Victor Frankel (1908-1997)

1. Victor Frankel (1908-1997) • Man’s Search for Meaning • Holocaust survivor (Man’s Search for Meaning) • 4 levels to human beings: • 1. somatic (the body) • 2. psychic (all the things Freud talked about, • 3. spiritual (missing from Freud: the Heart of human being) • 4. religious (sometimes thinks part of spiritual, sometimes something else)

2. Frankel continued • Concerned with the meaning of human activity • what makes us human is meaningful human activity • talks of 3 things: • 1. existence • 2. spirituality • 3. will to meaning • spirituality: not necessarily religious but something to be achieved

3. Frankel continued • Believed one’s Spirituality manifests itself in two ways: • 1) freedom: only possible in the “face of things”: instincts, inherited disposition, influence of the environment; • How do you know you are free?: the ability to make a stand against the 3 things: existence, spirituality, will to meaning • 2) responsibility: my responsibility is ultimately about one’s life; • Realize only I can die my death; only I can live my life

4. Morality as Search for Meaning • What is morality? The search for meaning • This is adulthood: a self that is owned • for anything to be moral it has to be done in freedom and responsibility • essence of the human is moral • Essence of human is spiritual

5. The Tragic Triangle • Suffering, guilt, death • It is here where we most need to find meaning • It is here where the most important meanings are found • Where we face ourselves most clearly, where our existence is most at stake

6. Meaning of Adulthood? • *if freedom and responsibility are at the heart of the human, it is a good description of adulthood • if not being adult, not being fully human • -spirituality is really something that is adult: they go together: is coming from the self • -meaning found in the existential analysis; he is putting religion in context of existential analysis; religion is part of the spiritual • -you can only be religious if you are free to choose • -contrasted w/Freud who saw religion as infantile and neurotic

7. Religious Meaning? • Gets its clearest expression in light of our suffering, guilt, and death • -Here also is the heart of the human • -It is in the religious that the most tragic part of our humanity is given meaning • -religion and the existential analysis: everything with Frankel has to do w/meaning

8. Religion as Meaning Maker • if religion understood primarily in terms of meaning: ultimate meaning of one’s life, (supra-meaning) suggests an abundance of meaning to be found in all things, especially one’s suffering • Meaning that suffering takes in context of supra-meaning: is never purely rational or logical, but intuitive, more-than-rational

9. The Unconscious God and Repressed Religio • Why do so many people not grasp supra-meaning? • -Frankel’s explanation: we are unconsciously religious • -Conversionary experience? Understood in terms of the unconscious being made conscious • -says we have repressed religio • -why does religio remain unconscious and repressed? • -afraid others will interpret it away

10. Religious Blocks to Mature Meaning Making • -1) authoritarianism: authority on who God is, what He expects, what we believe, how to experience God • -2) rationalism: illusion that God can be grasped by intellect alone: meaning without an existential meaning • -3) Anthropomorphism: God commonly imagined in human terms: can be angry, vengeful, perfectionist, depressed: all our negative characteristics • -these keep religion repressed, and prevent religious experience from happening • -still, we want, even need these three things: a creative tension needs to be maintained

11. Logotherapy and Religion • Logotherapy: therapy of meaning • what does it do? Leads and challenges person to accept their freedom and responsibility • to take a stand; to be responsible for this life • challenges the person to find the value and meaning of their life • *Education towards freedom and responsibility is education for adulthood