The Father of Logotherapy

Viktor Frankl: Existentialist and the Father of Logotherapy
By William L. Smith Ph. D.

Back Ground and Development

Being a former student of Freud, Viktor Frankl has a psycholanalyical orientation, however, he was influenced by the writing of existential philosophers like Heidegger, Scheler, and Jaspers. Frankl begin to develop his own existential philosophy and therapeutic technique. To avoid confusion with Bingswanger's existential analysis, Frankl coined the term Logotherapy. According to Frankl, Logotherapy proceeds from the spirtual, while existential analysis proceeds toward the spirtual.

Frankl first book was published in 1946 in the German language and translated into English in 1959, under the title From Death Camp to Existentialism. This book was later revised to include the basic concepts of Logotherapy, and re-distributed in 1962, under the title Man's Search for Meaning.

Philosophy and Concepts

Frankl believes that even under the extreme physical and psychological stress of the concentration camp man can preserve his spiritual freedom of independence of mind. He can decide what shall become of him mentally and sparitually. It is this sparitual freedom that cannot be taken away. Furthermore, according to Frankl, if there is meaning to life there is also meaning to suffering, since suffering, like death, is an inescapable part of life.

The Nature of the Person

The individual is a unity consisting of three aspects: the body, the mind, and the sparit. The first two are closely related and together form the psychophysicum through the teaching of Freud, Adler, and Jung we have a working understanding of the mind and body, but have neglected the spiritual side of human dimension. Logotherapy focus on this third dimension, the spiritual man. Spirituality is the chief attribute of the individual, and from it derives conscience, love, and aesthetic conscience. The second characteristics of human existence is freedom. Being human, is being able to decide. Man is free to decide what he will be in the next instant. Freedom means freedom on three levels: the instant, the inherited disposition, and the environment. True, human being are influence by all these factors, but they are free to accept or reject and to take a stand toward these conditions.