Viktor Frankl was a holocaust survivor and psychiatrist. He developed the practice of Logotherapy which is a type of psychoanalysis focusing on a will to meaning as opposed to Nietzsche’s and Adler’s “will to power” or Freud’s “will to pleasure.” Frankl warned against “…affluence, hedonism, and materialism…” in the search for meaning.
These are the principles of Logotherapy:
- Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
- Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
- We have inalienable freedom to find meaning.
We can find meaning in life in three different ways:
- by creating a work or doing a deed;
- by experiencing something or encountering someone;
- by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.
Viktor Frankl was a creator of meaning because he was a survivor of destruction and meaninglessness. He kept himself busy and then he died.
Frankl may have coined the term Sunday Neurosis which is depression caused by an awareness in some people of the emptiness of their lives once the working week has completed.
And now for something completely Monty Python – The Meaning of Life: The Autumn Years
