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9 - Phoenix Forever

Viktor Frankl and the Origin of Logotherapy

from Part I - Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2020

Keh-Ming Lin
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Keh-Ming Lin
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

Best known for his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl was a prodigy who became interested in psychotherapy in his high-school years. He was briefly associated with Freud’s and Adler’s groups, but soon departed from both to develop his own treatment methods. During World War II he was incarcerated in various concentration camps, and narrowly escaped death in Auschwitz, only to face the reality that practically all of his family members had perished and he was utterly alone in the world. Writing about his Holocaust experiences saved him from despair and suicide, and helped him to develop a method of therapy based on man’s “will to meaning,” which he called “logotherapy.” Frankl’s insight on the primacy and indispensability of meaning and meaning-making in life has had profound influences on subsequent developments in existential-humanistic psychotherapy, as well as on understanding mental health issues in refugees and survivors of traumatic life experiences. The chapter ends with discussions on the importance of finding meaning in work, creativity, spiritual merging, and love, as well as in suffering (transcendental meaning).

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Chapter
Information
Wounded Healers
Tribulations and Triumphs of Pioneering Psychotherapists
, pp. 123 - 136
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Phoenix Forever
  • Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Translated by Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Wounded Healers
  • Online publication: 17 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108801164.010
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Phoenix Forever
  • Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Translated by Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Wounded Healers
  • Online publication: 17 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108801164.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Phoenix Forever
  • Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Translated by Keh-Ming Lin, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Wounded Healers
  • Online publication: 17 December 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108801164.010
Available formats
×