Logotherapy (fifth lecture)

Doorways to Meaning

In my previous talks I have been considering some of the main concepts of Victor Frankl's psychological approach which he has called logotherapy.

We have seen that a basic tenet of logotherapy is man's need to find meaning in his life. At the same time Frankl has contended that meaning cannot be given but must be discovered by each person individually.

As Dr. Joseph Fabry, the Director of the Institute of Logotherapy in California, has pointed out in his book "The Pursuit of Meaning," there are circumstances in which we are likely to find meaning, doors to meaning, to use his phrase, which we can open. He has indicated five such doorways and in my remaining talks on logotherapy I propose to refer to each in turn.

Incidentally, I would like to take this opportunity to recommend very strongly to those of you who have become interested in logotherapy to read Dr. Fabry's book. Fortunately it has been translated into Japanese under the title "Imitankyu" and is published by Ushio. Dr. Fabry has a rare gift for clear exposition and he presents the principles of logotherapy in such away that ordinary people can apply them straight away in their everyday life.

Dr. Fabry points out that one of the doors to meaning is self-discovery. Of course, this is no new idea. Over the gateway of the temple at Delphi was the inscription "Know yourself" -- an injunction that is easier said than done!

As Dr. J.A. Hadfield, the English psychotherapist, has pointed out; "most people think they know themselves; in the course of analysis they usually discover that what they think of themselves is rather what they want to be though rather than what they really are. When we remember that what we want to be is ****obviously what we are not, it is not surprising that our characters are often the opposite of what we think them."

"Practically every school of psychology, however much they differ in other respects, would agree that to see ourselves as we really are is an event of profound importance. But it is not an event that should be left to chance. It is now a psychological commonplace that there are strong resistances within ourselves to facing ourselves and the role of the logotherapeutic counsellor is to help and encourage and assist an individual to know himself and to enable him to overcome the resistances to self-knowledge. As Dr. Fabry says, "From childhood on we are prompted to put on masks to please, to hide real or imagined weakness, to protect ourselves from rejection. Often we accept the mask for our true self. A peek under our masks will give us a sense of meaning."

Some wise words o our attitude to ourselves have been uttered by Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman in his book "Peace of Mind." He says: "Most men have a dual rooms. In one room are hung one of the portraits of their virtues, done in bright, splashing, glorious colors, but with o shadows and no balance. In the other room hangs the canvas of self-condemnation painted equally as unrealistically with dark and morbid greens, blacks, and no lights ore relief."

"Instead of keeping these two pictures isolated from one another," the Rabbi says, "we must look at them together and gradually lend them into one. In our exalted moods we are afraid to admit guilt hatred and shame as elements of our goodness and achievement which really are ours."

The Rabbi goes on to say "we must begin to draw a new portrait and accept and know ourselves for what we are."

One of the first thing a logotherapist will do will be to invite the individual to sit down quietly and put down the things he likes and the things he does not like about himself -- a simple process but how may of us ever do it? Small wonder we know so little about ourselves. Dr. Fabry emphasizes that this discovery must be ours. We must say to ourselves "Yes, that's the way I am. That's how I feel, think, react; these are my strong points, these are my shortcomings; this is what I like about myself, and this is what I'd like to change."

Knowing yourself as you are is only the first step, however. You need not only to know yourself about to become yourself. Dr. Fabry declares "Theere is no such person as you are," only you as you are becoming. Meaning will come through constant striving toward a new self that is closer to your potentials than your present self. Moreover, while you are the centrepiece of your world, you are the centrepiece only in the sense that your self-centredness includes others and meaning will come through constant attempt to interrelate with others."

This approach lifts us out of the feeling that we are what we are and nothing can be done about it.

"There is no such person as you are, only you as becoming, but what you are becoming depends on you, on your decision, on your choice."

What is man? Asks Frankl and he replies. "He is a being who continually decides what he is."

Martin Buber takes fundamentally the same view. Man is the only being with a potentiality, he says. The essence of all other beings unfolds with a natural and automatic certainty. Acorns produce oak trees. But a man may develop into a vicious cunning predator or into a sensitive, loving person.

However, there is an objective potentiality that the individual has within him to become, a potentiality which may or may not be realised but which, as Buber puts it, is his to realise. Man's earthly tasks, he says, is to realise his created uniqueness.

This brings me to another doorway to meaning which Dr. Fabry mentions and which is closely linked with the doorway of self-discovery and that is what he calls uniqueness. He points out that when we feel replaceable -- in job or relationship -- life seems meaninglessness. We may feel replaceable as a worker, voter, consumer, even a spouse or parents, but there are areas where we are unique. Creative activities and human relationships are the two areas where our uniqueness is most obvious and meaning is most accessible. "Only we relate to our offspring, a spouse or a friend in the way we do," says Dr. Fabry. "Only we make a poem, a painting, a collage in exactly the manner we create it. Here we are irreplaceable."

Dr. Fabry points out how love can flood a life, one that had been empty, with meaning. "An affirmation of love is declaration of uniqueness," he says. "The lovers see each other in their uniqueness, not only as they are but as they still can become. They see potentials in each other which they help each other to approach."

Dr.Fabry know whereof he speaks. In a moving passage I his book he says: "I arrived in New York a penniless refugee, jobless at the tail end of the depression, an ex-attorney with knowledge of laws no longer existing even in my own country, a writer without a language. I met a woman who did care what I had believed in me. She did not tell me this; she acted upon it by marrying me."

Discovering yourself, finding out what you like and what you dislike about yourself, realising that you do not have to remain as you are, that indeed there is really no such person as you as you are but only you as you are becoming, and that what you become depends on you for you are man, the being who continually decides what he is -- All this process can be a doorway finding meaning.

Closely related to this process is the discovery of our own uniqueness, our own objective potentiality, in the areas of personal relationship and creative activity, in the circumstances I which we know and realise that we are irreplaceable. As Dr. Fabry says, "every time you perceive yourself as you really are, meaning will shine forth."

Today we have considered two of the doorways of meaning that are open to us -- self-discovery and uniqueness.

Dr. Fabry has indicated three others -- choice, responsibility and self- transcendence. But the consideration of these I must leave to next time.