Logotherapy

Viktor E. Frankl named his theory ''logotherapy'', which focuses rather on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future -- logotherapy, indeed, is a meaning-centered psychotherapy. At the same time, logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neurosis. ''Logo'' is a Greek word equivalent to ''meaning''. Logotherapy, or, as it has been called by some authors, ''The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy'', focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man's search for such meaning. According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why he speaks of a ''will to meaning'' in contrast to the pleasure principle or, as we could also term it, the ''will to pleasure'', on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the ''will to power'' on which Adlerian psychology is based, using the term ''striving for superiority'' is focused. (98). …show more content…
Frankl would identify as being the will to pleasure and the will to power. However, this may be linked to what he identifies as an ''existential vacuum''. As he describes in his book: the existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century. A statistical survey recently revealed that among Frankl's students, 25% showed a more-or-less marked degree of existential vacuum. Among his American students it was not 25 but 60%. The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. Now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. In actual fact, boredom is now causing, and certainly bringing to