Frankl, many people seek therapy because of the "feeling of the total and ultimate meaningless of their lives," (p. 62). Frankl mainly refers to the "super-meaning" or to the ultimate meaning of life from a general existential or cosmological perspective -- not the personalized meaning in one individual's purpose in life, which is a different question (p. 74). A state of meaninglessness is the inability to move forward and progress through pain, not just in spite of pain and suffering but because of it. Meaningless is a "feeling of emptiness," and an "existential vacuum," (p. 143). Meaninglessness is the inability to learn from suffering, and thereby transform suffering into something that is meaningful. According to Frankl, meaningfulness cannot be located in the propagation of the species because one must find meaning whether or not one procreates. Meaning comes from feeling useful, and feeling useful needs to arise independently of external circumstances, somehow. Of course, it is challenging to find meaning in a life that is both transitory and filled with pain. As a challenge, finding meaning requires energy expenditure and effort. Finding meaning is an active process; meaning is not going to suddenly appear without any effort. Frankl also points out that people who take drugs are reacting to a sense of meaninglessness and that to achieve recovery from addiction or to prevent suicide and mental illness, one must actually search for and find meaning. Depression is essentially the feeling of meaninglessness, it is learned helplessness or learned meaninglessness. Meaningless is when "people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning," and "some do not even have the means," (p. 142).Death camps are obviously one way a person can learn meaninglessness. However, death camps are not the only way a person can learn meaninglessness. People under...
Granted, recovering meaning will be more difficult for people who have lost everything because it will require more effort. Meaninglessness is learned "from a frustration of our existential needs," common in industrial societies (p. 141). People who are unemployed, for example, tend to get depressed because they feel useless, which leads to feeling meaningless. People who are employed in a work that seems to lack meaning can also develop a sense of meaninglessness. People need "something to live for," a feeling that whatever they are doing is useful or meaningful (p. 142).
Maybe he thought because he loved the wilderness so much that the wilderness would love him back and not kill him. He knew there was a chance he could die, but he didn't think it would really happen to him. The book Chris bought that told about wild plants he could eat didn't say anything about the wild potato seeds being poison. Chris had been eating fairly well up to
Frankl and Searle: An Analysis of the Difficulties of Life The meaning of life has been debated by some of the most illustrious minds of the twentieth century. In fact, this particular, complex concept has always been a topic of discussion, as long as man has walked the earth. The dictionary states the life is "the act or process, or a manner of growing; development; gradual increase," but in reality, life is much
Mortality and Life Review For most of us, a sense of impending mortality prompts a need to find closure, conduct a full life review and reconciliation (Clarke, 2007). The reality that death is a natural process -- leading towards an inescapable final destination -- seems implausible at first glance. For a variety of reasons, death has become a taboo subject that no longer represents an accepted progression of life, but something
middle-aged man. The stakes are rather high for this man because he is very depressed and on the verge of suicide. He has lived life in a very altruistic way over the course of his years and his recent struggles have led him to become very despondent. The author of this report is asked to help the man via a course of treatment. The man in question is facing
Knowing this, Strenger points out that therapists need to consider "who can work with whom," because the therapeutic outcome may be greatly affected by the "chemistry" between therapist and client. The egalitarian principle in the therapeutic relationship gets played out further in qualitative studies (such as Gallegos, 2005 and Cohen, 2005) in which client experiences in the mental health system and subjective accounts of symptom relief from psychotherapy are
Role of Spirituality in the Treatment of Depression Over the last thirty years, one of the most interesting paradoxes in the study and treatment of depression has been that increased knowledge about the biomedical and genetic causes of the disease has been coupled with a renewed interest in the effect of religion and spirituality on human mental health and well-being. No matter how religion and spirituality are defined -- and many
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