Logotherapy: A Short History of The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy

The school of logotherapy arose out of the aftermath of World War Two from the mind of Viktor Frankl, who served several terms in the death camps of Nazi Germany and, having already been trained as a psychotherapist and a brain surgeon, was able to take a seemingly different approach to his conceptualization of the life of a prisoner in one of Hitler’s camps. 

Throughout his time in the camps, he invariably thought about reasons for living under such circumstances. He steadily came to realize that, over time, the inmates who lost their “why to live” or their purpose in life almost always “ran into the wire” committing suicide (Frankl, 2020, pp. 31). Those prisoners, having lost their will to live and their sense of purpose, made what seemed to be the next logical step. 

Logotherapy was born out of the fires of the holocaust, where, as Frankl puts it, whenever there was an opportunity for psychotherapeutic intervention, it was always a “lifesaving procedure” (Frankl, 2020, pp. 87) as there were stringent laws within the camps prohibiting anyone from saving a man should he choose to commit suicide. The preventative intervention must be successful as there were likely to be no second chances. One can hardly think of a more tragically opportune environment to build any therapeutic approach.

Frankl was replete with potential patients to apply his fledgling techniques on; he notes two cases, both men were on the verge of suicide, and they each shared similar sentiments about their lives. They each stated that life had nothing to give them. Frankl, questioning them, attempted to show them that it was less about getting something from life and more that life still had something to extract from them. He found that in both cases, they had a reason external to themselves that they could live for, a unique purpose for which only they could be responsible (Frankl, 2020, pp. 87). 

It was in death camp therapy sessions like the one described above where logotherapy was born. Upon his liberation from the camps, Frankl developed his theories to a greater degree, and he went on to formally found the school of logotherapy commonly referred to as the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, where the theories of Freud and Adler make up the other two schools.