Claudemir highly admires Viktor Frankl's life and his
contribution to the world. Claudemir does believe that
whenever a person goes to therapy, he or she is in
search for meaning. "Logos" is a Greek word which
denotes "meaning". This approach focuses on the
meaning of human existence as well as on man's
search for such a meaning.
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What is Logotherapy?
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Dr. Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) of Vienna developed
logotherapy and existential analysis in the 1930s,
because of his dissatisfaction with both Freud and
Adler. Logotherapy is also known as the “Third
Viennese School of Psychotherapy”.
Dr. Frankl accepts Sigmund Freud’s concept of
unconsciousness, but considers the will to meaning
as more fundamental than the will to pleasure.
Existential analysis is designed to bring to
consciousness the “hidden” meaning or spiritual
dimension of the client. Frankl received training in
individual psychology from Adler. Some of the basic
concepts of logotherapy, such as meaning, freedom,
and responsibility, bear the imprint of Adler. A major
difference between logotherapy and psychoanalysis
is that both Freud and Adler focus on the past, while
"Logotherapy focuses rather on the future, that is to
say, on the meanings to be fulfilled in his future”
(Frankl, 1984, p.120).
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Logotherapy was put to a severe test in a very
personal way between 1942 and 1945, when Dr.
Frankl was committed to Nazi concentration camps.
His experience and observation supported the main
thesis of logotherapy: “This was the lesson I had to
learn in three years spent in Auschwitz and Dachau:
those most apt to survive the camps were those
oriented toward the future, toward a meaning to be
fulfilled by them in the future” (Frankl, 1985b, p.37).
His experience in Nazi camps was recorded in Man’s
Search for Meaning (Frankl, 1963, 1984). His
personal triumph over unimaginable trauma has been
the most compelling testimony to logotherapy. There
are no other psychotherapists whose life and work
are as inseperable as Dr. Frankl’s. He is Logotherapy,and vice-versa.