Logotherapy - at least once in a life each person needs this kind of psychological method. Age-related life crises often lead to a loss of existing meanings to which a person could rely, and this is similar to a state where the soil is knocked out from under the feet.
Logotherapy in psychology
Logotherapy and existential analysis are the methods of existential psychology that have grown out of psychoanalysis. Logotherapy comes from the Greek. logos - word, therapeia - care, care. Psychologists-logotherapists see it as their task to help people find lost meanings or create new ones. Very well proven logotherapy in the treatment of neuroses.
The founder of logotherapy
Frankl's logotherapy briefly: "Man constantly needs the semantic accompaniment of his actions, tasks, situations, actions." Logotherapy was founded by Victor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist who passed the German concentration camp. All his methods are passed through himself and the prisoners have proved their effectiveness, that in any situation one can survive and say life: "Yes!".
Logotherapy - research
The basics of Frankl's logotherapy are based on his study and the representation of man as a three-dimensional model, in the horizontal dimension this is the mental and physical core of the individual, and in the vertical spiritual (noetic). Together, this is an indivisible whole. Spiritual distinguishes an individual from an animal. All three spheres are in some tension between inner content and the outside world, the desire to comprehend the new, to find new meanings in place of the obsolete is the goal of man.
Types of logotherapy
The types and methods of logotherapy are supplemented by the followers of V. Frankl, but the invariance of what has been suffered and tested in thousands of people indicates that the methods are working and relevant today. types of logotherapy techniques:
- paradoxical intention;
- dereflexia;
- loganalysis.
The tasks of logotherapy
Principles of logotherapy realize its main task: acquiring a personal meaning, helping to go further, create, love and be loved. The meaning can be found in one of three spheres: creativity, emotional experience, conscious acceptance of situations that a person can not change. Priority in values V. Frankl gives creativity, defining a person as a creator. And in emotional experiences - love.
Indications for use of logotherapy
Logotherapy is designed for people both in health and in illness, the goal of logotherapy is not to impose on a person the meaning that the therapist sees, but to help find it, the entire responsibility lies with the patient. V. Frankl outlined 5 areas of application of logotherapy:
- psychogenic neuroses;
- not amenable to the treatment of somatic diseases;
- sociogenic phenomena (feeling of emptiness, existential vacuum);
- sociogenic doubt (iatrogenic neuroses, frustrations);
- despair.
Frankl's Logotherapy - basic principles
Frankl's logotherapy showed its effectiveness in seemingly neglected cases when the person's insanity was a statement of the fact of a mental illness. Frankl believed that even the altered core of the personality has a part that is fully healthy, and reaching out to this part of the personality helps to ease the disease, and even reduce it to remission, and in the best case leads to recovery.
Principles of logotherapy:
- Freedom of will . A person is free to make any decisions, make an informed choice in the direction of illness or health, realizing this, any diagnosis is not a sentence, but a search for the meaning of why the disease has arisen, for what it wants to show.
- Will to sense . Freedom is a substance that does not have its own meaning, until a person achieves the desire for meaning and builds a goal. All arising problems are given with what that purpose.
- The meaning of life . It is conditioned by the first two principles and each one is individual, although everyone has a common concept of values. The most important meaning of life is to make yourself better, and for others it will be an incentive to acquire your meanings and strive for an improved version of yourself.
Frankl's methods of logotherapy
The methods of logotherapy have proved themselves in the treatment of various phobias, neuroses, anxiety of unknown origin. The maximum efficiency of logotherapy comes when a person trusts the therapist goes along with him in a creative tandem. There are three methods of logotherapy:
- Paradoxical intention . A person is afraid of something that complicates his life. This method helps to meet face to face with your fear, meet him, do what's scary, strengthen your sense of fear to a critical point, answer the question: "What's the worst thing that happens if I decide / I will not?"
- Dereflexia , a method developed for the treatment of hyperreflexia and control, is successfully used to treat female anorgasmia, switching from oneself, anxiety and concentration to one's partner, there is a drop in the problem of matching the expectations of others and releasing hyper control.
- Loganalysis is a detailed inventory of a person's life, allowing the logotherapist to find an individual meaning. Neuroses, anxieties and fears go away.
Logotherapy - Exercises
Logotherapy is a helping method highlighting the bright sides of a person's life, the resources that he can use to get out of the abyss of losing the meaning of life. Logotherapy - techniques and exercises for imagination (fantasy, imagination, prejudice), work with images:
- Fire . The symbol of fire is both life and death. What kind of fire does a person see in his imagination, maybe it's a spark of a candle or a torch in a dark dungeon, snapping firewood in a fireplace or a fire? Are there those present who are also looking at the fire - all these associations can tell a lot about the attitude of the person.
- Water . Imagine a pond that is: a lake, a river, can the ocean. What is the color of the water and the flow of a stormy or calm surface of water - even in people with the complexities of the imagination, the image of water is easily represented. In relation to the water where the person is: on the shore, or standing in the water, floating? What emotions ? Exercise helps to relax and get positive emotions and real tactile sensations.
- The tree . A person is like a tree, so it's important what kind of tree symbol he sees. Is it a thin seedling, trembling in the wind, or a mighty gigantic tree, deeply rooted deep in the depths of its roots, and rushing upwards with a spreading crown? Is it alone, or are there others around? All the details: leaves, trunk, crown matter. The image can be modified and supplemented, helping the person to strengthen.
Group techniques of logotherapy:
- "I'm happy when ..." continue in a positive way, the more statements, the better, a man gets used to good and stops noticing him, the exercise helps to find this good again in his life.
- Positive perception of yourself and others. Each member of the group should, with all praise himself for something, then make a compliment to a seated person, this should sound sincere.
Logotherapy - books
Victor Frankl "Logotherapy and existential meaning. Articles and lectures »- this book is about the origin and formation of logotherapy as a psychotherapeutic method. Other author's books:
- " Say life" Yes! "Psychologist in the concentration camp ." The work is considered great and influencing the fate of people. Even in the inhuman conditions of the Nazi camp, one can survive thanks to the fortitude of the spirit and finding its own meaning.
- " Man in search of meaning ." What is the meaning of the individual life and death of a person or phenomena: love , suffering, responsibility, freedom, religion-this is what V. Frankl believes in his work.
- " Suffering from the meaninglessness of life. Topical psychotherapy ». The book will be useful to people who have lost interest in life. V.Frankl analyzes the causes of the loss of meanings and gives recipes for getting rid of the painful perception of reality.
Books of followers of V. Frankl:
- " Logotherapy for professional help. Social work filled with meaning. "D. Guttman. The professor of existential psychology leads a meaningful life every day, continuing the work of V. Frankl, helping many people to believe that their life is a gift, and all events in it are full of profound meaning.
- " Logotherapy: theoretical bases and practical examples " A. Battiani, S. Shtukarev. The therapeutic process of logotherapy in action, how it happens, what methods are used - this book tells about all this.