times even the somatogenic (pseudo-)
neuroses. Viewed in this light, a statement
once made by Magda B. Arnold is justified:
"Every therapy must in some way, no matter
how restricted, also be logotherapy."
2
Let us now consider what we can do if a
patient asks what the meaning of his life is.
THE MEANING OF LIFE
I doubt whether a doctor can answer
this question in general terms. For the
meaning of life differs from man to man,
from day to day and from hour to hour.
What matters, therefore, is not the
meaning of life in general but rather the
specific meaning of a person's life at a
given moment. To put the question in
general terms would be comparable to the
question posed to a chess champion: "Tell
me, Master, what is the best move in the
world?" There simply is no such thing as
the best or even a good move apart from a
particular situation in a game and the
particular personality of one's opponent.
The same holds for human existence. One
should not search for an abstract meaning of
life. Everyone has his own specific vocation
or mission in life to carry out a concrete
assignment which demands fulfillment.
Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his
life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as
unique as is his specific opportunity to
implement it.
As each situation in life represents a
challenge to man and presents a problem for
him to solve, the question of the meaning of
life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man
should not ask what the meaning of his life
is, but rather he must recognize that it is he
who is asked. In a word, each man is
questioned by life; and he can only answer to
life by answering for his own life; to life he
can only respond by
2 Magda B. Arnold and John A. Gasson, The
Human Person, Ronald
Press, New York, 1954, p. 618.
114 Man's Search for Meaning
Logotherapy in a Nutshell
115
being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in
responsibleness the very essence of human
existence.
THE ESSENCE OF EXISTENCE
This emphasis on responsibleness is
reflected in the categorical imperative of
logotherapy, which is: "Live as if you were
living already for the second time and as if
you had acted the first time as wrongly as you
are about to act now!" It seems to me that
there is nothing which would stimulate a
man's sense of responsibleness more than
this maxim, which invites him to imagine
first that the present is past and, second,
that the past may yet be changed and
amended. Such a precept confronts him with
life's finiteness as well as the finality of what
he makes out of both his life and himself.
Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully
aware of his own responsibleness; therefore,
it must leave to him the option for what, to
what, or to whom he understands himself to
be responsible. That is why a logotherapist
is the least tempted of all psychotherapists to
impose value judgments on his patients, for
he will never permit the patient to pass to
the doctor the responsibility of judging.
It is, therefore, up to the patient to decide
whether he should interpret his life task as
being responsible to society or to his own
conscience. There are people, however, who
do not interpret their own lives merely in
terms of a task assigned to them but also in
terms of the taskmaster who has assigned it
to them.
Logotherapy is neither teaching nor
preaching. It is as far removed from logical
reasoning as it is from moral exhortation. To
put it figuratively, the role played by a
logotherapist is that of an eye specialist
rather than that of a painter. A painter tries to
convey to us a picture of the world as he sees
it; an ophthalmologist tries to enable us
to see the
world as it really is. The logotherapist's role
consists of widening and broadening the
visual field of the patient so that the whole
spectrum of potential meaning becomes con
scious and visible to him.
By declaring that man is responsible and
must actualize the potential meaning of his
life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of
life is to be discovered in the world rather
than within man or his own psyche, as
though it were a closed system. I have
termed this constitutive characteristic "the
self-transcendence of human existence." It
denotes the fact that being human always
points, and is directed, to something, or
someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning
to fulfill or another human being to
encounter. The more one forgets himself—by
giving himself to a cause to serve or another
person to love—the more human he is and
the more he actualizes himself. What is
called self-actualization is not an attainable
aim at all, for the simple reason that the
more one would strive for it, the more he
would miss it. In other words, self-
actualization is possible only as a side-effect of
self-transcendence.
Thus far we have shown that the meaning
of life always changes, but that it never ceases
to be. According to logotherapy, we can
discover this meaning in life in three different
ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed;
(2) by
experiencing something or
encountering someone; and (3) by the
attitude we take toward unavoidable
suffering. The first, the way of achievement
or accomplishment, is quite obvious. The
second and third need further elaboration.
The second way of finding a meaning in
life is by experiencing something—such as
goodness, truth and beauty
—by
experiencing nature and culture or, last but
not least, by experiencing another human
being in his very uniqueness;—by loving
him.
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