Viktor Frankl's will to meaning. (President's Corner).

For Frankl, the WILL TO MEANING is the basic striving of man to find and fulfill meaning and purpose in life. (Frankl uses man to mean human beings.) Man is reaching out for the world--a world, which is replete with other beings to encounter and meanings to fulfill. Such a view is profoundly opposed to those motivational theories based on the homeostasis principle. Those theories depict man as if he were a closed system. According to them, man is basically concerned with maintaining or restoring equilibrium, and to this end with the reduction of tensions. Homeostasis principles also assume that man is driven by the goal of gratification of drives and satisfaction of needs. Frankl believes there is more to man's quest than those put forth by homeostasis principles, so quotes Charlotte Buhler, who conceives of man as living with intentionality, which means living with purpose. The purpose is to give meaning to life ... the individual ... wants to create values ... the human being has a primary or native orientation in the directions of creating and of values.

Thus the homeostasis principle does not yield a sufficient ground on which to explain human behavior, particularly such human phenomena as the creativity of man oriented towards values and meaning. It was Frankl's contention that the pleasure principle is self-defeating. The more one aims at pleasure, the more his aim is missed. The very pursuit of happiness is what thwarts it and this self-defeating quality of pleasure-seeking accounts for many sexual neuroses. Time and again therapists are in a position to witness how both orgasm and potency are impaired by being made the target of intention. Pleasure is missed when it is the goal, and attained when it is the side-effect of attaining a goal. Attaining the goal constitutes a reason for being happy. If there is a reason for happiness, happiness comes: automatically and spontaneously. Only if one's original concern with meaning is frustrated is one either content with power or intent on pleasure. Both happiness and success are mere substitutes for fulfillment and that is why the pleasure principle and striving for superiority are mere derivatives of the will to meaning.

Self-actualization is not man's ultimate destination. It is not even his primary intention. Self-actualization, if made an end in itself, contradicts the self-transcendent quality of human existence. Like happiness, self-actualization is an effect, the effect of meaning fulfillment. Frankl says that this is in accordance with Maslow's own view since he admits that the business of self-actualization can best be carried out via a commitment to an important job. The important thing is not pleasure and happiness as such, but that which causes these effects, be it fulfillment of a personal meaning or the encounter with another human being.

What goes on in man when he is oriented toward meaning is revealed in the fundamental difference between being driven to something on the one hand and striving for something on the other. Man is pushed by drives but pulled by meaning and this implies that it is always up to him to decide whether or not he wishes to fulfill the latter. Meaning fulfillment always implies decision-making, thus a will to meaning rather than a drive to meaning.

Contrary to the homeostasis theory, tension is not something to avoid unconditionally. Some tension, such as the tension aroused by meaning to fulfill, is inherent in being human and is indispensable to mental well-being. Man is oriented toward meaning and he should be confronted with meaning.

Logotherapy does not spare the patient a confrontation with the specific meaning that he has to carry out and which we have to help him find. An American doctor once asked Frankl to tell him the difference between Logotherapy and Psychoanalysis in one sentence. Frankl asked the doctor to tell him the essence of Psychoanalysis. The doctor replied, During Psychoanalysis, the patient must lie down on a couch and tell you things that are at times are very disagreeable to tell. Frankl jokingly replied, In Logotherapy, the patient may remain sitting erect, but must hear things that sometimes are very disagreeable to hear. Frankl does not suggest that the therapist give an individual the meaning of life, but help the client find his/her own meaning to life.

Chaplain Paul G. Durban, PhD, Director of Clinical Hypnotherapy, Pendleton Memorial Hypnotherapy, New Orleans, LA email: [e-mail]; website: www.durbinhypnosis.com