Logotherapy in a Nutshell by Frankl - Essay Example

Part I 1. According to Frankl, the primary motivation of man’s life is the search for meaning. Search for meaning helps the man to fulfil his will which gives him the strength required to move on in life. For example, everybody strives to find meaning for his life which is expressed in terms of “purpose of life”. 2. According to Frankl, existential distress refers to the condition where a man feels worthless in life which brings about despair and loss of hope. This means that existential distress is not a mental disease but something that a patient can be helped to go through and overcome. Existential vacuum refers to a state where man does not understand what he ought to do or man does not know what he wish to do which is a manifestation of boredom. Existential void has been brought by the loss of animal instinct in which the behaviour of animals is embedded as well as the loss of his traditions. For example, in this era where numerous philosophies have overtaken the meaning of culture and traditions, I have been left wondering what I ought to do or what I wish to do, that is, whether to follow culture and traditions which are presumed primitive or swim in the modern philosophies considered to be the reflection of educated and learned people. 3. According to Frankl, the meaning of life differs from man to man and from day to day and from hour to hour. In this respect, Frankl noted that what matter is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. Frankl held that one should not search for an abstract meaning of life because every person has a mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfilment. In this regard, a person’s life cannot be repeated and the person himself cannot be replaced. Hence, man finds the meaning of life can be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche as though it were a closed system. The three different ways to its discovery include creating a work or doing a deed , experiencing something or encountering someone and finally through the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. 4. According to Frankl, the only way through which we can fully understand another human being is through love. Frankl (p.116) noted that love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. 5. Frankl considers the goal of achieving of equilibrium or homeostasis in man’s mental life dangerous because man is a continuous and endless being that keeps on searching, struggling and striving to achieve the meaning of life. The state of equilibrium of achievement of homeostasis is regarded as dangerous because it eliminates the need for man to search for the meaning of life. Frankl (p.118) held that man in self-determining and cannot be considered as something rather he can only be considered in terms of his struggle and search for meaning of life. Part II 1. According to Milgram, the human tendency to obey is fuelled by the fact that “people are engaged in something from which they cannot liberate themselves”. (Meyer, 1970). For example, the Nazis were engaged in beliefs and activities such as oath-taking which made it difficult for them to liberate themselves from the ideology that had already been spread by Hitler. Blind obedience is therefore guided and precipitated by lack of resources or skills people can use to disengage themselves. 2. The study tells us that those people who have the capacity to disobey are those that have the will to refuse agency in their lives. In other words, people who have the capacity to refuse to be drive by other people called agency. These are people who determine the course of their lives and refuse to be influenced by others. 3. One of the flaws in the study is that it does not take into consideration people from different ages ranging from children, youths and adults. Taking into consideration people from different ages would give a clear picture on whether obedience or disobedience is uniform in all ages or different in specific demographics of the population. Hence, I would like to have more information about the results on obedience and disobedience derived from more than one group of the population. In this context, I am assuming that many participants in the study were young people studying in the college. One of the critiques of the study is that a person can disobey or obey quietly by whispering and cursing the other person. This aspect was not taken into consideration in the study. 4. The study is clear that human evil differ from one person to the other. As seen from the study, people outside the college environment obeyed more than the people in the college which shows that disobedience which is one cause of human evil differs from one person to the other. Additionally, the study also reveals that every human being has a certain level of evil in him but this evil is controlled by agency or authority that guides human behaviour. For example, killing is bad or evil but the policeman who kills a robber makes the society safe. However, both the policeman and the robber end up being evil. Hence, human evil is deeply entrenched into the nerves of human beings. 5. No. Under similar circumstances I would not know whether I would electrocute a stranger because I would be acting under an “agency” or authority which would be the key determinant on whether to electrocute the stranger or not. Hence, if the agency or the authority made the decision to electrocute the stranger I would electrocute the stranger (Meyer, 1970). Similarly, if the authority made the decision to save the stranger from electrocution I would also follow the command. In this regard, my free will would be subject to the authority and every action would be determined by the agency. Part III Introduction According to the theory of Logotherapy postulated by Frankl (1959) we can discover the meaning of life in three different ways namely; by creating a work or doing a deed, by experiencing something or encountering someone and finally by the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering. Frankl’s Logotherapy theory is based on the fact that man or the patient should be confronted with and re-oriented towards the meaning of life in order to help the man overcome the neurosis. The underlying reason behind the Logotherapy theory is that the struggle and the striving of man to find the meaning of his life is the primary motivational force in man (Frankl, p. 104). It is imperative to note that Logotherapy is founded on the premise that man is a being “whose concern is to fulfil a meaning rather than mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts” (Frankl, p.108). The author noted that what man actually needs in life is not a “tensionless state or a state of equilibrium but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task which helps him to discover his meaning in life”, (Frankl, p. 112).. In his story and experiences in the “Experiences in the concentration camp” Frankl observed that the most dangerous aspect of a human life is when man loses hope in life and thinks of committing suicide in order to end his sufferings. With this observation, Frankl means that man should always find meaning of his life in spite of the circumstances that surround him. This section will explore the three aspects brought out by Frankl (p.115) as comprising the ways through which man can discover the meaning of his life. Just to reiterate, the three aspects include creating a work or doing a deed, experiencing something or encountering something and attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering. In exploring these three ways, I will practically demonstrate how Frankl’s theory applies in my own life. Three ways of discovering meaning of life Frankl (p.115) noted that “the meaning of life is dynamic and it continues to change but it never ceases to be” (p.115). With this observation Frankl strives to show that even though the meaning of life can change as a human being progresses from one level of development to the other, the meaning of life will never cease to be. This is true because I have discovered that when I was young the meaning I attached to life was quiet different from the meaning I attach to life today. As a child, life was basically eating, playing and hanging around my parents and my siblings. However, today the meaning of life has changed completely and it comprises of how I treat other people, how I relate to other people away from my family, the attitude I have towards different aspects in life and the struggle I make to ensure that I achieve my purpose in life without any external help. Creating a work or a deed Creating a work or a deed is regarded by Frankl as “the way of achievement or accomplishment (p.115). This means that in the road to success or achieving the desired goals and accomplishments in life man also creates a deed or a work in the process. This is applicable in my life because I have found myself creating work and deeds even in the process of achieving success in my education. For example, when buying a book or a pen or when doing my shopping, I create a work for the person I purchase the goods from because the seller has to work to get more stock to replace what I have bought. When I get to school as a student, I also create a work in that the lecturer has to work to impart knowledge in me. In this regard, I have found that my life is full of creating a work or deed in every aspect. In the “experience in the concentration camp” it is obvious that the mere presence of prisoners in the camp was creating a work or deed for the prison guards. This reveals that whether in suffering or in happiness my life has always been a process of creating a work or a deed. According to Frankl, (p.116) “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality” (p.116). Creating a work or a deed means that a person demonstrates love for the other person in the first place. Hence, creating a work or a deed is one of the three ways through which we can discover the meaning of life. Experiencing something or encountering someone “Experiencing something such as beauty, truth and goodness through experiencing nature and culture or experiencing the uniqueness of another human being by showing love to the other person” (Frankl, p.116) is also another way through which man discovers the meaning of his life. This is true because man is created as a social being and his instincts are different from other animals. Man’s instincts help him to discover beauty, truth and goodness or it helps him to love the other person. By loving other people, I have been able to discover the essential traits and features that other people have. This has on many occasions enabled me to discover the essential traits and features that I have which are different from those held by other people. For instance, when in a group of friends, I have discovered that I have the power to reason out or give a second thought to anything I do in spite of the peer influence. This has on numerous occasions put me in the right side of the law as compared to my friends who have always been in and out of jail for committing different crimes. This is in tandem with Frankl’s theory which holds that “by his love, man is enabled to see the potential in him which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized” (Frankl, p.116). Attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering Numerous unavoidable suffering occur in a man’s in life and man can only overcome or drown in these kinds of sufferings through his attitude. In the “experiences in a concentration camp” Frankl observes that “The thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone, if only for a brief time” (Frankl, p.31). What this means is that people can chose to harbour negative attitudes towards their circumstances or harbour a positive attitude towards the circumstances at hand. One of my experiences of an unavoidable suffering was the loss of a close relative through death. Death is the universal unavoidable suffering that every human being has to go through. In this experience, I perceived life negatively and thought that there was no importance of continuing to live to suffer immeasurable pain when a close person in the family dies. However, when I faced or encountered the death of one of my closest relatives, I discovered that the situation in my hand was unchangeable and the only way was to confront the issue or the fate that had befallen me rather than “living in a cocoon of sorrow. This was the only way I was able to recuperate from the suffering that had been caused by the death of my relative. Frankl (p.117) noted that “turning a personal tragedy into triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement, when we are no longer able to change a situation” we are challenged to change ourselves” (Frankl, p.117). I had to change my attitude towards the situation that had bought suffering to me because I discovered that I was not able to change the situation. References Frankl, V. (1959). Logotherapy in Nutshell, Beacon Press Books, p. 101 Meyer, P. (1970). “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably” http://ecourse.amberton.edu/grad/RGS6036E1/Fourd.htm Read More