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Viktor Frankl
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Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of the psychotherapy direction called logotherapy. His theory and work belong to the existentialist direction of psychiatry and psychotherapy.
He was a psychoanalyst by training, and he criticized psychoanalysis in the way that he considered that it views psychological problems reductionistically, with a limited number of concepts that are sometimes insufficient or inadequate to describe psychological functioning. Despite the criticism, he did not deny psychoanalytical concepts, but believed that together with logotherapy they could provide a more comprehensive description of human functioning and psychopathology.
The basic ideas on which logotherapy is based are:
1. Freedom of will
2. The will for meaning
3. The meaning of life
WILL FOR MEANING - is the key concept of Frankl's work. Relying on the theoretical propositions of existentialist philosophy, Frankl constructs a theory in which he emphasizes that man needs to experience the meaning of his life and that the psychological task of the individual is to discover meaning. their existence.
Meaning can be discovered in three ways:
1. Through creation, taking action, work, engagement and creative expression,
2. Through experiencing what a person considers valuable, experience and contact with contents and surroundings,
3. If the conditions are stressful or unchanging, a person can give a meaning to the suffering he experiences, a meaning that allows him to sincerely believe that the lived suffering is a significant experience, that despite and after it, life has meaning.
He took the position that satisfaction and happiness should not be the goal of an action, but should appear as a side effect of an action that we consider valuable and important.
Existential vacuum is a term associated with a state when a person suspects that his life has no meaning at some point in his life. Frankl believed that questions related to the meaning of one's own existence are not a sign of a pathological condition and a symptom that should be removed, but that such thoughts should be accepted. The desire and striving to discover meaning in life is something that psychoanalysis could interpret as rationalization. Within logotherapy, such questions are considered the primary motivational force. (Frankl, "Psychotherapy and Existentialism")
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