Foundations
Logotherapy
A school of psychotherapy founded by Viktor Frankl, centred on the search for meaning in life. The name comes from the Greek “logos” - here: meaning.
Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy
A name for logotherapy as the third great school of psychotherapy born in Vienna - after Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology.
Existential analysis
The second name of Frankl's approach (from 1939) - the anthropological basis that studies human existence as being responsible. Today also the name of Alfried Längle's separate school.
Sources and inspirations of logotherapy
The traditions Frankl's thought grew out of: Viennese psychoanalysis and individual psychology, existential psychiatry (Binswanger, Gebsattel, Boss), phenomenology and Max Scheler's ethics of values.
Reductionisms and nihilism
Frankl warned against reducing the human being to a single dimension: physiology, psyche or society. He considered nihilism - the refusal to recognise any value or purpose - the deepest threat.
Logotherapy in the broad and narrow sense
Logotherapy is both an attitude towards the human being that can be brought into many forms of helping, and a well-defined psychotherapy with its own techniques.