{"id":18620,"date":"2020-11-15T15:26:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-15T19:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=18620"},"modified":"2022-02-08T00:05:44","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T04:05:44","slug":"what-is-logotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-logotherapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Logotherapy: Learning to Survive With Psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is logotherapy? How did Viktor Frankl develop the theory of logotherapy, and how does it work? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Viktor Frankl developed the theory of logotherapy after spending time in a concentration camp. He believed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/psychological-resistance\/\">psychological resistance<\/a> helped him survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what is logotherapy? Keep reading to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-logotherapy\"><strong>What Is Logotherapy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve covered Frankl\u2019s time in the concentration camps and the observations he made about prisoners\u2019 psychological phases and methods of resistance. This inspired him to create logotherapy, his own school of psychology. So what is logotherapy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Viktor Frankl&#8217;s logotherapy theory has a few core principles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Humans are motivated by meaning. <\/strong>We want to know why we\u2019re here, what we\u2019re supposed to do, and if it has any value.&nbsp;<ul><li>Social scientists at Johns Hopkins University asked what college students considered very important to them. In America, you might think money reigns&#8211;yet only 16% of the students selected \u201cmaking a lot of money\u201d as the most important thing to them. 78% selected \u201cfinding a purpose and meaning to my life.\u201d<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>You should find the true meaning of your life in the world, instead of in your own mind or psyche.&nbsp;<\/strong><ul><li>Humans, at their best, are capable of transcending their own wants and feelings to work for things outside themselves&#8211;a cause they believe in, or a person they love.<\/li><li>From a public opinion poll Frankl conducted in France and Vienna: 89% agreed that humans need a reason to live for, and 61% admitted that in their own lives there was a person or thing\/belief that they\u2019d be willing to die for.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>Make decisions that will benefit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/your-future-self\/\">your future self<\/a><\/strong>.<ul><li>Live as if you were actually living your second life, and in your first life you had made the choice you\u2019re about to make. Would you choose that again?<\/li><li>Another way to think of this: \u201con my deathbed, will I be happy with the choice I\u2019m about to make?\u201d<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Prisoners who had a future goal had an easier time surviving than those who didn\u2019t. These future goals were usually meaningful people or meaningful things outside themselves. It was hard to feel like the things happening in the camps had meaning&#8211;but working towards something outside themselves and the camps that had great personal meaning to the prisoners gave them more drive to survive. This is Viktor Frankl&#8217;s logotherapy theory at work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, we can toss the word \u201cmeaning\u201d around, but it\u2019s a heady concept. What <em>is<\/em> meaning, and more importantly, how do we find it in our lives? To that end, a lot of us find ourselves asking the same question: what is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-gives-your-life-meaning\/\">meaning of life<\/a>? Answering the question &#8220;what is logotherapy&#8221; can help us understand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is logotherapy? How did Viktor Frankl develop the theory of logotherapy, and how does it work? Viktor Frankl developed the theory of logotherapy after spending time in a concentration camp. He believed that psychological resistance helped him survive. So what is logotherapy? Keep reading to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-18620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-society","tag-mans-search-for-meaning","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Logotherapy: Learning to Survive With Psychology - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is logotherapy? Developed by Viktor Frankl, logotherapy is a psychological theory based on building resistance. 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