ÁLVARO MAZZINO
Psychologist | Psychotherapist
Introduction to Logotherapy and Existential Analysis’ theoretical foundations
Unlike other schools of psychology, Logotherapy and Existential Analysis integrate philosophical concerns (specifically from the existential philosophy) with the practice of clinical psychotherapy to address the essential problems of human existence. In particular, they address the questions and challenges that arise from the relationship with others; inquire the nature of suffering and angst; and, fundamentally, seek to address the experiences of emptiness and lack of meaning.
The work of philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche laid down the foundations of this school of thought. While the first one based his work in analyzing the nature of choice and moral; the latter, from a completely different paradigm, focused his work on the study of values and human will.
After the Second World War, a new generation of philosophers addressed these first existentialists’ concerns more systematically. Among them, we find Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. While Sartre focused on the analysis of human existence, angst, freedom and authenticity; Heidegger based his work on ontology (the study of being) and the search for meaning.
From the aforementioned philosophers and many others, different psychiatrists and psychologists based their own clinical practice according the existential framework. Among them we can find Medard Boss, Ludwig Binswanger, Karl Jaspers, Rollo May, Irvin D. Yalom and, fundamentally, Viktor Frankl.
As in Systemic, Behavioral and Psychoanalytic schools, Logotherapy and Existential Analysis developed their own theories with their own perspective on man, how he interacts with the world, with others, and with himself; and share a similar perspective on the nature of his problems.
Different schools of thought, such as the Dasein Analysis and Person-Centered Therapy, are also known existential psychotherapies.
Logotherapy and Existential Analysis are schools of psychology that, unlike theories that consider man to be determined by genetics, life experiences or culture, presuppose a man essentially free and able to make decisions for himself.
We can frame them as a “psychologies of conscience”, that use reflection as a method; for clients to clarify and eventually modify the attributions they make on the world, on others and on themselves.
These are essentially humanistic psychologies, it is, fundamentally aimed to clients in analysis, with their own particularities. For this reason, they abstain from formulating general rules and reject the determinist perspective of several theoretical frameworks in favor of a comprehensive understanding of these clients’ lives, in their different dimensions: biological, psychological and spiritual, understanding the latter in terms of transcendence and search for meaning.
Although Logotherapy and Existential Analysis look for answers to the essential problems of human existence, addressing issues as angst, suffering, emptiness and lack of meaning, they do not do so for intellectual purposes only. Along with the therapist, clients address these problems in order to understand who they are and how they can live a more responsible, authentic, intense, and meaningful life.
If you would like to know more about the theoretical foundations of the Existential analysis, you can read the articles quoted in this page as hyperlinks.
