Victor Frankel (1908-1997)

Man’s Search for Meaning Holocaust survivor (Man’s Search for

Meaning) 4 levels to human beings: 1. somatic (the body) 2. psychic (all the things Freud

talked about, 3. spiritual (missing from Freud: the

Heart of human being) 4. religious (sometimes thinks part

of spiritual, sometimes something else)

Frankel continued

Concerned with the meaning of human activity

what makes us human is meaningful human activity

talks of 3 things: 1. existence 2. spirituality 3. will to meaning spirituality: not necessarily religious but

something to be achieved

Frankel continued

Believed one’s Spirituality manifests itself in two ways:

1) freedom: only possible in the “face of things”: instincts, inherited disposition, influence of the environment;

How do you know you are free?: the ability to make a stand against the 3 things: existence, spirituality, will to meaning

2) responsibility: my responsibility is ultimately about one’s life;

Realize only I can die my death; only I can live my life

Morality as Search for Meaning

What is morality? The search for meaning This is adulthood: a self that is owned for anything to be moral it has to be done

in freedom and responsibility essence of the human is moral Essence of human is spiritual

The Tragic Triangle

Suffering, guilt, death It is here where we most need to find

meaning It is here where the most important

meanings are found Where we face ourselves most clearly,

where our existence is most at stake

Meaning of Adulthood?

*if freedom and responsibility are at the heart of the human, it is a good description of adulthood

if not being adult, not being fully human -spirituality is really something that is adult:

they go together: is coming from the self -meaning found in the existential analysis; he is

putting religion in context of existential analysis; religion is part of the spiritual

-you can only be religious if you are free to choose

-contrasted w/Freud who saw religion as infantile and neurotic

Religious Meaning?

Gets its clearest expression in light of our suffering, guilt, and death

-Here also is the heart of the human -It is in the religious that the most tragic

part of our humanity is given meaning -religion and the existential analysis:

everything with Frankel has to do w/meaning

Religion as Meaning Maker

if religion understood primarily in terms of meaning: ultimate meaning of one’s life, (supra-meaning) suggests an abundance of meaning to be found in all things, especially one’s suffering

Meaning that suffering takes in context of supra-meaning: is never purely rational or logical, but intuitive, more-than-rational

The Unconscious God and Repressed Religio

Why do so many people not grasp supra-meaning?

-Frankel’s explanation: we are unconsciously religious

-Conversionary experience? Understood in terms of the unconscious being made conscious

-says we have repressed religio -why does religio remain unconscious and

repressed? -afraid others will interpret it away

Religious Blocks to Mature Meaning Making

-1) authoritarianism: authority on who God is, what He expects, what we believe, how to experience God

-2) rationalism: illusion that God can be grasped by intellect alone: meaning without an existential meaning

-3) Anthropomorphism: God commonly imagined in human terms: can be angry, vengeful, perfectionist, depressed: all our negative characteristics

-these keep religion repressed, and prevent religious experience from happening

-still, we want, even need these three things: a creative tension needs to be maintained

Logotherapy and Religion

Logotherapy: therapy of meaning what does it do? Leads and challenges person

to accept their freedom and responsibility to take a stand; to be responsible for this life challenges the person to find the value and

meaning of their life *Education towards freedom and

responsibility is education for adulthood