Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) founded the psychological school known as "Logotherapy," the Third School of Viennese Psychiatry, after Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Instead of teaching that the human person's frustration was rooted primarily in a sexual problem or behavioral conditioning, Frankl taught that human beings are frustrated by a lack of meaning in their lives. The primary motivational force of a human being is his/her search for meaning. Hence, logotherapy teaches that there are three basic or general ways in which a human being can find meaning in his or her life. Frankl says,

"As early as 1929 I developed the concept of three groups of values, or three possibilities to find meaning in life - even up to the last moment, the last breath. These three possibilities are: 1) a deed we do, a work we create; 2) an experience, a human encounter, a love; and 3) when confronted with an unchangeable fate (such as an incurable disease), a change of attitude toward that fate. In such cases we still can wrest meaning from life by giving testimony to the most human of all human capacities: the ability to turn suffering into a human triumph."1

The three general ways may be called "creative" meaning, "experiential" meaning and "attitudinal" meaning or values. Creative refers to finding meaning in what one does, such as a job or helping others in some kind of volunteer service. Experiential refers to something good that a person enjoys, such as observing beautiful works of art or listening to music, or, even more importantly, a human encounter, that is, loving another human being and/or being loved by another human being. Attitudinal refers to a person's stance or view he or she adopts toward suffering. In other words, "What kind of attitude will I have toward this situation?" "Will it make me a bitter or better person?" It may be physical suffering (whatever form it may take, whether it be chronic or terminal illness) mental suffering, a loss of a job, house, a loss of a loved-one, coping with a situation or condition that cannot be changed.2

Frankl survived the Holocaust, having been in four Nazi concentration camps, most notably Auschwitz and Dachau, from 1942 to 1945. He lost his entire family, except for his sister. His wife, father, mother and brother died either in the camps or gas ovens. Frankl was not only a witness to but a victim of the most barbaric human cruelties. It was partly because of his physical and emotional suffering that he founded the school of logotherapy.

In the book Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl tells his story of life in the concentration camps and then ends with an introduction to logotherapy. He explains why he wrote the book:

"I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of a concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair."3

What does logotherapy mean? It is derived from three Greek words, the first of which is logos. It has several different meanings, depending on the context in which the word is used. Its general meaning is "a word, a saying, a statement; reason, the mental faculty of thinking, calculation."4 The second word is therapeuo, meaning "to serve, do service; to heal, cure, restore to health."5 The third is therapeia (which is from therapeuo), meaning "service, rendered by any one to another;"6 specifically, "medical service, curing, healing...."7 Frankl says,

"Let me explain why I have employed the term 'logotherapy' as the name for my theory. Logos is a Greek word that denotes 'meaning'! Logo-therapy or, as it has been called by some authors, 'The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy,' focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, the striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man."8

Frankl calls logotherapy "...therapy through meaning" or "healing through meaning...."9 He says, "Truly, there is a healing force in meaning."10 Logotherapy, then, is finding healing through finding meaning.

Logotherapy, according to Frankl, is "...an essentially secular approach" to psychotherapy.11 It is "...available for every patient and usable in the hands of every doctor, whether his Weltanschauung (world view) is theistic or agnostic."12 In short, simply because a person is a human being, he or she may benefit from logotherapy.


1Viktor E. Frankl, Viktor Frankl Recollections: An Autobiography, trans. Joseph and Judith Fabry (Reading, MA.: Perseus Books, 1997), p. 64.
2----------, Man's Search for Meaning (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster/ Pocket Books, 1963), pp.176-183.
3----------, Man's Search for Meaning, 3rd ed. (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 12.
4Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 4 th ed. (Milford, MI.: Mott Media, 1901, 1977, reprinted 1982), pp. 380-381.
5Ibid., p. 288.
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1963 ed., op. cit., pp. 153-154. Italics are the publisher's.
9----------, The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism, rev. ed. (New York, N.Y.: Washington Square Press, 1978, Washington Square Press ed. 1985), p. 19.
10Ibid., p. 22.
11----------, Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967), p. 56, footnote 4.
12----------, The Will of Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy (New York, N.Y.: New American Library, 1969), p. 143. The parenthetical comment is mine.