What Is Logotherapy In Psychology?

Logotherapy is an interesting approach to face the struggles of life. It is a psychotherapeutic method that helps people to give meaning to life again. It allows people who suffer from existential emptiness to overcome it and rethink their goals.

You may feel an inner void despite having “everything.” Sometimes it seems that regardless of our achievements and the many things we have, these things are not enough to make us feel satisfied.

That’s where logotherapy comes on the scene.

Most traditional therapeutic paradigms have ignored some of the human psychological dimension. For example, the desire for meaning is often ignored in the pursuit of simply “making the symptoms disappear.”

However, logotherapy can help bring this depth into your treatment. Read on to learn what logotherapy is and how it can help you.

What is logotherapy?

Logotherapy comes from the Third Vienna School of Psychology and was born to psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl. It came after the Freudian psychoanalysis and the individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Frankl’s approach is based on “will to meaning,” as opposed to Adler’s doctrine that encourages “will to power.”

From the perspective of logotherapy, the purpose of human existence is meaning. This understanding becomes even more powerful when you discover that its creator, Viktor Frankl, was imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II.

Frankl believes he survived this horrific experience because he found a way to give meaning to his existence. That basically means that he has found a “logo”, a word that comes from the Greek word meaning “the meaning of something”.

Attitude is everything

No one can assure you that you can overcome all adversities. However, Frankl’s experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp was so terrible that it is almost impossible to imagine. However, it was the attitude he took for life that enabled him to survive.

Having the right attitude to deal with what he had experienced during World War II turned these traumatic circumstances into learning experiences.

The aspects of logotherapy

There are three basic pillars of logotherapy:

• anthropological aspects
• psychotherapeutic aspects
• philosophical aspects

From an anthropological perspective, Frankl takes the liberty of affirming that man can make his own decisions and is free to choose his own destiny.

Psychotherapy promotes freedom of meaning. Finally, philosophy reaffirms the meaning of life, which is impossible to lose, according to the postulates of logotherapy.

Proven by experience

Viktor Frankl really knew the meaning of life under the propositions of his own theory. This is because he developed that theory during his time in various concentration camps.

It was there that Frankl realized that he had to let go of everything he had taken on and amassed in life. Instead, he connected with the bare essence of existence.

Frankl quickly discovered that this was a very powerful way to discover the things that really matter to us. When we begin to see the most fundamental aspects of our essence, our lives can take on meaning again.

The practice of logotherapy

It is easy to understand why psychodramas are so important in therapy. In logotherapy, therapists often use dramatizations with patients so that they can strip off the superfluous elements in order to see their essence.

Patients are encouraged to face the truth that life could end at any moment, not to startle them, but so that they can take control of their own lives.

This allows them to make meaningful changes. These are the changes a person has to make in their life to see the difference and achieve their own meaning, their “logo.” As Frankl said:

Frankl’s experiences in concentration camps led him to put all his ideas into a book called Man’s Search for Meaning . One of the puzzling sentences of this author, which in fact belongs to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, is as follows:

Logotherapy intervenes in the existential dimension. Thus, people who experience value conflicts, or who are living in an existential crisis, can benefit from it in their courageous search for the meaning of life.