A Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning
One Sentence Summary
Human existence is the deeply personal pursuit of meaning through action and responsibility.
One Paragraph Summary
The depth of our unconsciousness is the centre of our human existence. Consciousness stems from this centre and is a means to find meaning through action and responsibilities that transcend any comprehension. The relationship between the unconscious and conscious is profoundly personal, and hence meaning cannot be inflicted externally but must be found. Pursuing meaning must be an endeavour directed at something beyond the being themselves. It is only then that true value and fulfilment will emerge.
Rehumanising Psychotherapy
Viktor Frankl has a uniquely religious and inherently human perspective on consciousness and the meaning of life. Likely influenced in large parts by spending three years in concentration camps during the height of World War Two.
The Adlerian School of Psychology is a practice based on encouragement. The role of the psychotherapist is to encourage the patient to overcome their inferiority feelings. Similarly, the Freudian psychoanalyst takes an objective approach to the practice. It is a reductionist approach that considers values as nothing more than a reaction formation and a defence mechanism.
The Freudian School of Psychology was developed by Freud who, unsurprisingly, saw the unconscious as an instinct rather than a spirit. We will see that Viktor Frankl adopts the view that the unconscious also holds a spiritual component. In particular, the Freudian approach to psychology treats man as being ruled and governed by a homeostatic principle, that is a principle that is reactionary and externally driven.
Viktor Frankl argues that this has led to an objectification of neurotic patients. Leading to the proliferation of the neurotic triad, namely depression, addiction and aggression. According to Frankl this engineering approach that treats man as a machine is detrimental. Frankl supports this with various studies showing the increased prevalence of existential vacuum and nöogenic neurosis. The former is a sense of meaninglessness and emptiness, and the latter is a frustration for the lack of will for meaning.
Frankl is deeply troubled by these studies for he holds the view that human existence is a deeply personal pursuit for meaning. Frankl supports these views by citing a study that shows the feeling of existential vacuum and nöogenic neurosis are particularly prominent among suicide attempters. Moreover, the studies highlight that apart from these neuroses, the suicide attempters were largely successful in other parts of life, such as their education, career and finances.
Frankl dismisses the Freudian approach to psychiatry with the following prompting questions.
If meaning and values are nothing but a defence mechanism, then is life worth living?
If a man is just seeking pleasure by getting rid of tensions caused by his needs, then why worry?
If a man is a victim of outer and inner influences, and his behaviours are nothing but reflexes, then who is justified in demanding that man improve?
Therefore, with "Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning", Frankl argues that we should start humanizing psychiatry - the deneuroticisation of humanity requires the rehumanisation of psychotherapy. To do so, Frankl proposes Logotherapy which is the education of the individual on their responsibility. It leaves it to the patient to decide what is meaningful to them, rather than trying to force them down a particular path. More specifically, it focuses the patient on discovering their will to meaning, how to identify the meaning in suffering, and instilling a freedom of will.
Human Existence and Consciousness
Frankl's logotherapy conducts an existential analysis, which is where a human is interpreted as being responsible. Specifically, man has to answer to life by answering life, that is responding by being responsible. Man can only exist authentically when he is not driven but responsible. This existence is rooted in the unconscious depths of man, where there is a contention between existence and spiritual facticity. This contrasts the Freudian perspective that only identifies the existence facticity. The existence of man being embedded in the unconscious necessarily means that man cannot reflect, but must rather act. It is only through action that man can reveal the motivations of the unconscious. The more comprehensive a man's meaning becomes, the less comprehensible it becomes. Moreover, the determination of what experiences become conscious or remain unconscious is itself unconscious. In this sense consciousness is irrational, and it is inscrutable. This alludes to a transcendental component of existence, which Frankl will later elaborate on by identifying the theological components of our existence.
Frankl specifies this peculiarity of the mind by describing what is disclosed to consciousness as something that is, and describing what is revealed as something that ought to be. Consequently, consciousness can be attributed with an intuition for it anticipates what is not yet but is to be. Frankl suggests that this instinct comes in different forms. The vital instinct is disclosing what is required, whereas the ethical instinct enables man to discover their unique requirement of a situation. Frankl personifies the ethical instinct by comparing it to love. The feeling of love discloses a solution that is personal to the man's relationship with another being. Attempting to manipulate these primal instincts is detrimental to the creative process. Encouraging de-reflection helps liberate the creative process. The role of the therapist should help the patient convert unconscious potential into conscious action, which is then stored back in the unconscious as a habit. This process encourages the ethical instinct to instantiate a unique and liberating solution to an individual’s inhibitions.
Man most readily observes their spiritual unconsciousness through dreams. Dreams are an expression of the spiritual unconscious.
Freedom has a "from what" and a "to what" aspect. In Frankl's perspective, the "from what" is a being's drive, whereas the "to what" is the being responsibility, which is his consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is a willingness for freedom from a transcendent origin. To understand being free the existential quality of human reality is sufficient. However, to understand being responsible requires the transcendent quality of consciousness. It is in this vein that the irreligious man is limited. He treats consciousness as a psychological facticity. He goes no further, so as to not lose the firm ground underneath his feet. From his perspective consciousness is the "to what" he is responsible, whereas the religious know it is the penultimate step with the ultimate summit behind its fog. It is necessary to appeal to the religions to notice the transcendental and obscurity of consciousness, such that one can traverse to the ultimate summit. It is a hazardous endeavour for which religion acts as a comforting guide. In turn, despite the self having the function of acting on drives and instincts, the self cannot be traced back to any of them since they are motivated behind the façade of consciousness.
Having understood the religious components of the conscious, Frankl then goes onto to investigate unconscious religiousness, which he identifies as the latent relation of man to the transcendent. That is the relationship between the immanent self and the transcendent being. Frankl describes this hidden relation as directed to an unconscious God. Despite this description, Frankl notes that he is not attributing a divinity to the unconscious self. What Frankl is trying to make clear is that no knowledge can come to know itself without rising above itself. Moreover, man's religiousness is profoundly personal.
In linking religiousness to the unconscious, it is necessarily the case, in Frankl's perspective, that genuine religiousness has the character of deciding rather than being driven. The spiritual unconscious is an existential agent rather than an instinctual factor. It stems from a personal centre, and thus if repressed or manipulated the internal angel with turn demonic. Furthermore, due to the inherent obscurity of the unconscious, the religiousness of an individual must unfold in its own time. Indeed, since the process of unconscious material becoming conscious has a therapeutic effect, it follows that the unfolding of religiousness in man provides man with psychotherapy. Frankl argues that this unfolding provides the most psychotherapy man can imagine, however, he notes that religiousness demands more of him. The main psychotherapeutic aspect of the unfolding of religiousness is the dignification of man, which in turn leads to his freedom. Here Frankl uses the term dignity as appreciating the value of something in itself rather than its personal value.
With this perspective of existence and consciousness Frankl arrives at the following conclusions.
Consciousness is a human achievement that other animals do not possess. Animals do not fulfil drives and instincts in search of meaning, and thus they cannot experience consciousness. Frankl describes the behaviour of animals as anticipatory anxiety. They are responding to the changing environment instinctually rather than spiritually.
Man is concerned with gratifying needs and satisfying drives and instincts. Man's existence is directed to something or someone other than themselves. In particular, the more he forgets himself the more human he becomes. Man does not seek pleasure, instead, pleasure is the side effect of living out the transcendence.
Lack of meaning and purpose foreshadows emotional maladjustment. Thus Frankl can explain the rise in the feeling of existential vacuum in modern society by observing how our societies have changed over time. In particular, in the modern era, man is no longer told what he must do by his drives and instincts. Moreover, man is no longer guided on what he should be through tradition and values.
Since achieving meaning and fulfilment is necessary for existence, it follows that goodness can be defined as that which fosters meaning and the fulfilment of a being. Consciousness is the means to discover meaning. Due to its inscrutability, we cannot be certain of its correctness, however, all man can do is stick to it. It is only in this way man resists the existential vacuum.
Frankl then discusses the meaning present in suffering and the importance of identifying this meaning. Suffering without meaning is despair and the acceptance of unnecessary suffering is masochism. In the unavoidable suffering, however, there is meaning
Human existence, and thus survival, is dependent on having a direction toward meaning. For mankind, there is hope when we are united by a common will to a common meaning.
Wisdom is knowledge and the knowledge of its limits.