it personal.

The ‘ collective over individual’ mindset ironically runs parallel both in Marxist-Leninist school of thought, and fascist and wahabi Islamic point of view. Don’t take me wrong. I have great respect for Marx’s ideas – in a way he being Newton of socio-philosophical politics (but not Einstein) and the greatest catalyst of modern history. Similarly, I have great respect for genuine Islamic thought stemming from the spirituality manifested in the Quran. But the truth is not in categories and labels. Knowledge is not to be in black and white. Truth is in continuum, not in fragmentation. The problem is not to know that if this exists or not (for example as you refer to ‘human spirit’ /and some others are OBSESSED with proving existence or non-existence of God and so on). The problem is that how we respond individually to what exists. Product is collective, but response is individual. You and me and all part of nature (and society, iteself a product of nature) – but all parts respond differently to the whole. Each cell of your body is still you, but responds differently to the collective ‘whole’.

Your take on logotherapy believing in existence of ‘spirit’ is simplistic. All I can say that words are pointers to the truths which cannot be expressed otherwise. Sometime we must go beyond words. We must remember the limitations of language itself.

You say ….�logtherapy …emphasizes upon the existence of the individual� and then extrapolate it to Kabbalah … And you equate individualism (probably of any sort) to capitalism (maybe of any sort) I understand your passion and I see it stems from the sense of social justice but remember ideas of collectivism are no less dangerous. But the real problem in your reasoning seems to be extreme generalizations like the one cited above. Materialism of Marx contains some fundamental truths, just like Newton’s – but ‘human spirit’ (= life) is not static. That even in materialist philosophy is a fundamental tenet. We constantly grow – we cannot afford to be staying forever in our teens.

“Social engineering … slave psychotherapy … “do you understand existentialism?
“I reject the possibility that individuals can transcend determinism …� - have you experienced a real good sex …? Said jokingly, but it does have a point when I come to think of it. Reject whatso ever you want to reject, it is your prerogative, but it is sad to see if one rejects the right to his or her soul.

“…humans more imagine that they are conscious, than they actually are …� how do we know – how can we conceived more consciousness from our present level of consciousness – what we are presuming here? There are all levels of consciousness in mankind. Is there an average to which you are referring?

“I am really beginning to wonder why logotherapy is being pushed on Chowk and whose doing the pushing� dear Leadenwitner … this shows your paranoia … All sorts of things being discussed at Chowk – with no agenda on part of organizers I believe, other than making it an interesting site for people to visit …

Yes, this discussion can go ad nauseam, what I can easily say is let’s try to think beyond words … when I say my heart is broken … or … my spirits are high … what is broken and what is high … ha ha.
All big terminology lends itself to simple ‘MEANING’ if you see it with lens of your heart … into a person’s heart … not with lenses of your eyes on a page with balck and white zig zaggies …

When I say that “Life in fact does not have meaning in all circumstances and that the human condition necessitates that the meaning and essence of life comes from above and collectively.�.. I mean to say that 'individual life' does not have meaning owing to the condition of humanity, which compels social,political, personal and economic meaning to be a collective product.

Frankl's own fears of his works being categorised as quasi-religious, do not exclude the fact that logotherapy indeed as a system relies on taking the unreconcilable and unjustifiable position of the existence of spirit, beyond of the actual, physical elements of humanity. Carrying on from this essentially false religious presumption, logotherapy manifests its capitalist nature and assumes and indeed emphasizes upon the existence of the individual.. (in a fashion very much akin to the rubbish coming out of the Kabbalah Centre).

Logotherapy involves use of Socratic method to result in manipulating and modifying attitudes and distracting "individuals" from their anxieties. This has all the hallmarks of social engineering, tailor made for each of the malcontent/disaffected whilst maintaining the societal status-quo as as sacrosanct. Since the initial presumptions are false and the end is to compel the subject to an acceptable "normality" this is in effect that acquiescence through misinformation, lies and perversion of psychotherapy which I am referring to. This is slave psychotherapy.

I would like to point out that your assertion that: (the) “collection of intelligences� which shall transcend “molecular determinism�, still manifests or will manifest in individual or individually – that is from existentialist view point".. is a mere statement of opinion. I reject the possibility that individuals can transcend determinism successfully because this is simply not analogous to any natural model. As I suggested in my previous post, religion and capitalism rely on the human propensity to the misapprehension that they are not subject to deterministic principles. This might be an evolutionary mechanism on the course to consciousness, but humans more imagine that they are conscious, than they actually are.

Although these kind of arguments can be raised ad infinitum, briefly I can quite easily say.. there is no human spirit and telling people there is may make them a little bit happier but in essence remains a dangerous lie.

I am really beginning to wonder why logotherapy is being pushed on Chowk and whose doing the pushing?

Re: # 37
dear quinn...thank you for your lengthy reply. as i mentioned i have great respect for victor frankl and i have learnt a lot from him and i use some of his concepts in my clinical practice. so there was no intention to insult him or be condescending to you. if you perceived it that way i apologize. and that makes my point that the same letter that i wrote have two meanings. the meaning of my intention and the meaning of your perception. so for me every thing we observe or experience is neutral but we as human beings have the choice to put our own SUBJECTIVE MEANING to it. if there is a genuine dialogue, like the way we are having then we can clarify it and share our meanings and come to a SHARED MEANING that is acceptable to both or we can agree to disagree.
As I mentioned that for a non-psychiatrist you did a wonderful job. But logotherapy is a special branch of psychotherapy...like psychoanalysis and cognitive behaviour therapy. And all these therapies have their strengths and limitations. I was trying to share my views as a reader of your article as well as Frankl. When logotherapists are seeing patients in their practice they try to help patients find meaning in their suffering so that they can endure and cope with it better. That is not what I believe, that is what I understood reading Frankl's books
Man's Search for meaning
and
Doctor of the Soul
If your understanding is different then we can agree to disagree. That is how a psychotherapist is different than a priest. Priest believes that life is meaningful, a meaning given by Higher Power while a psychotherpaist believes that human beings have the choice to make their lives meaningful. He does not enter the world of theology whether life intrinsically is meaningful or not. And if he does it would be as a human being and not as his role as a therapist. A therapist has the right to have his own religion and belief system but that role is different than his role as a therapist. Title of your essay is Logotherapy and Humanism not religion and theology.
One more time I would like to say that I was impressed by your article and there was no intention to be disrespectful to you or Frankl. Keep up the good work.
sincerely sohail

Re: # 36
thanks for sharing this wonderful link

Re: # 36
thanks for sharing this wonderful link

Re: # 33 Leadenwinter (what a nick)
Logotherapy having “stench� of religion was one of the fear Frankl have of misunderstandings about his work. And I see that he was right. It is hard for new and unconventional ideas, in particular, the ideas which have synergetic attributes, to not cause misunderstanding. The conclusions you are drawing about “subversive introversion� and like cannot be further from the ideas which Frankl propounded. Secondly, the “collection of intelligences� which you say may transcend “molecular determinism�, still manifests or will manifest in individual or individually – that is from existentialist view point.

Regarding your idea for Frankl trying to achieve “psychological paradigm of capitalism� need elaboration and evidence.

And following is self contradictory: (The second sentence negate the first one.)
“Life in fact does not have meaning in all circumstances. The human condition necessitates as it always has done that the meaning and essence of life comes from above and collectively.�

Your last sentence is a judgment statement with no supporting argument:
“Logotherapy is a means by which the victims of society can be conditioned to acquiescence to their situation through a regimen of misinformation, lies and perversion of psychotherapy�
Please show me in Fankl’s work where he advocates acquiescence of any sort.
My own judgment statement: He himself is embodiment of triumph of human spirit and his work is the manifestation of that triumph.

Re: # 34
dear drsohail, first some questions:
1.Your statement “My understanding of his philosophy of Logotherapy is that every human meaning (???) has a choice to give a SUBJECTIVE MEANING to his/her life� contains compositional error but more than that it is over+over simplification, and shows lack of understanding of Frankl’s ideas. Do you mean that when someone goes through suffering, he or she says, OK now as a treatment for my suffering, I will choose to have some meaning in it? It is kind of almost laughable to think this way. Isn’t it?
2.What do you mean by OBJECTIVE MEANING? Can meaning be categorized as such???
3.“Life is meaningless intrinsically but we, as human beings have a choice to make it meaningful…� Who is saying this – you or Frankl?

It is important to keep the lines of ownership (who is saying what) distinctly marked to avoid misleading the reader even inadvertently. In my reflection of the Frankl’s book, I have tried to show to the reader what I found in that particular book. I did not try to mix ideas; neither did I advocate one view or other. The conclusions are left for readers to draw. On a personal note your statement “Life is meaningless intrinsically …� is shocking. Are you OK???

Frankl wrote not just for professionals. He, like any other great and original thinker worth of its salt wrote for every one. The problem in understanding (the confusion of “psychics� of which akcheema talks about in this forum) is the problem of categorizing the knowledge and making it literal, and fragmenting the thought to make it unwholesome and then building a fog around that Frankensteined body of that knowledge, making a ghost out of it, beyond the understanding of ordinary mortals. So the ‘ordinaries’ become awed and turn for understanding to the priests (muftees) of the trade.

I have my own ‘theory of knowledge’. It is called theory of blind spots. (Lest anyone forgets, be reminded again, that I am no pundit of psychology – or any other pundit for that mater - I write on any topic which moves me as Mooquin) My “theory of blind spots� stemmed from this: When I moved to Canada many years ago and was re-learning driving for Canadian roads, the instructor kept reminding me ‘watch the blind spot’ ‘watch the blind spot’. I had not internalized that. I had not really believed that blind spot exits. He knew that I am not getting it. So, one day, he stepped out of car and asked me to keep watching him from the side mirror while he walked slowly forward from a position from where I could see him in the mirror to a position where he suddenly disappeared - the blind spot – with alarm I saw over my shoulder and found him standing just on the side of car – like someone intending to ambush me. In our life and especially in our psychological make up, we are like those drivers who have not realized the existence of blind spots.

Sorry, no personal affront but in your writing you need to work upon your tone. I don’t mind being condescended to but when you sound condescending to poor old Frankl, it sounds very funny. Also, refrain from adopting didactic tone – keep your style dialogic instead. It will be more effective. You may really have intended only kindness, but sounded condescending instead. So know your blind spot. Honest feedback - as I wish you only well. So, I greatly thank you for your comments and your e-mailed article which I have copied on one of my iLog for everyone to benefit from.

check this out

http://philosophertv.com

Time again to send the Murtid Shrink for Logotherapy...to a Maulana in a Madressa

but before that it is good to read his last entry in his diary...His odyssey or metamorphosis from Pheeda to Fareed then Freud & finally to Dr. Fraud.


Last Entry:

In the diary of the Psycho from chukk:420, mauza Harrapa

===========================================================

My own private Pheedaho

Epilogue


.....and now I can sense that they are mumbling & whispering about removing the life-support system from me. It is not that I am in coma all the time, it is just that they cannot tell that, and I do not tell them. I observe, I listen, but I cannot respond...but only for sporadic minutes when no one is around. The prescriptions & proscriptions of the west & east did me in!
It`ll be anyday, anytime

sooner than later.
.........ahh!and memories! , in a rewind loop, now in focus, now in a blurr & blob from the deep deep recesses of my mind, never ever abandon me, never let go. It sure helps to be a shrink to interpret and bring into focus these repressed memories....
...the joyful days and nights when I was called Pheeda by everyone. Snot, rat-tail-like, peeking in and out of my dust laden & dirt ridden nostrils and occasionally wiped-ff by my left sleeve while looking askance at every passing elder who would shove-kick-slap-hit me--just for the heck of it . At least they recognised me that I existed. I belonged! Here in US nobody gives a damn no matter how hard you try to prove that now you are one of them.So Oye Pheeday or Pheeda-ho it was, sometimes Freeda-ho, sometimes Freeday-ho but none seemed different. The landowners around Harrapa were too preoccupied & disinterested to worry about my heritage or what I truly aspired to be. I was simply a body, a serf, a kummee`s son, destined to be a kummee himself when old enough to plow their fields.

But I had ambitions. Secret designs of my own. Intrepid & Intrigue was important to overcome the caste, and the color barrier. I wanted to be like the Jat jagirdars son.., with the plastic clip-on tie & back-pack,..whose forefathers helped the british to rule over us. ``Salvation is in slavery``! this became my banner & beacon....to enable me to cross over to the other side & someday have my own private slaves.

`` I must redesign my heritage`` I heard myself say to myself aloud oneday. It must be sculpted by me to suit the occasion or event. I decided to interrupt others and correcte them that my name was Fareed. Everyone should take notice, I told them. I am Fareed--not Pheeda-ho. They all did, and shoved-kicked-slapped and ran me out of the chukk # 420 near to the mound-ruins where heritage is preserved. Preserved so well that it generates ample reveues for its progeny even after laying dormant for about 5000 years. The goraas discovered the mounds of the dead and educated the slaves; drilled into them how civilised they once were and how the slaves were once 5000-year civilised & now in the darkages due to their stupid reli.. (well-never mind)

...good that they hounded me out of the Chukk 420 near mauza Harrapa. In the city I became the real me, Fareed! and now diligently pursued the practised the Jaw-resetting language*(*urdu) to such perfection that that I was soon inducted into that inner-sanctum of those who prided themselves to announce themselves as The-Tongued-Ones: (ahle-zubaan)

Years passed and then I discovered that even this heritage is now under suspicion and is no longer respectable. The-Tongued-ones (ahle-zubaans) are being harrassed by those who are now refusing the get their jaws reset. So I decided to look for opportunities to create another new heritage for my nation`s posterior and my own posterity

I decided to emigrate to the fantasy-land of sex,drugs & faith-freedom and opportunity!

Here I learned that my name a big problem for me & the way I pronounce it is even a bigger problem for the immigration folk. They re-named me Freud, ( apt! I chucked then) entered that in the register, and officially I became Archie Freud . Archie is for Arshad , a name I had always liked and was given that as my `christain` name when the immigration guy, fat beet-red face one, insisted that Arshad was too foreign & a jawlocker for him.

Sixty long years seem now like the blink of an eye! Such a Psychiatric I was that, in serving science & humanism, I became a psycho myself and was committed to the proper places many a times during my shining career & gloomy disposition. Some alluded this to the genius in me and such a price is small for those like me to pay to serve humanity and reassert my Insaanyat in ways other than the mundane kind. I sometimes feel that it is my obssessive cynicism to keep a score on my insaanyat index that blew my brainfuse.

Despite all the laurels and dollars , I was still uneasy with this post-modernistic, humanistic heritage of mine. Hell, the kids, no longer kids by the way, were determined to manufacture their own heritage, as muslim, and were going out of the way to refuse to inherit anything at all from the mounds of Moenjo Dero or the hollows of Harrapaa . This really did me in. I mean with all the heritage that I accumulated and now here my own flesh and blood wanted to disinherit all that!

...So When I returned to the area I had left as Chukk 420 I tried to prove & convince the people running the heritage industry, primarily the Jaw-lockers--the Tongued-ones (ahli-Zubaan), but no one was interested anymore.They ahd outslaved me by a single U-turn. They were all trying to become a mirror image of the people from the land of bilk & money.

I learnt that behind my back they sneered at my attempt to speak in the Jawlock-way or the neo-Tongue-Ones way.

They were calling me Dr. Fraud.

Dear Mutaal, I thoroughly enjoyed your article. For a writer, who is not a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist, you have done a wonderful job. Congratulations on generating a lively discussion. We need more of such dialogues.
I am a great admirer of Frankl and put him in the row of Freud, Jung, Maslow and Sartre who made valuable contribution to human psychology and psychotherapy. I enjoyed his books
Man's Search for Meaning
Unconscious God
Doctor of the Soul
In spite of my some philosophical differences with him I have great regard for him.
My understanding of his philosophy of Logotherapy is that every human meaning has a choice to give a SUBJECTIVE MEANING to his/her life. Giving such meaning makes human suffering more tolerable, bearable, endurable as it makes it meaningful But that SUBJECTIVE MEANING is different that the OBJECTIVE MEANING of religious ideology. Life is meaningless intrinsically but we, as human beings have a choice to make it meaningful to enjoy it more and suffer less. I use some of the principles of logotherapy in my clinic and find it helpful in psychotherapy. I listened to him in Toronto and it was wonderful to be in the company of a wise old man. I have written a lengthy article on Frankl. If you are interested I can send you by email attachment. Keep up the good work...all the best...sincerely sohail

The word logotherapy derives from Greek "logos" and this unto itself is very indicative of the nature of what we're talking about here. Logotherapy somewhat has the stench of Kierkegaard about it; religion dressed up as sanity.The will to meaning as far as I can see is essentially some sort of subversive introversion, which relies extensively on obfuscation of the issue of determinism and otherwise hijacks the concept of will, to create or possibly justify a "slave psychotherapy". Human beings are not free and remain thinking machines which are "physically and structurally" evolved both to somewhat escape physical/molecular determinism and to a much larger extent imagine that they have successfully done so. No individual human can and ever will transcend their subservience to physical determinism although following on from natural models, from cells upwards to the very structure of the human brain, it is definite that such transcendence can and only be derivative from a collection of intelligences; or perhaps more accurately a collective of intelligence. True meaning in life and true human achievement and growth can only ever be acquired collectively. It is this propensity of humans to imagine that they can successfully transcend molecular determinism, which has been time and again exploited (very very ironically) by collectives of beneficiaries who advocate and normalise the most dangerous lie of individualism as does Mr. Frankl, which I must say, in his case (at the risk of seeing paranoid) is perhaps simply to the end of achieving a psychological paradigm for capitalism. The emptiness (purportedly owing to the lack of will to meaning) is in fact the suffering due when a human becomes an individual and all the relevant neuroses are actually part of the externalities and shadow costs of capitalism. Life in fact does not have meaning in all circumstances. The human condition necessitates as it always has done that the meaning and essence of life comes from above and collectively. Logotherapy is a means by which the victims of society can be conditioned to acquiescence to their situation through a regimen of misinformation, lies and perversion of psychotherapy.

#31 cheema sahib: Glad we have an understanding then on this issue on the concept of "God".

wrt the "accounts of the prophets" and other nonsense, those are clearly peripheral to the Quran (and the veneration of prophets, pirs etc. in "popular Islam" is merely a manifestation of human insecurities and in common with other "popular versions" of religion, e.g. veneration of the saints in christians). So - to me these dont form part of the core message, which is clear and simple: individual responsibility to distinguish between right and wrong and to do the right thing. So: while this "core message of Islam" can help build character, the "popular Islam" in my view actually weakens character (by making the individual lose confidence in his/her own faculties to observe and reach rational conclusions, and depend on flattery of pirs, prophets and/or Allah; to replace individual responsibility with taking the easy way out of pointing of fingers at others)..

Re: # 30; tahmed sahib

what I said is I donot have a problem with YOUR concept of what I define as "free-lance monotheism".

It is a commendable concept and I am more than willing to accept as a legitimate rival for my own alternative hypothesis.

I just don't think it is what is referred to in "accounts" of ancient judeo-arabic literature

#29 cheema sahib: please dont flip-flop sir.

of course you have a problem with the widespread concept of God as being a glorified King (whose decisions can be changed via flattery and kow-towing, e.g.).