TABOR - Tradition and Contemporaneity in the Romanian Orthodox Church
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Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Dynamics


HADRIAN-V. CONŢIU, Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Dynamics
This paper presents a therapeutic method proposed by dr. Viktor E. Frankl, a meaning-centered
psychotherapy called logotherapy - a therapeutic form approaching, through some of its specifi c
features, the theological and spiritual vision of the Fathers (Metropolitan Hierotheos). A major
cause of mental illness is, according to logotherapy, the meaninglessness of life, manifested in the
form of the so called existential vacuum, a disease specifi c to contemporary world where feeling
empty and helpless is a predominant state. Frankl asserts the need for an oversensitive human life,
this argument originating in the limited observation of the world and all of the meanings related to
it. One of the most important aspects of logotherapy is the noodynamics or “ existential dynamic in
a fi eld of polar tension “, according to its author, precisely this (intrinsic) tension between what man
has already done (that which is) and what he would still to have to realize (what he should become),
being the indispensable condition for mental health. Logotherapy is characterized by a message of
optimism and hope, Frankl’s conviction being that, despite all the pain of human life and despite
of all constraints, these can not cancel freedom; it aims for the dignity of human existence, distinguishing
freedom that can not be totally eliminated.
KEYWORDS: psychotherapy, logotherapy, existential dynamic (noodynamics), the will of meaning,
love, mental illness


 

HADRIAN-V CONŢIU