Anthropological Basis of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis
FACULTY: Maria Marshall, PhD (profile) and Edward Marshall, MD, PhD (profile)
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course introduces relevant terminology in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis (LTEA). It discusses the three dimensions of human existence and illustrates how this conceptualization offers a heuristically significant model for understanding a person’s motivation, and aspirations. Frankl’s Ten Thesis on the person is presented as the cornerstone of the unconditional human being. Being a “per-sona” means being ultimately wanted and awaited in life. The ramifications of this positive and encouraging view of the human person is discussed with examples. The concept of “iatrogenic damage” is introduced that can occur when these dimensions are negated, denied, or ignored. Frankl’s book, “The Will to Meaning” discusses the dimensional aspects of existence and provides useful illustrations.
It focuses on the characteristics and dynamics of the human spirit as the lifeline of the person as an existential whole. Resources such as conscience, and aspects of noo-dynamics are presented. The concepts of existential struggle, frustration, distress, vacuum, and “noogenic neurosis” are introduced and described. The dialectics of fate and freedom; vulnerability versus intactness; pleasure orientation versus meaning-orientation, character and personality, and immanence and transcendence are described. Aspects of fate, such as fate related to the past; biological fate, psychological fate; and sociological fate are defined. Elisabeth Lukas’ book “The Therapist and the Soul” provides useful examples when dialectical thinking can provide an overview of what lies in one’s area of fate and what lies around freedom for individualized conceptualization of possibilities.