Logotherapy focuses on mans individual search for meaning and the meaning for human existence. Logotherapy also became known as "The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy." Finding a meaning to life is different for each individual and each individual must find their own will to meaning. According to logotherapy an individuals search for meaning is not an inst!.
inctual drive, but the primary motivation in an individuals life. Logotherapy is therefore much different then the ideas of Freud and Alder. Alder focused on man striving for superiority while Freud focused on man striving for pleasure. Frankl is saying that mans search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and therefore pleasure or superiority becomes either secondary motivations or a byproduct to life. Frankl describes an "existential vacuum" in which an individual may fall into if they have no will to meaning. Existential is a term, which means in logotherapy, the striving to find meaning for personal existence. An individual who has no will to meaning experiences a sense of boredom. An individual therefore falls into this vacuum and is unable to recover if there is no will to meaning. Often times many turn to addiction, aggression, or even fall into depression. Logotherapy tries to fill this vacuum so that the individual is prevented from having any relapses. S!.
o what is the meaning of life? As stated earlier each individual has their own meaning to life. What is more important though is not an overall meaning to life, but the specific meaning in an individuals life at a given moment. Therefore in each situation in an individuals life the individual must question it's meaning and what is the best choice to make in that situation. The individual must then be very responsible toward his actions and choices. Frankl states that an individual should "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"(P114) Logotherapy tries to make the individual aware of his responsibleness, and the possible outcomes of his decisions, but it in the end the individual must be left alone to make his own decisions.