A lot of
hedonistic pleasures, success, appearance or material goods
don’t make one happy. Rather, the discovery of personal
perspective leads to a successful and fulfilled life! To have a
perspective in life is a healing power and helps you get through
all the hard times.
Many
people today have the feeling that they aren’t really alive –
that they have lost their sense of perspective.
They have little energy, drive and vivacity. Many have the
feeling that they’re alienated from themselves. They want to
lead a more authentic life. Many people are disoriented and are
looking for sign posts and goals for their life paths.
A
successful 45-year-old manager drew a life-assessment. He had to
admit that despite all of his successes, he had led an empty
life. His own relationships were superficial - he was a lonely
man. That had led him into a serious depression.
One
17-year-old wrote about his parents: A fat bank account, two
cars, a house in the country and a yacht...My father has climbed
the ladder of success and realised that it doesn’t lead anywhere
– he just has to keep climbing. Now he has got scared. He has
been suffering from depressions and is feeling his age. At the
peak of his success, he is just a broken, spent
man....(according to Peter Hahne).
There
are barriers that stand in the way of developing a meaningful
life.
Many
people have problems with their relationships today. Others feel
that their work is too hard or too easy and they want to quit.
Inner resignation is a big problem for many in their
relationships or at work.
Illness
or strokes of fate can happen unexpectedly. Sometimes we don’t
have enough courage, we resign inwardly or anxieties and
other personal difficulties arise. It’s the aim of counselling
in logotherapy to work through these difficulties with the
clients and to develop new capacities and a meaningful life
perspective.
Values
and their role in a happy life
It is
important for the solution to life problems and crises that
people discover new personal goals and values. Material assets
such as a house, a car, money or nice clothes are falsely
considered to be values. However, spiritual values are more
important for emotional happiness and health. Valuable
experiences can include enjoying nature, a piece of music, or
also enjoying being together with another person. Culture,
personal growth and creativity are also values, as are
dedication towards the happiness of one’s children or working to
improve other people’s welfare. The family – one’s own children
and spouse – is the highest value for most people. If people
identify with these values, they have healing sensory
experiences, feelings of energy and vitality. Values coming from
deeper commitments lift one spiritually and provide protection
against emotional burdens and crises. A personal life-task is a
value that has great impact on self-respect and emotional
health. Many clients aren’t aware in the beginning that a
successful life often depends on sustainable values.
In many cases of depression and suicidal
tendencies sustainable values and life goals are positively
life-saving!
Case:
A 35-year-old mother of
three children found herself in a marital crisis because her
husband was unfaithful. The marriage broke up after gruelling
years. This woman moved to another city to a small apartment and
had neither money nor work nor friends. As she saw no
perspective in life, she became more and more depressed. She
started living together with another divorced woman – slowly but
surely the atmosphere improved: both women discovered the value
of friendship and spending time together. They could laugh and
talk about their feelings together more and more. Due to her
marital crisis, this mother had paid little attention to her
three children’s needs and worries. She hadn’t really felt how
important her children were because of the many conflicts with
her partner. Now that her circumstances were improving, she
became increasingly aware of the value of her children.
Henceforth, she recognised that her teenage children’s happiness
continued to be very important to her. The children needed her
understanding support as their relationship to their father was
disturbed. The rediscovery of her children as her highest value
and life-task gave her renewed energy. Finally, she was employed
half days and was able to start studying, something she had been
yearning for. Her life took a positive turn with new people, new
goals, values and perspective. (Logotherapists and
psychotherapists can assist and support such developments!)
What
image of man does logotherapy portray?
Logotherapy recognises that the body and the psyche define human
feeling and thinking. In the physical-emotional area we
experience desire or reluctance. In the midst of crises, people
experience fear, aggression, conflicts, pain and sadness on this
level.
Yet
logotherapy has discovered self-healing capacities that
are available to us in our spiritual dimension, even in
our most difficult life circumstances.
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In the process of counselling and
therapy, clients recognise more and more the meaning
of this spiritual dimension and find more access to
the means in their spiritual “medicine chest”:
They discover their values,
their courage, their creativity, their love, their
hope, their liberation, their belief and their
meaning.
The approach to counselling in
logotherapy leads to new, meaningful healing
experiences. Therapists can’t prescribe meaning as
we would a drug. We can, however, accompany a client
in their search for individual meaning.
Counselling in
logotherapy has succeeded when a client is able to
discover new life goals and values and actually live
them in his/her daily life – a new sense of meaning
should also have been established.
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The spiritual dimension – liberation
The spiritual
dimension means liberation for every person. Thanks
to this spiritual capacity, we aren’t fully at the
mercy of our destiny, problems and worries. That’s
why some people are able to write poems and be
creative even if they are very ill. Other people
aren’t discouraged by physical disabilities – they
defy their destinies and even take part in the
Olympics! There are many examples in which people,
despite difficult life circumstances, don’t lose
their positive, life-affirming attitudes and thus
save their capacities to liberate themselves. |
Logotherapy
also offers help in dealing with unalterable pain
and destiny as can no other life training. In
his diagnosis of our society, the popular television
announcer Peter Hahne says: “No-one talks about how
one deals with defeat. That doesn’t fit in with our
“fun” culture. Failure is one of the huge taboo
topics in our highly polished society.”
In contrast,
the doctor and philosopher Viktor E. Frankl
considers pain to be a challenge that can lead each
single person to his/her utmost inner maturity.
Frankl says also: “Pain makes a person clear-sighted
and the world transparent.” According to Peter Hahn,
pain and destiny lead to “exposure of this world as
a fleeting illusion. Even the utmost happiness, the
best of health and the highest rung on the ladder of
success have to end sometime.” Logotherapists
therefore value fulfilment, or a fulfilled life that
is possible for every person more than they do
success. |
Every
person has talents, even if they are not yet discovered. Every
person can have a life-task even if it hasn’t yet been
recognised. Every person has their own distinct value and
meaning. Especially also the inefficient, helpless and
physically disabled have their own value, meaning and
worthiness. Logotherapy is about uncovering a person’s hidden
value and making this clear to the one seeking advice. Then a
new, meaningful and healing life comes about. Already the search
for one’s hidden values is meaningful and awakens hope!
The
loss of values – above all in connection with the loss of
a beloved person – is very distressing and brings much
suffering. Logo-therapists offer support in working through such
losses emotionally. When the patient loses someone, much
assistance in grieving must be provided. Feelings of inner
emptiness and hopelessness have to be processed. This is only
possible if the person mourning recognises that he/she has
meaning, even if this meaning is well-hidden. In the “search”
for hidden values, hidden life-tasks and a new meaning in life,
the logo-therapist serves as an assistant and helper. There are
many examples of how people in serious crises were able to
regain hope to be found in specialised literature pertaining to
logotherapy.
Logotherapy recognises religious values and the religious
dimension.
Every person possesses, even if unconsciously, a deep need for
religious connection. Healing powers, especially in times of
difficult life crises, can be released by means of practising a
religion. “If spirituality were a medicine, it would have been
accredited long ago because it is effective,” concludes Ellis
Huber, former President of the Berlin Medical Association.
Despite this, logotherapy is not a specific teaching of religion
or a substitute for religion. It is a scientifically based
life-training and psychotherapy and allows each individual
person to go his/her own path even in the area of religion.
Logotherapists accompany people on their paths and during their
search for successful lives. But what is a successful life?
Ultimately, it is the fulfilled desire to find a place to
belong. A person has desires in terms of: “I’m recognised here”,
“this is my place”, “this is where I’m needed”, “this is where
I’m secure”. In addition, there is also a desire for a very last
affiliation and feeling of security, a last foothold and meaning
in the source of life, in a love that can’t disappoint us. This
source of life can only be found by the religious person.
What does
integrative logotherapy mean? In our daily work, we refer to the
great treasure of knowledge of the humanities, especially
clinical psychology, developmental psychology, education, and
the experiences of other therapy concepts: especially depth
psychology (A. Adler, C. G. Jung, V. Kast),
depth-psychological-ecological couples therapy (J. Willi),
client centred therapy (C. Rogers) and cognitive behaviour
therapy.
The perspective and life
philosophy of an integrated logotherapy can be expressed in the
following sentence: The basis of
life is meaning. The basis of the personality is self-esteem.
(according to Boglarka Hadinger, logotherapist).
Logotherapists work in many dimensions. They work in the
spiritual dimension: this is the area in which all people
question the meaning of life. They have to find an answer if
they want to evade resignation and doubt. Logotherapists also
work in the psychosocial dimension, in which self-esteem is a
central factor. It is the basis for a healthy, satisfied
personality and for successful social relationships.
© Dipl.-Päd. Jürgen Bendszus 2010
All rights reserved. This site is for
information and support only and not a substitute for
professional diagnosis and treatment.
Titel of the original German
text:
Lebenskrisen
bewältigen durch Sinnerfahrung und Logotherapie
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