Logotherapy is the psychotherapy that Viktor Frankl built from the Greek word logos, meaning, word, meaning. It is the third Viennese school of psychotherapy, after Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology.
What does she propose
Where Freud saw pleasure as the engine of the soul and Adler saw power, Frankl proposes a third answer: the human being seeks, above all, meaning. This is not about denying the other two, but about completing the picture: man is not just pleasure, man is not just power, man is, above all, the search for meaning.
More than a technique
Logotherapy is used clinically, but has a philosophical-existential foundation. Frankl describes it as a map, not a set of formulas: pain, suffering and even death itself can gain dignity if they are integrated into life as part of a mission, with freedom and responsibility. Meaningless, suffering destroys. With meaning, suffering transforms.
Meaning is not invented, it is discovered
The central finding of logotherapy is that meaning is not something that a person creates on their own, alone. It is something that is discovered, always facing outside of oneself: in a work to be carried out, in the love for a specific person, or in the attitude with which one carries suffering that cannot be avoided. This is the mechanism behind the phrase that sums up logotherapy: whoever has a why to live can tolerate almost any how.
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What is logotherapy?
It is psychotherapy created by Viktor Frankl from the Greek word logos, meaning, word, meaning. It assumes that the deepest engine of the human soul is neither pleasure (Freud) nor power (Adler), but the search for meaning.
Is logotherapy just a clinical technique?
No. Frankl describes it as an existential map: it has a philosophical foundation and is applied clinically, but it goes beyond the symptom, it deals with the human need for a why.
How does logotherapy approach suffering?
Pain, suffering and even death can gain dignity if they are integrated into life as part of a mission, with freedom and responsibility. Meaningless, suffering destroys; with meaning, suffering transforms.
Continue: In Search of Meaning, by Viktor Frankl · Freud, Adler and Frankl: pleasure, power or meaning? · What is Self-Transcendence
Home class (Community NousCast): Em Busca de Sentido, de Viktor Frankl