Meaning in Suffering: Lukas
Contents
Chapter 1 Comfort where no cure is possible 1
Chapter 2 The best possible help 3
Diagnosis Phase 3
The therapeutic phase 4
The follow up phase 6
Chapter 3 Suffering and the question of meaning 6
Chapter Four Guilt and the Question of Meaning 8
Chapter 5 Resistance in suffering 9
Chapter 6 The Will to Joy as a health resource 9
Chapter 7 Psychotherapy and responsibility 10
Chapter 8 Reflections 10
Chapter 1 Comfort where no cure is possible
Suffering, existing between the abyss of mysticism and
religion faith on one hand and scientific, rational behavioural manipulation on
the other
Psychotherapy is religion and vice versa
Psychology emerged out of magic, exorcism and trickery and
now can offer scientific approaches although possibly manipulative ones
Psychotherapy without magic, has been replaced by
psychotherapy without spirit.
Psychotherapy must give hope\help and where that’s not
possible it must give comfort
Early psychotherapy didn’t give comfort, it gave explanation
(psychoanalysis), it looked for human weakness. Humans were driven by dark
instincts, the libido and Thanatos. Anything noble was sublimation. Humans were
a battlefield between ego, superego and id. The drives were sex and aggression.
Therapists believed that uncovering a cause, or a reason,
would make symptoms vanish. But this uncovering devalues ideals, and values,
which are what can lead to be able to manage suffering.
Psychoanalysts reduced human behaviour to drive. If the
maternal instinct was stronger than the desire for sex\food, as shown in a rat
experiment. Then the maternal drive is stronger than the sex drive. Which takes
away meaning and value to a determined understanding.
Whilst unmasking with clients, understanding is useful, this
needs to stop when there comes something that the client values, or gives
meaning, as this is what enlivens their life, this is what gives meaning to
them.
Behaviourism, rationality was the death of spirit in therapy
Behaviourism
Stimulus comes in from the world and goes out in behaviour.
Humans are machines that digest data, how the external stimulus gets process is
by a black box, the brain, a great computer. So, we are still determined, we
have lost the spirit. Behaviourism is a treatment technology, which seeks\hopes
to do things to produce emotions, but it doesn’t comfort where there is no hope.
Behaviour therapy cannot offer hope, when it cannot make behavioural change
through manipulating stimuli
Psychoanalysis and behaviourism are deterministic theories.
Human spirit is free.
This is freedom to do, not freedom from. So, we can respond
to our fate.
To fight fate when there is no way out leads to despair
Fatalism=nothing can be done and determinism=things are
cause, there is no freewill
Homeostasis and social security, when people are entirely
looked after they can also lack meaning. So affluent but empty, which can lead
to substance abuse and suicide.
Meaning cannot be prescribed, it is unique to every person,
Something bad happens, let’s call it fate, then you can
condemn yourself and the world, you can despair, you can show courage and trust
in the future, you can accept it, you can bear your suffering with dignity and
be an example to others in tragedy. Making the best of an unchangeable situation
is attitudinal meaning.
The defiant power of the human spirit, we can submit to our
flaws, or we can deny them
Logotherapy doesn’t deal with what is sick in clients but
rather what is healthy
Clients have problems, but no one forces you to fear it,
consider it important, keep watching it or submit to it. You can transform it,
laugh at it, ignore it.
Fear is part of fate, but how you respond to it is your
choice.
Paradoxical intention needs to ridicule the symptoms (not
the person). Dereflection ignores the symptoms.
Hyper reflection: exaggerated attention
Hyper intention exaggerated intention
We need to transcend the self, in some instances, let our
consciousness, ego and intention go.
Chapter 2 The best possible help
3 phases of therapy, diagnosis, therapy and follow-up
Diagnosis Phase
Diagnosis: Understand: origins and maintenance.
Therapy: Help
Follow up: client independent and integrated therapy
Logotherapy isn’t enough for therapy, but nor is therapy
complete without logotherapy. So, it is
a necessary, not sufficient condition for successful therapy.
Iatrogenic: illness caused by medical examination.
During the diagnostic phases, therapists can cause
iatrogenic neurosis, with the use of careless words and hyper reflection
Individuals constantly worrying about their wellbeing will
never feel well. People continuously watching themselves for sickness are
already sick
Those who smile about their problems are halfway on the way
to solving them.
Counter iatrogenic neurosis though looking at what is right
as much as what is wrong. How people have overcome their difficulties as much
as had them, e.g. with recurrent depression.
Greater understanding can increase a client’s hyper
reflection! So maybe helpful for the therapist but not so for the client.
Alternating diagnosis means alternating between
assessment\understanding and exploring what makes life meaningful.
Excessive attention, hyper reflection is a problem as
1.
It takes engagement away from meaningful living
2.
It makes the problem seem bigger as it becomes
your whole world
3.
It restricts a natural process, e.g. sleep,
erections, body healing (picking the scab), even walking
4.
It can enhance difficulties, so repeatedly
asking how long the journey will take makes it take longer, paying attention to
a stomach-ache can intensify how it feels, a small ache, thought of with ooh
that’s getting worse can intensify it
The therapeutic phase
Paradoxical intent useful when client trapped in a cycle of
suffering like a fear of obsessions
Dereflection helps with reducing unnecessary suffering
Modulation of attitudes useful as a tool against inevitable
suffering
Paradoxical intent
Fear and desire can’t go together, so have a strong
intent\desire for the thing you fear and use humour to achieve this paradox.
Humour helps her get distance from her fears and symptoms. If it seems
reasonable, you can also act on promoting the fear, so for instance, fear of
wife leaving you and she begins to pack her suitcase then help her.
Paradoxical intent allows people to gain distance from
themselves and to look at their behaviour with a sense of humour. Its aim in
part is to ridicule their actions and not themselves
Dereflection
Counteracts hyper reflection, where they only see their
problems and are trapped in them
Suffering is inevitable but not all suffering is necessary.
What is more important to you than the problem, that’s
more important than you?
Sleeplessness is a problem whilst it is the centre of
attention.
Accept the sleep your body grants you and when not sleeping
do something useful. Our happiness can’t depend on certain things, sleep, wine,
career success. Rather pursue goals that are meaningful, however you feel, and
however the effects, and happiness will come.
Happiness is a byproduct of meaning. Think less about your feelings about a task,
and more about the meaning, is it important, is it interesting, would it be worthwhile
doing even if you didn’t get any happiness out of it, then it is worth doing. Deflection
directs to a goal beyond the self.
Attitude modulation
Facing unavoidable suffering, attitude modulation can be
helpful
Woman loses leg, is meaning in life dependent on having 2
legs?
Irrevocable loss: but still stored in the museum of the past
Death=it’s not the length of life, but the quality, that
made her husband worth loving. These qualities aren’t wiped out by death,
Attitudes come from people not situations
Suffering as the price for a value
Vicious cycle, negative cycle of expectation, I can’t do x,
so I don’t. Affluence helps this because we don’t have to do it, when we think
we can’t we don’t.
Change from “I cannot because”, to “I can in spite of”.
Some people can have no trauma and severe problems, some
people severe trauma and no problems
The follow up phase
Healthy stress: meaning orientated, meaning to be
discovered, found. Reaching out beyond the self.
Healthy leisure: relaxing after a job well done. To gain
strength before the next task
If stress comes facing important tasks it feels worthwhile.
After finishing an important task, you might feel tired, and
a sense of satisfaction neither bored, not depressed.
However, working hard without meaning, or resting without
meaning is a problem.
Meaningful effort makes sense of rest.
Working hard for meaningful goals makes sense of stress.
Too much leisure =hype reflection.
Broadening the base of client’s values
People with only one value, succumb to despair if they can’t
do it.
An inner fulfilment that lies beyond pain\pleasure, the
value and meaning that can be found on the world.
Chapter 3
Suffering and the question of meaning
Most psychotherapy attempt to reduce humans to a few rules.
Logotherapy aims to apply its rules to the whole human.
There is suffering. It’s an illusion that everything can be
cured, the overweight diet, the nervous be assertive etc. Not everything
disagreeable can be corrected. Money can’t fix everything.
We revolt against
fate, but forget how to (meaningfully) accept it
Distinction between the value of material vs immaterial
things. The bouquet of flowers vs the visit.
If you can’t fix it, then:
You can get understanding from others
You can look for meaning in what has happened.
At the limits of science, money and understanding, empathy
must find words.
Axis between meaning and despair, and it cross with success
and failure.
You can be successful and empty, a failure yet its
meaningful
The most severe suffering can be faced if you can connect
with the meaning behind
A woman runs into a burning house to save her child is burnt
A woman is burnt through an accident
The latter situation, the burns would be more unpleasant.
The tragedy of the inevitable is often softened by a
fulfilled life. (the task to be done?)
Meaning as a task to fulfil, as the purpose of your life.
The true heroes of life are not the victors but the
defeated who can find a ray of hope.
Fate as being that which is outside of your control. Attitudinal
meaning is when the meaning you have towards your fate, this can be of
suffering, or of success.
Humans need goals, things to work towards, transcendent
entities. But they need to be meaningful and possibly productive, more of the
same isn’t meaningful.
When you’re poor\hungry, money is a great goal, when you
have that, then you need something more
fulfilling.
Climb the mountain, achieve the height and then you
depressed looking down into the valley as you are used to looking up. Could it
help to be a guide to help others get to where you did?
Success\achievement for its own sake is no achievement! It
is empty, success for, achievement for , always something beyond, a purpose.
Bearing your suffering for the sake of others, as your son
needs a mother, your friend needs a friend. This can add meaning to your life;
my life is other peoples.
Body and psyche decline after adulthood, but spirit keeps
increasing.
The spirit
Freewill
Finding meaning
It’s almost the human faculties of
rationality\emotionality\soma under the drive of the spirit.
Psyche as the human faculties under the drive of the mind
Noetic dissonance, a desire that appears unfeasible
Cognitive dissonance a thought that we disagree with
As you lose your goals, an irreplaceable goal, it can be
better to develop gradually a new basic attitude to life, rather than
feverishly search around for a replacement.
In despair clients can defend lost goals and become fixated
on them.
The loss of a meaningful goal needs to be talked of and
integrated into a new goal\meaning of life.
If there was one meaning of life, a goal, and we could reach
that, then life would be meaningless after. We would drop off the edge of life
like lemmings into the sea.
Meaning is something we project onto things, people,
outside us or inside us. Then we search for it, try to achieve it. When we get
it or lose it, then we need to continue, creating meaning, projecting and
searching.
Chapter Four Guilt and the Question of Meaning
Only humans feel guilt.
If it is the parent’s fault, is it their parent’s fault in
turn and so on.
If you exonerate guilt, you can take away what can be
important from guilt:
To make amends and to learn from your mistakes.
Children who are spoiled, demand more attention and
affection that is usual.
Sometimes children
getting too much attention crave attention that can never be fulfilled.
3 types of hysterics
Liars
Egocentric
Calculating to be the centre of attention.
Delving into the history of a client, can give them valued
attention.
Preventing as opposed to explaining means working towards
not working through. Develop something
new instead of ruminating on something past.
Self-transcending motivation as being a human motivation,
ego motivation, a psyche based animalistic motivation.
Chapter 5 Resistance in suffering
Logotherapy is about freedom, so resists psychological
determinism
If clients identify with their difficulties then they are
slave to them, but when they distance from them then they can use the defiant
power of the human spirit to change their relationship to them. Be a master of them, ignore them etc.
Paradoxical intention is a resistance to fear.
Here Paradoxical intention is done physically, so twitching
mouth, actually let the food drop and eat it 4 times.
Humour is a useful tool, in self-distancing, it is part of
the spirit, part of freedom
We don’t just exist; we exist for something. Animals exist;
humans have transcendent purpose.
It’s not that we ask questions of life of what is
meaningful, but rather life that ask questions of us as to what is meaningful.
We answer life’s questions by living responsibly. Where are you needed, what
tasks are waiting for someone like you. What jobs has life got for just you.
Responsibility and freedom, being responsible means I am
free to choose, free to choose means I am responsible.
Chapter 6 The Will to Joy as a health resource
Psyche affecting health\immunity and body affecting psyche
Importance of change, drug addicts take drugs to enliven or
to numb i.e. to change. Psychologically sick seek changes within, psychologically
healthy seek changes outside. Variety is needed=Lisa Feldman Barrett
Therapy on focusing on what is wrong, and hyper reflecting.
Although focusing on the positive and what is meaningful, allows deflection and
transcendent meaning.
Affects to the 3 systems, soma, psyche and spirit.
Chapter 7 Psychotherapy and responsibility
Diagnosing people can cause problems, they identify with the
diagnosis, can act in ways that support it, they can get\give themselves
attention because of it.
Treatments can do harm when they aren’t needed, iatrogenic.
Often the question is asked, who or what is to blame. The
parents, the diagnosis, but all this shift’s responsibility from the person.
Take guilt away from the person and you take away their
dignity
To blame others\things\diagnosis doesn’t help you to find
your way.
Finding your way based on your potentials, your desires, and
what life needs. Do it in a step-by-step approach.
Act so during the day that your dreams are tranquil at night
Disadvantage as a challenge
Advantage as easy, as no growth.
Chapter 8 Reflections
Attitudinal value, as reducing the suffering of others. I suffer
from a terminal illness, I act bravely others feel good, and so do I but the
pain is still there. This then becomes an example, which tends towards immortality
as it lives outside you.
Creative and experiential values are predominantly for our
own good. Attitudinal values are for us
and for others.
In your unavoidable suffering, then you can take a
courageous attitude against it, and this can be an example to others.
Life has meaning even when unnoticed.
The meaning triad, the connection of creation, experience
and attitude, they weave together and are not independent.
Attitudinal values are unthinkable without another. The
husband who is dying spares his wife the pain, by bearing his.
Your action as encouraging others, drug addiction, suicide, self-harm,
people find out and it can encourage them to do it.
The meaning of fate is our responses to it.
To gain is a source of joy, but to have too soon becomes
saturation, enjoyment is the result of previously having done without.
If gain follow gains the contrast is lost, and all you
get is emptiness or addiction.
From scarcity to affluence is joy. From affluence to
scarcity, is despair.
In affluence you need to find a for what, a meaning, a purpose
for your actions