Langle is a life filled with meaning. Alfried Lenglet: A life filled with meaning. Applied logotherapy. Thank you very much for the interview

To my mother - so much goes back to her...

Of all the questions that a person asks, the most important in its consequences is the question "Why?" It concentrates the whole essence of man, all the problems of our existence. This question crowns the quest of the human spirit; the answer that can be found determines the basis of human behavior and his idea of the future. "The question of the meaning of life - no matter whether it is openly asked or only implied - should be characterized as a purely human question. Therefore, its occurrence can never be regarded, for example, as a manifestation of some painful deviations; rather, it is simply a direct expression of human being - ultimately, the expression of the most human in a person ... Only a person is destined to perceive his existence as not completely predetermined, constantly doubt the correctness of his being "( frankl, 1982, S. 39–40).

All other questions boil down to the main one: "Why?" For example, the question "Why did it happen?" that occurs when a person tries to find an explanation for a series of events and understand their cause. Often behind these searches lies the same question "Why?", Asking which we seek to understand what is the meaning of our suffering, in what broader context , in what structure of interconnections our troubles should be considered.Or the question "How?" - a question about the nature and properties of things that determine the treatment of them.

Meaning is the answer offered by life itself to the inevitable question: why live? Man does not want to "go into life" in thoughtless and blind passivity. He wants to understand and feel why he is here, why he must do something. He wants to live his life according to the world that surrounds him. He wants to be where the value of life is felt, next to everything that is interesting, beautiful and important in the world.

If a person has learned to understand and feel the value content of life, then the conditions in which life takes place become secondary for him to a certain extent. Paraphrasing F. Nietzsche, Frankl formulated the meaning of this idea in the famous phrase: "He who knows Why live, can withstand almost any How" (Frankl, 1981, S. 132). All these "Why" or "For what", "For the sake of what" just mean our "Why", reflecting the spiritual content of life. Question "How?" are conditions that often make life so difficult that it can be endured only by understanding "For what".

In the so-called "third Viennese direction of psychotherapy" (which appeared after the theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler), a theoretical and practical approach to these issues and related problems was seriously substantiated and developed.

For more than six decades, Viktor E. Frankl, along with the development of psychotherapeutic techniques and psychiatric research, was engaged in substantiating the doctrine of meaning, which he considered as an alternative to semantic emptiness. This doctrine became known as "existential analysis or logotherapy". Existential analysis is an analysis of a person's life from the standpoint of life values. In an existential-analytical conversation, specific conditions of life are studied in the aspect of their possible semantic content. Logotherapy is a practical guide designed to help a person find meaningful values, follow them, embody them in his life. (In this context, "logos" simply means "meaning," so logotherapy should not be confused with "speech therapy," a method of treating speech disorders.) Viktor Frankl's work has been subjected to multiple empirical tests in Austria, Frankl's homeland, and abroad; they are increasingly being used in psychotherapy, pedagogy, religion, philosophy, and social work. Logotherapy has great value not only in the treatment, but also in the prevention of mental and psychosomatic disorders, as well as in education. Finally, it provides sound guidance to promote self-discovery and improve the quality of life.

This book is based on the ideas of Frankl's existential analysis and logotherapy, which are revealed from the point of view of the possibility of their application in everyday life.

This book does not teach. It only illustrates some of the possibilities. When we talk about meaning we are talking about finding meaningful opportunities that are in every moment of your own unique life. But meaning cannot be prescribed, nor can a book give it. The search for meaning is a process that has two main characteristics: it occurs anew in each situation and is deeply personal. Thus, the search for meaning has the same characteristics as life itself.

Alfried Lenglet

A life filled with meaning. Logotherapy as a means of helping in life

Questions of meaning in Russia: 10 years later

Ten years have passed quickly since the first edition of Alfried Lenglet's book A Life Filled with Meaning in Russia. Existential analysis has taken root here: educational projects And international conferences, psychotherapists work - students of A. Langle. And questions of meaning rise before us more and more acutely. Strange times, strange reforms leading to a lack of meanings for an entire nation...

The doctrine of the meaning of the founder of logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, said: life is filled with meaning if you can find and live values, no matter whether we are talking about grandiose "projects of the century" or very modest projects on the scale of one family or one individual with her non-public private life. What is important is not the scale, but the fact that values are really values, they are not in my head, but in my heart they feel good. Later, Alfried Lenglet developed the idea by describing three systems of premises that a person must take care of in order to cope with a situation of meaninglessness, a situation that is experienced as a specific suffering and causes spontaneous defensive reactions in people (sarcasm, dependency attitudes, attitude to life as a game, in which has only spectacular moments, as well as cynicism, fanaticism, etc.).

It turns out that not all people are familiar with the situation in which you need to find meaning. So, according to a study by the Austrian psychologist L. Tutch and her colleagues, out of a hundred respondents in Vienna, 11 % pointed out that the question of meaning was never perceived by them as important. But it is this group that has the most high degree life satisfaction! This unexpected result can be explained by the fact already described by Frankl that people who live and fulfill meanings do not ask themselves the question about meaning, because it does not present a problem for them. A life filled with meaning is accompanied by a spontaneous feeling: what you are doing right now corresponds to you and “on the whole is good and right.” When a person finds himself in a situation that is unclear to himself, he does some work in order to eventually come to a solution.

V. Frankl understood meaning as a form of self-giving to a cause, relationship, project, as a dedication to a task. However, in the frantic pace of big cities, how not to confuse self-giving with "capture", blind fussy, chaotic running in a circle? (This phenomenon of our days was beautifully described by G. S. Pomerants in his work “The Woland Problem”.)

There are three steps that need to be taken to find the meaning of the situation.

First step: a change in the angle of view - you need to look away from the pole of your own suffering (and the experience of meaninglessness is special kind suffering) to the outer pole, at the same time to distance oneself from one’s own experiences and engage in orientation in the situation in which one finds oneself. If self-giving is a vector (an ordered pair of points), then the starting point must first be found: where am I standing? In what circumstances did I, perhaps unwittingly, find myself "abandoned"? What is the problem for me here? What relationships am I missing? What is not clear? What is my life like now, objectively, simply descriptively, without evaluative sighs and curses? Children still can't navigate the situation, so sometimes they don't want to go to school - there is no clarity with it: what are the rules? By what law do they live here? What is my place? For the same reason, they do not want to go to adult life. Adults should help children understand the logic of the school order. The same applies to the order of life.

Second step: correlation with the value bases of the situation: what touches me in this situation? Where do I feel requested? Where am I needed? You need to listen to your life situation and help your child to listen: where does life ask me? When a person takes the second step, he emotionally opens up to the possibilities of the situation and relates them to his own values. Then the situation appears as a field of values, it has something that a person values, and it is this that creates a field for existential activity, gives motivational power to intention. The key here, especially when you're helping a teenager, is not to pass off your values as theirs.

Third step: choice of the end point of the Frankl vector: values in the future. Where are we going? Where should I come? What am I here for? What can be good in the future thanks to me? This third step can be quite small: go to mom, start learning English, allow the child to go not to the music, but to art school etc. The step size should be just small, because this is the first step, and only time will tell if the direction was chosen correctly. Maybe this step will be wrong. But if it is done with inner consent, it will not become meaningless.

Three structural components sense - orientation, field of values and value in the future - perform different functions. The first step helps to see the structure of the situation, clarifies its understanding (here perception is involved), the second makes the situation meaningful, “personally mine” (emotionality and intuition are involved), the third allows you to make a choice, “starts” the process of will (here the structures of the Self operate: the habit of thinking intelligence, attention to detail, perseverance and taking oneself seriously).

I would like to live at least a little in a country where universal human meanings and values are respected. But, strictly speaking, no government can forbid me to search for the meaning of this year, this period of my life, this day on my own.

This book is still absolutely relevant. She is not outdated in any of her ideas and still helps us to live fully and with meaning. No matter what.

Svetlana Krivtsova, Associate Professor, Department of Personality Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, candidate of psychological sciences

Logotherapy as the art of being

The reader holds in his hands a book that is by no means typical of the endless series of foreign popular books on psychology now being published, promising to easily and quickly teach a person to please others, to become successful, victorious in all matters, etc. This book is not at all about ways of acquiring with the help of psychology of external goods, it is about the inner life, its value, price and meaning. The author is a remarkable Austrian psychologist and psychotherapist-professor Alfried Lenglet, director of the Vienna Institute for Existential Analysis and Logotherapy, student, closest collaborator and successor of the founder of logotherapy Viktor Frankl.

The emergence of logotherapy is closely connected with the greatest tragedy of the 20th century - the Second World War (1939–1945), when a seemingly hopeless night fell on Europe, a barbaric ideology triumphed, which many thousands of people and entire nations succumbed to with amazing ease. I recall the words of Saltykov-Shchedrin, spoken several decades before the advent of Hitler and which turned out to be so prophetic: “A bandit came and, without hesitation, took and extinguished the fire of thought. He was not afraid of anything, neither contemporaries nor descendants, and with the same ignorance he put an extinguisher both on individual human lives and on its general course. The success of such fiends is one of the most terrible mysteries of history; but since this mystery has crept into the world, everything that exists, concrete and abstract, real and fantastic, everything submits to its oppression.

It was then, in the darkness of this "mystery of lawlessness", that logotherapy was being tested in the head and soul of an ordinary prisoner. fascist concentration camp death, which was the Viennese psychiatrist, psychologist and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl. One of the impetuses for its creation was the hypothesis of another Viennese psychiatrist, psychologist and psychotherapist - Sigmund Freud, according to which people who are so obviously different in external manners, upbringing, habits and quirks will certainly become the same if they are placed for a long time in extremely rigid, inhuman conditions. And then all the fig leaves of civilization will fly around and only the “basic instincts” of a fierce struggle for survival will remain. Frankl was in just such a situation. Moreover, death awaited him in the gas chamber, which for him, a Jewish prisoner, was inevitable. And around the people were in the same cruel conditions. But they did not become the same, not all lost their human essence. Freud was wrong!

But what made people different and, most importantly, what kept their human life and consciousness in this hell? Frankl's answer: they were held back by a special, only to them - each individually - inherent inner meaning, found and confessed by them, that guiding light, protected by all the forces of the soul, albeit small and unsteady, like a candle in the wind, which shone for them in this darkness. Frankl, for example, thought through his theory step by step and imagined how, after the war, he would report it in the hall of the Vienna Psychotherapeutic Society (the very one in which Freud once spoke) and how he would say, in particular, about Freud's mistake. And this - let me remind you - in the terrible everyday life of the death camp, where your future is predetermined, where you are not a person, but a serial number.

I read Alfried Lenglet, "A Life Filled with Meaning. Applied Logotherapy".

(Before that, I had read “Existential Analysis of Burnout Syndrome” by him, in that note there is also a lot about meaning).

A very concise author, a student (or colleague?) of Frankl. By the way, it seems that Frankl should not be read about his adventures in a concentration camp, but something more theoretical on the topic of logotherapy. (And I still haven't read it!)

The most pleasant thing in all these books is to find something familiar and rejoice every time: now there is someone to refer to! Or, for example, “Oops, but it turns out that I stand in the position of existential therapists (I hope they don’t mind).”

Let's say I came up with a joke that if divination is applied semiotics, then therapy is applied anthropology, and today I read that Frankl understood his logotherapy as "metaphysically-religiously grounded anthropology and psychotherapy."

But back to the book.

Lenglet succinctly, but in great detail, told what meaning is and what its properties are.

Random quotes ("just liked"):

Meaning cannot be imposed, given or borrowed. No one can dictate to another what he should see his meaning in - neither a boss to a subordinate, nor a parent to a child, nor a doctor to a patient. Meaning can neither be given nor prescribed - it must be found, discovered, recognized. Meaning can only be what is passed by a person through the “eye of a needle” personal experience- felt and comprehended in terms of its value, necessity and attractiveness.

It happens that our boss or parents demand something from us, but we ourselves are not sure that it will be right to do so. What obviously makes sense to someone else remains an order, violence or assignment for me, if I myself look at it differently. The real meaning has nothing to do with coercion, with the words "You must!". Meaning is the child of freedom. You can't force me to make sense of anything. But if I have discovered it, it will be impossible to ignore it; even if I begin to act contrary to it, it will still remain the meaning discovered, although not realized by me.

Meaning cannot be invented. Reflective thinking (the tendency to analyze one's experiences, actions, thoughts) is sometimes even an obstacle on the way to meaning if it is used as a defense mechanism - that is, in order to rationalize and discard what a person feels inside himself. Everything that is meaning completely takes possession of us, we feel and feel it even before it gradually becomes conscious for us.

Any person, regardless of age and level of intelligence, can find meaning, as long as he is able to make decisions. Even if they are simple and quiet, perhaps completely invisible to others solutions. To find meaning, a person does not even need five senses, since the organ of meaning (according to Frankl) is an inner instinct, on the basis of which there is a feeling that in this situation one should act in this way, that such behavior will be correct. This organ of meaning could also be called conscience. Acts "according to conscience" or acts "unscrupulous" can be committed by a person regardless of gender, age, intelligence, and even religion.

There is a subtle difference between quotes from cool therapists and VKontakte statuses.

About this (meaning is a feeling, not a mental construct) I wrote, but even more briefly. And this note came out rather chaotic, but I don’t want to retell Langle in my own language, read it.

“He writes everything correctly,” but this is more information for therapists - or for those who have reached the point and some points need to be clarified. Or say “Yeah! I knew it!". There is a description of the painting, but absolutely no advice on how to get to it.

Do not flatter yourself that reading someone will help in some way. Will not help . But you need to read general development. Like Fromm, by the way.

Let's talk about success.

"Success is not needed."

My picture of the world is this: people are involved in the fact that they participate in natural selection ("hello to the participants natural selection!”), if you joke about this topic. If not joking and pathetic, then "Man is the creative unit of the universe."

Still, there is free will, and the task of a person is to “be himself”, realizing personal free will. If such a task did not stand, everyone would be the same ants (however, everyone is striving for this, apparently).

The goal of diversity is not for people to succeed (not everyone can be successful), but for each person to live my life, tested the hypothesis of its own uniqueness.

Every person is a startup, with a 1% chance of success. Let me remind you that the original goal of any startup is test the idea, and not inflate it, sell it at a higher price and get rich.

Humanity evolves due to the fact that someone fails, weeding out "unfortunate" options. Everyone can't be Bill Gates. Someone else needs to be Steve Jobs. Ha! Ha! Success is nice, but it's a nice exception. "Lucky."

This idea was first writing I found from a Jungian astrologer (be sure to re-read).

Lenglet writes exactly the same thing, only less poetically:

The real recipe for success is to put in the effort and try as much as you need to without becoming addicted to success. The desire to achieve success directly turns into the pursuit of a mirage. The condition and prerequisite for a real result, the basis for success is the “workaround”: interacting with various circumstances and situations, a person acts meaningfully, asserting his values.
The meaning is contained in the self-giving of a person to that which in itself is of value, regardless of success. Thus, the meaning lies entirely in the area where a person can act: the meaning is not in being successful, but in real passion for something valuable (for example, a job or a loved one).
Success means I did a good job I was lucky– and I achieved the desired goal.
In turn, living meaningfully means the following: I have pursued in my diligence what is of value to me, and therefore my life remains meaningful, even if the goal is not achieved or the work could not be completed.
What piece of art, presented to the public for the first time, is not successful, does not do any damage to its beauty, just as an unfinished work can be among the most beautiful creations of our culture.
If meaning were all about success, how would finding meaning be any different from gambling?

Yalom has an episode in Chronicles of Healing where he's like, "Well damn, I read Frankl and today's session was acting like Frankl! Ashamed! Ashamed!".

I filled the room with Viktor Frankl. It so happened that I last night read one of his books and thought about him. I always become disgusted with myself when I read someone, and then suddenly find myself applying his methods in the next therapy session.

I do that too. I read Lenglet and immediately applied it in the session. Only I did not understand why it is disgusting, in my opinion, on the contrary: if you read and do not apply, then what's the point?

I applied, so Langle. Not sure if I did it, really. That is, I have not reached success, "the patient was not healed," but did my job well (which I am satisfied with).

The theme of this unusual book is meaning. Not the abstract meaning of life, but the meaning that I may or may not find in real life. life situations. What kind typical mistakes does a person determine his attitude to life?

Is it really "the winner is not judged"? What is success and what place does it take in our life? How to find the strength to live in a hopeless situation? How, among mistakes and temptations, to find your own way, so that instead of disappointments and boredom, you can experience the full satisfaction of your only life?

The author of the book, A. Langle, a well-known Austrian psychotherapist, a student of V. Frankl, does not offer ready-made recipes, but seeks answers to these questions together with the reader (because the answer is different for everyone). He seeks with deep respect for his readers - he writes in an accessible way, and at the same time does not simplify the problems.

That is why the book became a bestseller. It has been translated into many languages and has gone through many editions.

To my mother - so much goes back to her...

Of all the questions that a person asks, the most important in its consequences is the question "Why?" It concentrates the whole essence of man, all the problems of our existence. This question crowns the quest of the human spirit; the answer that can be found determines the basis of human behavior and his idea of the future. "The question of the meaning of life - no matter whether it is openly asked or only implied - should be characterized as a purely human question. Therefore, its occurrence can never be regarded, for example, as a manifestation of some painful deviations; rather, it is simply a direct expression of human being - ultimately, the expression of the most human in man ... Only man is destined to perceive his existence as not completely predetermined, constantly doubting the correctness of his being "(Frankl, 1982, S. 39-40).

All other questions are reduced to the main: "Why?" For example, the question "Why did this happen?", which arises when a person tries to find an explanation for a series of events and understand their cause. Often behind these searches lies the same question "Why?", asking which we seek to understand what is the meaning of our suffering, in what broader context, in what structure of relationships should our troubles be considered. Or the question "How?" - the question of the nature and properties of things that determine the handling of them.

If a person has learned to understand and feel the value content of life, then the conditions in which life takes place become secondary for him to a certain extent. Paraphrasing F. Nietzsche, Frankl formulated the meaning of this idea in the famous phrase: "He who knows the Why to live can endure almost any How" (Frankl, 1981, p. 132). All these "Why" or "For what", "For the sake of what" just mean our "Why", reflecting the spiritual content of life. Question "How?" are conditions that often make life so difficult that it can be endured only by understanding "For the sake of what."

For more than six decades, Viktor E. Frankl, along with the development of psychotherapeutic techniques and psychiatric research, was engaged in substantiating the doctrine of meaning, which he considered as an alternative to semantic emptiness. This doctrine became known as "existential analysis or logotherapy". Existential analysis is an analysis of a person's life from the standpoint of life values. In an existential-analytical conversation, specific conditions of life are studied in the aspect of their possible semantic content. Logotherapy is a practical guide designed to help a person find meaningful values, follow them, embody them in his life. (In this context, "logos" simply means "meaning," so logotherapy should not be confused with "speech therapy," a method of treating speech disorders.) Viktor Frankl's work has been subjected to multiple empirical tests in Austria, Frankl's homeland, and abroad; they are increasingly being used in psychotherapy, pedagogy, religion, philosophy, and social work. Logotherapy is of great importance not only in the treatment, but also in the prevention of mental and psychosomatic disorders, as well as in education. Finally, it provides sound guidance to promote self-discovery and improve the quality of life.

This book is based on the ideas of Frankl's existential analysis and logotherapy, which are revealed from the point of view of the possibility of their application in everyday life.

This book does not teach. It only illustrates some of the possibilities. When we talk about meaning, we are talking about finding meaning opportunities that are in every moment of your own unique life. But meaning cannot be prescribed, nor can a book give it. The search for meaning is a process that has two main characteristics: it occurs anew in each situation and is deeply personal. Thus, the search for meaning has the same characteristics as life itself.

Ideas in this book are not developed with scientific rigor, but are intended to add to your own knowledge and experience. It begins with reflections on the freedom of man and his openness to the world. The second chapter describes the typical forms of behavior that do not allow people to live a full life. The following is a discussion of what can become a support for us in the search for meaning. A separate chapter is devoted to a detailed and in-depth discussion of the question of what should be understood by meaning. What is the relationship between meaning and success? We will discuss the concept of success from the point of view of existential analysis.

The final chapters will deal with the truly deep relationship of man to life, the relationship in which freedom and the search for meaning reach their completion.

Vienna, summer 2000

Alfried Lenglet