I wonder what I was thinking of last week when I tried to explain in one column Viktor Frankl’s brief but marvelous book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” If Frankl needed an entire book to explain the psychological therapy that he invented and called “logotherapy,” why was I so foolish to think I could explain logotherapy in one column? In the column I am now typing, I will try to explain what I find most fascinating about logotherapy. I think one reason I find Frankl’s ideas so interesting is that he works from the same philosophy of the person that I embrace and teach to my students at St. John’s University. I would describe that philosophy as a combination of existentialism and personalism. The more technical term to describe it would be existential phenomenology.
I think the key to my enthusiasm is related to what Frankl calls “noogenic neuroses.” Frankl writes the following in explaining existential frustration and noogenic disorders:
“Existential frustration can … result in neuroses. For this type of neuroses, logotherapy has coined the term ‘noogenic neuroses’ in contrast to neuroses in the usual sense of the word, i.e., psychogenic neuroses. Noogenic neuroses have their origin not in the psychological but rather in the ‘noological’ (from the Greek ‘noos’ meaning mind) dimension of the human existence. This is another logotherapeutic term which denotes anything pertaining to the ‘spiritual’ core of man’s personality. It must be kept in mind, however, ‘spiritual’ does not have a primarily religious connotation but refers to the specifically human dimension.
“Noogenic neuroses do not emerge from conflicts between drives and instincts but rather from conflicts between various values; in other words, from moral conflicts, or, to speak in a more general way, from spiritual problems. Among such problems existential frustration often plays a large role” (pp. 102-103).
My understanding of noogenic neuroses is that they can develop because a person cannot find any significant meaning to anchor their life. For example, imagine a person living in a totally secular society that denies the existence of anything spiritual and presents in various ways a view of life that a person finds unchallenging and even absurd. Frankl is suggesting that such a view could cause a person to be neurotic, and that is what Frankl would label “noogenic neurosis.”
As regular readers of this column probably know, I disagree almost entirely with a total secular interpretation of reality. What I have learned from Frankl is that a totally secular vision of human existence is not only philosophically false but can actually cause emotional illness. Frankl discovered while a prisoner in a concentration camp during the Second World War that the prisoners who died in a camp had no reason to live, while those who survived had some reason, some hope that enabled them to survive. This observation ultimately led Frankl to develop what he called logotherapy, a therapy that aims to help patients discover a meaning that will help them grow and develop as persons. Logotherapy looks to the future rather than to the past.
I agree completely with Frankl’s view of love. He wrote the following:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By the spiritual act of love, he is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person, and even more, he sees that which is potential in him; which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize those potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true” (p. 113-114).
I have come to believe that to teach people, you must love them. With both the therapist and the teacher, Frankl and I are not referring to romantic love. Perhaps, without further discussing the relationships between therapists and patients, and teachers and students, we can substitute the word “care” for “love” to be clearer about the beneficial influence therapists and teachers can have on those they serve.
In my philosophy classes, I stress that a person’s philosophy should be personal. Rather than merely an academic subject they are studying, philosophy should encompass what is most important to the person. A person’s philosophy should be almost identical to the person. I stress that a person’s philosophy should direct their most important free choices.
I hope that reading and discussing Frankl’s book has helped my students direct their free acts in a positive direction.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.