Logotherapy in the broad and narrow sense

In the broad sense

Any relationship-based form of help that adopts the anthropological assumptions of logotherapy is logotherapy in the broad sense:

• a non-reductionist, multidimensional concept of the human being,
• emphasis on agency, decision-making and self-transcendence,
• emphasis on freedom and responsibility,
• the conviction that values exist objectively - the good exists regardless of what people agree on.

In this sense a counsellor, mentor, coach, teacher or pastor can also work logotherapeutically. Frankl himself warned against “guru-fying” logotherapy: one can build further on its roots.

In the narrow sense

As a psychotherapy, logotherapy has:

• its own techniques (Socratic dialogue, paradoxical intention, dereflection, attitude modulation, logodrama),
• a characteristic range of problems (unavoidable suffering, the existential vacuum, repression of the spiritual sphere),
• its own conceptualisation of disorders (pathoplasticity, alternating diagnosis),
• therapeutic goals and requirements for the therapist.

Counselling

Logotherapy can also be a professional method of counselling - where a person does not come for treatment but to solve a life problem.

Frankl's office

There is a couch in Frankl's Vienna consulting room - he started out like a classical psychoanalyst. His own methods grew from that starting point.