Logotherapy

Often logotherapy is criticized on the basis that it is too hierarchical, placing the clinician in a place of power over an otherwise vulnerable individual.

Logotherapy has the potential to be used for more than creating a society free of mental disturbances as its application is not dependent on any neurotic behavior in particular but rather on underlying human universals, which all individuals share whether they have a disorder or not.

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.

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.

Suicidality within any given individual can be linked with a multiplicity of potential factors such as physical illness, mental illness, hopelessness, and substance abuse (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2020). Among the multiplicity of potential variables that may serve to lead an individual to suicide, there are just as many preventative and protective factors.