VICTOR FRANKL
EXISTENTIAL THEORY
(1905-1997)
,Background
• Worked as professor of Neurology an psychiatry in Vienna
• Contemplated the meaning and purpose of human existence
• Opposed ideas that humans are mere mechanisms or animals
• Was a student of Freud and Adler
• He believed that as human being we are primarily motivated by a will to meaning
• Own school of thought called logo therapy, known as the third Viennese school of psychotherapy
• Jewish prisoner in several Nazi camps(having something to live for was what enable prisoners
hold on to the will to live)
• Transcendental vision of being encompasses a great deal more than Maslow’s theory of se
actualisation
• Unusually positive perspective, believed in indestructible significance of life
• Death is the boundary which makes life a unique, unrepeatable opportunity, life is given to us so th
we can find meaning, even in suffering
,View of the person underlying the theory
• We have been given freedom to be • Freedom to be responsible
able to exercise responsibility,
• Level of being beyond animal
• To live life beyond mere animal existence
existence,
• Trans human Dimension
• To live on a dimension of meaning in
releasing timeless values as these • Highly personalized way of being
emanate from a divine Trans human (personally accountable)
dimension,
• To live highly personalized lives as we
(uniquely) embrace the opportunities
and fulfil the tasks that life presents
to each one of us
, Freedom to be responsible
• Person is not merely a highly developed animal shaped by the forces of heredi
and the environment but the human person is primarily a spiritual being – a bein
that has freedom and responsibility
• We are also not compelled to behave in any particular way, we can say YES or NO
• Because of this freedom to make choices we cannot ascribe our behaviour t
conditioning or drives, but must take responsibility for making those choices an
taking responsibility = noögenic dimension = makes us human
EXISTENTIAL THEORY
(1905-1997)
,Background
• Worked as professor of Neurology an psychiatry in Vienna
• Contemplated the meaning and purpose of human existence
• Opposed ideas that humans are mere mechanisms or animals
• Was a student of Freud and Adler
• He believed that as human being we are primarily motivated by a will to meaning
• Own school of thought called logo therapy, known as the third Viennese school of psychotherapy
• Jewish prisoner in several Nazi camps(having something to live for was what enable prisoners
hold on to the will to live)
• Transcendental vision of being encompasses a great deal more than Maslow’s theory of se
actualisation
• Unusually positive perspective, believed in indestructible significance of life
• Death is the boundary which makes life a unique, unrepeatable opportunity, life is given to us so th
we can find meaning, even in suffering
,View of the person underlying the theory
• We have been given freedom to be • Freedom to be responsible
able to exercise responsibility,
• Level of being beyond animal
• To live life beyond mere animal existence
existence,
• Trans human Dimension
• To live on a dimension of meaning in
releasing timeless values as these • Highly personalized way of being
emanate from a divine Trans human (personally accountable)
dimension,
• To live highly personalized lives as we
(uniquely) embrace the opportunities
and fulfil the tasks that life presents
to each one of us
, Freedom to be responsible
• Person is not merely a highly developed animal shaped by the forces of heredi
and the environment but the human person is primarily a spiritual being – a bein
that has freedom and responsibility
• We are also not compelled to behave in any particular way, we can say YES or NO
• Because of this freedom to make choices we cannot ascribe our behaviour t
conditioning or drives, but must take responsibility for making those choices an
taking responsibility = noögenic dimension = makes us human
