Meaningful Living: Lukas
Contents
A. Meaningful Living 1
Chapter 1. Our Search for Meaning 1
Chapter 2 Causes and consequences of existential frustration 3
Chapter 3 Overview of Premises and Methods 4
Chapter 4 Applications of attitude modulation 5
Chapter 5 Applications of the paradoxical intent 7
Chapter 6 Applications of dereflection 8
Chapter 7 Applications of the suggestive technique 10
Chapter 8 The ideal Logotherapist 10
Part B A synopsis of logotherapy 11
Chapter 1 Basic Assumptions of logotherapy 11
Chapter 2 Techniques and indications 12
A. Meaningful
Living
Chapter 1. Our Search
for Meaning
We long for freedom, but then we can get lost in
unstructured freedom, in a field with no signs.
Freedom difficulties
Free time: we have more free time and then don’t know what
to do with it. We have more comforts in our lives, but this encourages us to a
passive life.
Women have freedom to work but now have 3 times the pressure
to rear\have a profession and take care
of the home.
Free to marry who you want but more unsteady marriage
institution.
Liberation from work has makes us prisoners of modern
comfort.
Kids free to do what they want but levels of
anxiety\aggression in kids off the scale
Sexual freedom, get it where\how you want but insecurity,
dissatisfaction, dysfunction.
Contemporary art: no rules currently and not form either
Religion\philosophy: philosophies change so quick the only
thing that is hung onto is the material.
Life for many people is acquiring as much wealth and
material possessions, as much status, as much comfort and that is the formula
for happiness, and yet it doesn’t seem to provide it, it doesn’t seem to enrich
their souls
Difficulties with meaning
People who haven’t had meaning who are searching for it.
People who have had it, who have lost it, or people who
though they had meaning but now realise its empty
Parallel value systems
Meaning is provided by a number of areas, that run in
parallel. This gives a level of security as you can move between them when one fails
Pyramidical value system
On large value at the top, everything else is neglected,
when that fails it, all fails
People who hold one value as true\the highest tend towards
fanaticism\intolerance. People with pyramidical values do not easily get alone
with others with divergent views.
Despair will be felt if the pyramids top crumbles, despair
and idolisation.
Failure and success
Vs
Meaning and despair
Often you can get many successful and despairing people
The more meaning possibilities that exist the less despair
there is
Acting as if
Only works if you play something that you are, or have been,
it allows you to reconnect.
Life span
Early life search for meaning
Midlife pyramidal
Later life Parallel
Positive value system, and more parallel values when
children have a many layered educational foundation, taught a wide range, from
academic to craft, art etc
Reversal in child development between a child given too much
freedom early, then children become lazy, bored and egotistical. Then the
pendulum swings the other way, and a lot of rules get put on the teenager.
Freedom to is to understand your inner signposts and
authority, I am free to do x, and x makes sense to me due to my values, and
current desires. Then we don’t feel lost.
IN the west we have too much freedom and not enough
maturity. We find pleasure, affluence
and a desire for comfort doesn’t bring happiness
Chapter 2 Causes and consequences of existential
frustration
Existential frustration=boredom, inner emptiness,
indifference. You can see it people who
use stimulus to cover emptiness, consumption, mindless activity. Satiated with everything and satisfied with
nothing. If we satisfy all our drives nothing is demanded of us. Affluence
empties.
Spirit\meaning brings a unity between body and psyche, like
the composition brings together the pianist and the piano.
Existential frustration as the under demanding within
affluence of the human spirit
Inner emptiness leading to depression, addiction and other
things that attempt to fill the hole, continual success, achievement.
The greater the affluence, the greater the sexual excess,
the flimsier the material people wear the more likely the downfall of a nation.
The more intent you are on sexual pleasure the less able you
are to have it; sexual pleasure is a by-product of sensual engagement.
Addiction and substance, fills the hole of meaninglessness temporarily but then
returns you to the meaningless world even more disappointed.
Crimes being committed to fill an empty life?
Fanatics are people who don’t have an opinion their opinion
has them
Chapter 3 Overview of Premises and Methods
Humans have spirit, the noetic dimension
We have soma, psyche and noetic dimensions. They are
inseparable and inter woven
We share the first two with animals.
Feedback in biology is via the ANS, in psychology via
reinforcement to change behaviour, i.e. pleasure\pain, and in noesis via new
understandings of the self (hmm that’s not a strong argument).
Homeostasis applied to the somatic dimension, mostly to the
psychological dimension and not at all in the noetic.
Homeostasis is the absence of tension, which you want
somatically at times around the process, digestion or body temperature.
Absence of tension in the noetic would-be death, or a sign
of existential frustration. Tension is a
state between here and there, and would be the sign of an unfulfilled goal, no
tension is the complete satisfaction of all goals.
Movement from fact to meaning. Doctor says you have cancer.
Then you think things are hopeless which degrades your health and the doctor’s
statement is no longer true, as you now have terminal cancer.
If you treat yourself as a certain something you can become
it. Eg treating someone as if they have high IQ can produce it
4 Methods in logotherapy
1.
Modulation of attitudes
2.
Paradoxical intent
3.
Dereflection
4.
Suggestion technique
Modulation of attitudes
Problems can allow you to show your capabilities and
strengths. Passivity can give strength
to the problem and weakness to you.
Affluence can also push us into passivity and be a
hedonistic pleasure seeker which doesn’t strengthen us, bring fulfilment or
meaning.
Attitudes to self or other can lead them to be coming true. I’m\you’re
no good=so don’t try, don’t expect and become no good.
Paradoxical Intent
Needs to be used with humour, you get some distance from
yourself in doing it, to really wish that your worst fear comes, will reduce
the fear. What you fear often ends up catching up with you.
You need to use the PI before the anticipatory anxiety
starts, or if during, then you need some relaxation technique to enable it. PI
will only work when the client is relaxed (!)
Dereflection
Turning away from excessive self-observation to something
more important. It enables us to forget ourselves
Suggestive training of the will
You can only suggest what they have or want to believe but
are currently not. Suggestions include that you are free, that problems can
increase your strength, that you can get meaningful goals.
Chapter 4 Applications of attitude modulation
How you speak of and to your client will affect how they
are, be careful of causing iatrogenic damage.
You need to treat all areas, soma, psyche, and noesis.
Treating the psyche, can use CBT, gestalt, psychodynamic.
To modulate attitudes, you need to decide which are
unhealthy first, which don’t affirm life, which produce things in the client’s
life they don’t want
Physical illness, people with small children are too busy to
be sick, or people in danger, are more affected by the danger than by the
sickness.
Look for unhealthy determinist attitudes, I can’t because, I
can’t help doing because.
If you take a responsible decision (accords with your
conscience) it will strengthen you, if you take a comfortable decision now , it
will weigh on you as a burden later
(weaken you).
You can’t ignore the general loving kindness of parents and
define it all by the time they were angry with you, or unjust or unfair.
Psychotherapy can explain human failure, but it must not
excuse it
Doing anxiety provoking things in spite of your anxiety. I
will defy my anxiety and be in a lift even so.
What is stronger than your fear\anxiety, your desire, your
love, the meaning that surrounds this.
Undermining another therapist, undermines all therapists.
Hate is not the opposite of love indifference issue
As long as clients identify with their symptoms it is
difficult to change them.
If you can distance yourself from them, you can be in
relationship with them
If you believe you are x, then you will be! So, stage 1 in
treatment distance your clients from their diagnosis.
Edison: The benefit of making a mistake is that you don’t
have to make it a second time. Even if you make it 10 times, you can think I won’t
make it an 11th time.
Your failures are the price you have to pay for life’s
lessons.
Frankl’s tragic triad unavoidable suffering, guilt and death
Difficulties as price to be paid for talents. So, with
someone with difficulties what we also need to find is talents, and desires.
Every crisis has its opportunity, every suffering has its
meaning
Externally disfigured use it as a Geiger counter to see who
is interested in the real you.
Looking for meaning
IN the places when you’ve done chores rather than the things
you wanted. At times when you really wanted to do certain things but couldn’t
(can you now?). So, in an “empty” life you are looking for the discarded, and
blocked meanings that can be reignited.
An animal is the world; a human has the world. Can take a
stand and a relation to it
Chapter 5 Applications of the paradoxical intent
Preconditions for use: self-distancing. The client doesn’t
identify with their symptoms, and that they can take a defiant attitude towards
them.
Our somatic responses can fuel effects and emotions, via our
psyche, but our spirit will decide how we respond
Dereflection\dis-identification
Temporal I am a normal person and sometimes I have a problem
Spatial I am a normal person and sometimes I have this
problem which I feel here, but not here
Every crisis has its opportunity and every suffering
meaning. Every fear has its adversary: humour.
Anticipatory anxiety
Anxiety happens in a situation, you then expect it will
happen again. Before going out into this situation you feel anxious then when
you go out into the situation you are already anxious.
You can do the same with fear.
What you are also doing in pairing\associating the two
things, the feeling and the place.
Of course there can be excessive fear of the phobic, to the
lack of fear of the careless, and both can cause problems.
Paradoxical intent, needs a ridiculous position, so you
cannot take it seriously
You need dereflection
of the symptoms with disidentification,
The Paradoxical intent to reduce the anticipatory anxiety.
It does so in part by ridiculing the symptom
Phobic people experience what they most fear, blushing, etc
OCD never experience what they most fear, they can never be
certain that their avoidance behaviours stop the feared thing, so it keeps it
going.
Phobias. PI prevents AA and prevents the fear from coming
OCD PI prevents the fear coming and indirectly eliminates
uncertainty
Some clients think their treatment should be done to them,
they don’t need to contribute. Some clients will pay lip service to PI and not
have an inner commitment to it., not really mean it
PI means hanging onto the wish, it’s not a prediction. I
want this to happen, not its going to
You need to use the PI before any AA. You might need to use
relaxation training or disidentification\dereflection
Frankly consider there is biologically caused depression,
and you shouldn’t use PI there as the humour might be considered mocking.
Chapter 6 Applications of dereflection
Theres a continuum between
No self-awareness, helpful self-awareness, excessive self-awareness.
If we try to make autonomic actions happens, that can
prevent them, then we can try even harder, which prevents them even more.
If we focus on how we speak we may stutter, rather than what
we want to say.
All this is a description of hyper reflection.
You need to pay attention to something, you can’t tell someone to not pay attention
or to not think, so you need something else to pay attention to. You also need
to move their intention.
Sleep
Hyper intention: I really want to fall asleep because xyz
Hyper reflection: I don’t see any signs of sleep, I’m
feeling wide awake
The autonomic functions are the servants of goals that lie
outside us.
Sleep : Transcendence Think of what has been accomplished
during the day
Sex: Transcendence think of a person’s pleasure
But this can return back to self, think about work, I didn’t
do x, then worry then no sleep.
Sleep think all of the things that have been accomplished,
completed, that require nothing further.
You need to dereflect onto meaningful goals, to reduce the
hyper attention on the autonomic body function.
Using meaningful
activity to manage worry. Do it
repeatedly for 10 days, mark how satisfied, -2 to +2, notice how it changes in
5 days.
Dereflection, finding a task, that can absorb client’s total
attention
Dying people, they can absorb themselves with their
accomplishments, enjoyments during their lives.
Dereflection as an anti-dote to hyper reflection: So, find
something meaningful and absorbing that is more fulfilling than the hyper
reflection
True human happiness lies in the ability to forget oneself; self-transcendence
is the best form of dereflection, it loosens egocentricity.
One problem of therapy is it increases egocentricity, increases
a clients focus on their symptoms.
Dieting generally fails as there is hyper reflection on
weight. But if you get focus on something which becomes important e.g.
gardening, then energy gets put into that rather than eating and weight falls.
Has client abnormal fears (stuttering erections,
sweating)=paradoxical intent
Or has it’s the client trying to force normal things(sleep,
health)
|
Paradoxical
intent |
Prevents |
Abnormal
feared condition |
|
Dereflection |
Enables |
Natural
condition e.g. sleep |
|
Attitude
modulation |
Helps master |
An
event\condition e.g. chronic illness |
|
Self-detachment |
Helps apply |
Paradoxical
intent |
|
Self-transcendence |
Helps apply |
Dereflection |
|
|
|
|
PI helps modify AA
Nothing protects from neurosis more than a task, something
that is meaningful, a goal that can pull a person into health. However, if you
are doing too much doing more isn’t helpful, if you are doing too less,
relaxing isn’t helpful.
Given what you are doing, how would you describe it, and
what do you need more of or less of?
Chapter 7 Applications of the suggestive technique
Danger of scientific determinism.
Bad situations can lead to addiction and depression
Good situations can lead to existential emptiness
Deprivation and overabundance can both lead to problems
Substance misuse gets rid of the effects or a problem but
not the problem. Looking away from the problem doesn’t annihilate it
Substance misuse started by awful event, or by abundance and
therefore meaninglessness
There is still the problem, but the client’s agency, and abilities
are now dulled by the substance.
Chapter 8 The ideal Logotherapist
1.
Logotherapist must be pessimistic and optimistic
a.
Optimistic to help clients be what they are,
pessimistic enough to realise this isn’t easy
b.
Not all client problems are noetic
c.
Expect setbacks or this can be difficult for
clients
d.
An entirely pessimistic patient can be
optimistic to others
2.
Logotherapist must explore causes and ignore
them
a.
If you blame your action on your history, pay
too much attention to an event, you
paralyse the human spirit
3.
Clients must both accept their fate, and fight
it
a.
Accept that it happened, fight its current
effects. Be able to accept, be determined to resit
4.
The Logotherapist must be able to understand the
person who never had a chance for a healthy development and also those who had
their chances but didn’t use them
Accept the unavoidable, defy one’s weaknesses, overcome one’s
insecurities, rise above one’s greed to transcend oneself. One does not need to
yield to every temptation, fall into depression because of a disappointment,
scream at every provocation and practice one upmanship at every opportunity.
Having money does not contribute to physical health, earning
money does. Idle people are found around the very rich and very poor.
Part B A synopsis of logotherapy
Chapter 1 Basic Assumptions of logotherapy
There is meaning in the moment, and ultimate meaning. The
latter seems a peak experience found during prayer, or with music or art.
Ultimate meaning is a like a horizon that can be approached but never reached.
Psychological domain concerns the emotional, cognitive and social aspects.
The noetic dimension concerns itself with freedom and
meaning.
Self-distancing, to be able to self-reflect. To be in relationship with yourself. Meaning
can come from distancing yourself from yourself, and maybe ask, what is
important for you right now
Self-transcending, looking beyond your personal need: having
a cause outside yourself or a person
Self-transcending and self-distance are only available in
suffering, when the question why me, is changed to why not you.
Attitudinal meaning only comes where the suffering is
inescapable, if something can be done it should be.
Lukas: horrors in life need not be meaningful, however life
does not lose its meaning despite the horrors.
If you can’t change a situation, you must change yourself
Chapter 2 Techniques and indications
Techniques:
1.
Socratic dialogue
2.
Modulation of attitudes
3.
Paradoxical intent
4.
Dereflection
5.
Suggestive techniques
Dereflection encourages people to forget themselves and
focus on others.
Excessive self-reflection
Lowers automatic processes, reduces meaning (?) as transcendence
enables more meaning that self-acquisition. It is rare that you can be happily
absorbed in yourself, but you can be happily absorbed in something else.
Excessive self-attention can be the outcome of fear of judgement
or illness, and in which case it magnifies the problem.
You can work with dereflection, by getting a list of things
to pay attention to, engage with when the desire to hyper reflect comes (is this
just distraction?)