Purpose in life

Purpose/Meaning in Life

(Psychotherapy)Why do we need to know about it?

Mental Health Consultants and Services

(Important psychotherapy)

Logo therapy(meaning of existence)

• To help those people who lost the meaning & purpose of their life……….due to clinical reason!

Logo therapy

• Psychotherapy works well for those having suicide ideation, as medicine may not help in such extreme mental conditions…..

Existentialism-Foundation of Logotherapy

Logotherapy founded on the tenet of “Existentialism”• Applied to the work of late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers • Despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that

philosophical thinking begins with the human subject• not merely the thinking but the acting, feeling, living human as

individual• In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by

what has been called "the existential attitude", • or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an

apparently meaningless or absurd world• Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or

academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

What is Logotherapy?

* developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1950s) It is considered the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy“ after Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology• Logotherapy is based on an Existential Analysis• focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning as opposed to Adler'sNietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure• Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded on belief - - that it is the striving to find a meaning in one's life - that is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans

• A short introduction to this system is given in Frankl's most famous book “Man's Search for Meaning”

• theories helped him to survive his Holocaust experience and how that experience further developed and reinforced his theories

Basic Principles- Logotherapy

• The notion of Logotherapy was created with the Greek word logos ("meaning")

• Frankl’s concept is based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life

List of basic principles of logotherapy:1) Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most

miserable ones2) Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life3) We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we

experience or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of

unchangeable suffering

Human spirit and Logotherapy

The human spirit is referred to in several of the assumptions of logotherapy -

• the term spirit is not "spiritual" or "religious" In Frankl's view, the spirit is the will of the human being

• the emphasis, is on the search for meaning, which is not necessarily the search for God or any other supernatural being

• noted the barriers to humanity's quest for meaning in life He warns against – “affluence, hedonism, materialism..." in

the search for meaning

Meaning in life- concepts

• Purpose in life and Meaning in life, constructs appeared in Frankl's logotherapy writings with relation to existential vacuum and will to meaning, also defined positive psychological functioning by others

• Existential Vacuum — The psychological condition in which a person doubts, whether life has any meaning?

This new neurosis is characterized by loss of interest and lack of initiative.

Existential vacuum

• Thus the individual relies mainly upon the actions of others and neglects the meaning of his own personal life

• Hence he sees his own life as meaningless and falls into the “existential vacuum” feeling inner void

• Progressive automation causes increasing alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, and suicide

Purpose in Life

When person's search for meaning is blocked, it may be psychologically damaging

• Positive life purpose and meaning- associated with strong religious beliefs, membership in groups, dedication to a cause, life values, and clear goals

• Adult development and maturity theories include the purpose in life concept

• Maturity emphasizes a clear comprehension of life's purpose, directedness, and intentionality which, contributes to the feeling that life is meaningful

Meaning in Life - Logotherapy• 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; (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering" and that

"everything can be taken from a man but one thing: * the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any

given set of circumstances• Philosophical basis of logotherapy -• believed that there is no psychotherapy apart from the theory of

man , • as an existential psychologist, he inherently disagreed with the

“machine model” or “rat model”

Logotherapeutic views and treatment

Overcoming anxiety• E.g. New York Times writer Tim Sanders- uses its

concept to relieve the stress of fellow airline travelers by asking them the purpose of their journey

• Frankl believed that the anxious individual does not

understand that his anxiety is the result of dealing with a sense of “unfulfilled responsibility” and ultimately a lack of meaning


Treatment of neurosis• two neurotic pathogens: 1) hyper-intention, a forced intention

toward some end which makes that end unattainable; • 2) hyper-reflection, an excessive attention to oneself which

stifles attempts to avoid the neurosis to which one thinks oneself predisposed

• identified anticipatory anxiety, a fear of a given outcome which makes that outcome more likely

• to relieve the anticipatory anxiety and treat the resulting neuroses, logotherapy offers paradoxical intention, wherein the patient intends to do the opposite of his hyper-intended goal


Depression- occurs at the psychological, physiological, and spiritual levels

• psychological level - feelings of inadequacy stem from undertaking tasks beyond our abilities

• physiological level – is a “vital low”, which he defined as a “diminishment of physical energy”

• spiritual level - the depressed man faces tension between who he actually is in relation to what he should be

• Frankl suggests that if goals seem unreachable, an individual loses a sense of future and thus meaning resulting in depression

• Thus logotherapy aims “to change the patient’s attitude toward her/his disease as well as toward her/his life as a task”


Obsessive-compulsive disorder- lack the sense of completion that most other individuals possess

• Instead of fighting the tendencies to repeat thoughts or actions, or focusing on changing the individual symptoms of the disease, the therapist should focus on “transforming the neurotic’s attitude toward his neurosis”

• Important to recognize that the patient is “not responsible for his obsessional ideas”, but that “he is certainly responsible for his attitude toward these ideas”

Logotherapy - (Perfectionism can have uncertainties)• eventually ignore his obsessional thoughts and find meaning in

his life despite such thoughts


Schizophrenia - He recognized the roots of schizophrenia in physiological dysfunction

• the schizophrenic “experiences himself as an object” rather than as a subject

• Frankl suggested that a schizophrenic could be helped by logotherapy by first being taught to ignore voices and to end persistent self-observation

• must be led toward meaningful activity, as “even for the schizophrenic there remains that residue of freedom toward fate and toward the disease which man always possesses”


Terminally-ill patients - In 1977, Terry Zuehlke and John Watkins conducted a study

• design used 20 male Veterans Administration volunteers who were randomly assigned–

• (1) group received 8-45 minute sessions over a 2 week period and (2) group used as control that received delayed treatment

• tested on 5 scales – the MMPI K Scale, MMPI L Scale, Death Anxiety Scale, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and the Purpose of Life Test

• significant difference - univariate analyses differences in 3/5 of the dependent measures

• confirm the idea that terminally-ill patients can benefit from logotherapy in coping with death

ARE WE IN AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS?

WHO world report on suicide –

*Over 800 000 people die due to suicide every year*There are many more people who attempt suicide every year*Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15–29-year-

olds*75% of global suicides occur in low- and middle-income

countries*Ingestion of pesticide, hanging and firearms are among the

most common methods of suicide globally

Important message

Your “meaning of life” can help finding others “purpose in their life”…….

Thank you

www.mentalhealthaims.com

Education

Purpose in life