Feeling Meaningless: The Challenge of Psychotherapy and Philosophy
Written by: Dr. Hanan Hassan Mustafa 🇪🇬
- Written by: Viktor Frankl
- Translated by: Arak Shushan
Viktor Frankl, the founder of Logotherapy, begins with a fundamental observation: In the modern age, despite the availability of material comforts and technological advancements, many suffer from an existential emptiness represented by a sense of meaninglessness. This feeling is not related to poverty or a lack of resources, but rather to the neglect of the deepest human needs: the need for purpose, value, and connection to something beyond oneself.
The book brings together research and articles that highlight how philosophy and psychology can collaborate to address this challenge, and how the search for meaning constitutes an essential treatment for modern psychological illnesses such as frustration and alienation.
Main axes
1. The existential crisis in the modern world
Frankl describes what he calls the "existential vacuum": a state of boredom, pointlessness, and loss of purpose.
Reason: Modern societies have focused on material success and consumption and neglected the spiritual and existential dimension.
The result: a person surrounded by all comforts but lacking internal motivation.
2. Meaning therapy as a response
The essence of logotherapy is that the will to meaning is the basic drive of man, more than pleasure (as with Freud) or power (as with Nietzsche and Adler).
The patient must realize that his life, whatever the circumstances, holds the potential for meaning.
Frankl does not impose a ready-made meaning, but rather helps the individual discover it through:
Work and creativity (achieving, serving others).
Values and relationships (love, connection with others).
Attitude towards suffering (the ability to give pain a higher meaning).
3. The role of philosophy in psychotherapy
Frankl believes that psychotherapy is incomplete without a philosophical foundation that supports his conception of man.
Existential philosophy, especially that of Heidegger and Kierkegaard, converges with logotherapy in emphasizing individual freedom and responsibility.
Philosophy helps broaden the patient's horizons from simply adapting to reality to questioning values and purpose.
4. Suffering as a source of meaning
Frankl attaches particular importance to the idea that suffering is not merely an obstacle to be overcome, but can be an area for deeper self-discovery.
He believes that a person cannot always change his circumstances (terminal illness, loss), but he can change his attitude towards them.
Thus, pain becomes a field of freedom: meaning is extracted from the position one takes in the face of what cannot be changed.
Frankl argues that some of the greatest moments of human maturity occur in the heart of suffering, when pain is transformed into a message, or an experience that reveals the highest values of man.
5. Logotherapy and philosophy in constant dialogue
Frankl emphasizes that logotherapy is not just a technique, but a holistic human attitude.
Philosophy should inspire psychotherapy with big questions, and therapy should give philosophy a practical application in confronting the daily suffering of humans.
a summary
Frankl reveals the root of the problem when he links suffering to a loss of purpose. He suggests that true psychotherapy is not limited to correcting behavioral or chemical imbalances, but rather requires confronting the question of existence. Through logotherapy, the patient becomes able to transform even the most difficult situations into an opportunity to discover freedom, responsibility, and meaning.
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