Life’s meaning is different for each of us
Logotherapy hands patients the awareness of their role in defining their existence. A logotherapist must help the patient see their life more clearly.
A patient can find meaning in one of three ways:
- Performing an action that distracts them from the pain and makes them feel fulfilled
- Experiencing something meaningful/interacting with someone whose company they enjoy
- Developing a positive attitude toward unavoidable suffering
A patient can find meaning when acting on or experiencing culture and nature or interacting with someone by loving them.
Love is the ONE way to encounter another person’s core and know their true being. It makes it possible to see a person’s traits and potential and help them unleash them. In logotherapy, love isn’t merely sex but the primary instinct from which the desire to have sex is born, and, as such, sex is merely one of the many ways of expressing love.
⚡️Love encourages full disclosure. If you wish to find meaning in your life, love yourself first.
The third way of finding meaning is to suffer. Suffering in itself is a form of life and, as such, has its meaning. One can seek meaning from this state, but suffering IS NOT necessary for meaning.
Is there an ultimate meaning then? Yes, logotherapy seeks to identify this one “super-meaning,” regardless of the person’s religious standpoint, not by trying to draw it from the patient’s belief system but rather by giving them meaning within their belief system that ultimately explains their lives.
Thank you so much for bringing all of these phenomenal lessons to life for me! It’s beyond incredible that we were able to get this once-in-a-lifetime study of sorts from a true psychoanalyst through one of the most tragic events in human history, proving a peak at what there was to be GAINED from all of it. Love the blog Ben!