Logotherapy Methods & Techniques

Logotherapy leans heavily on the philosophy of existentialism, a school of philosophy that focuses on distinctly and universally human characteristics such as death, identity, isolation, free will, and the meaning of life (Koole, 2010, p. 2). Logotherapy as a practice is concerned primarily with finding meaning in life. The logotherapist in guiding the patient uses three distinct techniques, Paradoxical Intention, Dereflection, and Attitude Modification (Lewis, 2011, pp. 14-15, 37). Each technique is used to address the existential vacuum within the individual to disinhibit the will to meaning. Once the frustrated will has been addressed, the patient will be able to more readily discover meaning within their lives through one of the three areas of value that Frankl defines as the creative, experiential, and attitudinal (Lewis, 2011, pp. 8-9).

In addition to the logotherapeutic techniques, Viktor Frankl also held a different conception of man as a whole than his predecessors, Freud, and Adler. Where Freud was primarily focused on the individual’s sexual instinct and Adler on his mastery and will to power, Frankl thought that man’s central goal was neither pleasure or power but rather the development of meaning and purpose in life (Crumbaugh, 1971, p. 376) as could be seen in his therapeutic and diagnostic approach. Along with the emphasis on the will to meaning, Frankl also incorporates a tripartite model of man into his therapeutic discipline. 

The logotherapist holds that man exists within three dimensions: the somatic, psychological, and spiritual (Ameli & Dattilio, 2013, p. 387). In holding a trinitarian model of man, the logotherapist can better delineate between actions and attitudes that separate man from other animals allowing for the emphasis on purely human tendencies that lend themselves to the highest and most resilient forms of meaning.

In conjunction with the focus on purely authentic human interactions, the insistence on the freedom of the will is another integral tenant of logotherapy. A free-will does not entail that the individual is free to choose their predisposed biological tendencies, nor does it corroborate the idea that they are free from the happenstance of their birth as both phenomena are outside their control but rather that each person is free to choose their attitude towards those circumstances (Ameli & Dattilio, 2013, p. 387). 

The school of logotherapy, as defined above, is both a discipline with distinct techniques and also underlying guiding principles. The conceptual models of the therapeutic approach alone serve as a potentially powerful and transformative ethos for the therapeutic environment as the emphasis on developing either meaning itself or simply inspiring the search for meaning in an individual’s life has been shown to entail the presence of greater well-being throughout all stages of life (Steger et al., 2009, p. 48).