Logotherapy: A Sense of Human Existence
The method of Victor Frankl is based on treating mental illnesses seeking mainly found in the patient, through dialogue, which is what gives meaning to their lives. The word "logos" refers to the sense.
Making a comparison with the psychoanalysis of Freud, this technique is a less introspective and retrospective, as it focuses on the meaning and values that the patient needs to perform in the future. Applying the speech, the patient is facing now focusing on the meaning of his own life, comparing his current feelings and behavior to that effect. Therapy focuses primarily on the case of the neurotic, who seeks to evade, ignore or deny specific missions or tasks of your life, making him aware of the importance of this connection as a basis to overcome their neuroses and enrich your life in every way.
How therapy works
The speech uses in most of the occasions of psychodrama, a drama performed by the patient, where the therapist puts you to think and reflect with questions like: What would you do if life was ended at this time? This drama is guiding the patient to find alternative approaches and, helped by the therapist with questions like: What would change in your life if you had a second chance? The changes that the patient achieves discern during this exploration will help reach the inner self "logos" or true meaning of life.
Its main objective is to lead the person to self-reflection and based on their own responsibility, so that it can discover their sense of individual life.
The technique
Viktor Frankl, founder of this technique for personal development, is a doctor survivor in Nazi concentration camps. His technique is a variation of the psychoanalytic method that attempts to exceed the classical interpretation of the unconscious that feeds on the blind or impulsivity, and placed in proper relationship with the organic life or spiritual life responsibly. Freud believed that neurosis was chained to episodes of impulsivity and therefore repressed therapy was aware back in such repression. This is through a process of medical intervention known as "free association". Hence the classical image of the couch, the patient and the physician. The startling research Frankl discovered that another element of the unconscious: the spiritual. Not only exist within the human consciousness a natural impulse but also a natural spirituality. The cure of many traumas be given by the recognition of such a substrate and the subsequent awareness that is, liability that condition. This doctor for spirituality has nothing to do with a tautological exercise in search of refuge, is a "mode of human existence"
Logotherapy is an instrument for connection to the human bridge between your life and your subconscious way of life. There is nothing more sickening in a human life inconsistent. But this is not a purely discursive inconsistency is therefore a much larger conflict between the conscience and responsibility. These are decisions which result in failure or triumph, and not merely the will as Nietzsche thought. The force of the decisions is the very existence, so that can never be waived. It is then a conscious choice or unconscious decision but in the end. Decision that is dragging us with everything we were, we are, and we. (Excerpt taken from Wikipedia)
The meaning of life is something that is invented or discovered
The search for the meaning of life, according to the speech, is discovering. For every human being, the meaning is a primary intention and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual impulses. The meaning is unique and specific to each human being with only each by itself, and can be found, satisfying sense of their own volition.
Viktor Frankl argues that men should not be questioned about the meaning of life but rather, to understand that life is what interrogates. Patients respond to their own lives. (Summary taken from the book In search of meaning, Victor Frankl, by Francisco Aguirre)
For more information see the book Man in search of meaning , Victor Frankl).