Meaning (existential) - Frankl

Frankl

Logotherapy is a type of psychological analysis that focuses on a will to meaning as opposed to a Nietzschean/Adlerian doctrine of "will to power" or Freud's "will to pleasure." Frankl also noted the barriers to humanity's quest for meaning in life. He warns against "...affluence, hedonism, materialism..." in the search for meaning.

The following list of tenets represents Frankl's basic principles of Logotherapy:

• Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
• Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
• We have inalienable freedom to find meaning.

We can find meaning in life in three different ways:

1. by creating a work or doing a deed;
2. by experiencing something or encountering someone;
3. by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

Logotherapy was developed by psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.