Logotherapy
Tenets
At first glance, Viktor Frankl’s philosophy of Logotherapy would seem a rather pessimistic response to a life marred by the horrors of the Holocaust. After reviewing the basic tenets of his philosophy, however, one can see that he firmly believes in the triumph of the human being. His very first tenet speaks volumes of his belief in endurance, but not just for the sake of survival. He believes that all life has meaning, and that meaning should motivate humans to live and discover that meaning.

The human spirit is referred to in the third tenet and several of the assumptions of Logotherapy, but it should be noted that the use of the term spirit is not “spiritual” or “religious.” In Frankl’s view, the spirit is the will of the human being. Frankl espoused that the “spirit” or “will” of a person affects the person’s health, capacity for love, imagination, and, yes, religious faith. The emphasis, however, is on the search for meaning, not the search for God nor any other supernatural existential being.

Frankl also noted the barriers to humanity’s quest for meaning in life. He warns against “…affluence, hedonism, [and] materialism…” in the search for meaning. The warning is that some may mistake one of the aforementioned as the true meaning of life. Those who have suffered losses due to circumstance, injustice, or man’s seemingly limitless inhumanity to his fellow man, can attest that the search for meaning is not halted by such losses. In some cases, as with Frankl himself, the losses are the very catalysts to reinvigorate the search for meaning.

The following list of tenets represents Frankl’s basic beliefs regarding the philosophy of Logotherapy:

   1. Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
   2. Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
   3. We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or a least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.
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