Victor Frankl, Logotherapy, Existential Analysis & The Meaning of Life- Dr Alfried Längle, M.D., PhD
The presentation gives a brief introduction to Frankl’s life and work, my collaboration with him, and the background development of Frankl’s Logotherapy. With this meaning-centered approach, Frankl made a substantial contribution to psychotherapy. Then will be outlined how it came to a new onset through a process-oriented different paradigm on the basis of strict use of phenomenological openness. This led to a complex, fourfold motivation theory in which meaning and becoming are just one existential motivation, besides securing and expanding one’s being, enriching one’s life with pleasure and values, and finding and asserting oneself by encounter.
The development of these four dimensions of existence laid the ground for fully-fledged psychotherapy: the modern Existential Analysis which provides broad access to the treatment of psychic suffering. We will outline the key to a fulfilling life, together with a short glimpse into the work with these existential motivations, including giving a tool to how individuals can live with a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their life.
Reading Recommendations:
- Längle S, Wurm C (2016) (ed) Living your own life. Existential Analysis in Action. London: Karnac
- Längle A, Sykes B-M (2006) Viktor Frankl – Advocate for Humanity: On his 100th Birthday. In: Journal of Humanistic Psychology 46, 1, 36-47
- Längle A (2012) The Viennese School of Existential Analysis. The search for Meaning and Affirmation of Life. Barnett L, Madison G (Eds) Existential Therapy: Legacy, vibrancy, and dialogue. New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 159-170
- Längle A (2003) The Search for Meaning in Life and the Fundamental Existential Motivations. In: Psychotherapy in Australia, 10, 1, 22-27
- The Viennese School of Existential Analysis
About the Speaker:
Dr Alfried Längle, PhD
Alfried LÄNGLE, M.D., Ph.D., Dr. h.c.mult., professor and honorary professor, was born in 1951 in Austria where he still lives. He studied medicine and psychology at the Universities of Innsbruck, Rome, Toulouse, and Vienna. After years of hospital work in general medicine and psychiatry and in an outpatient department of social psychiatry, in 1982 he started a private practice in psychotherapy, general medicine, and clinical psychology in Vienna.
At the same time, he came into close collaboration with Viktor Frankl (1983-1991). He assisted Frankl’s lectures at the university for years and worked together with him in many relevant fields of Logotherapy. He is the founder and president (1983-2017) of the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis in Vienna (www.existenzanalyse.org), whose honorary president was Viktor Frankl until 1990. By this date, Frankl resigned from his honorary presidency because of Längle’s new developments in the field of existential analysis (methods, implication of existential self-experience in the training and seminars, rejecting the exclusive use of the meaning paradigm in psychotherapy and enlarging its theoretical basis, implementation of biographical work). Dr. Längle is a Professor at the University of Vienna (Sigmund Freud University), Klagenfurt and Moscow (HSE). He has over 400 publications, 2 honorary doctorships, and 6 honorary professorships, as well as a gold medal from the Republic of Austria for scientifically high contributions.
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Next Event:
- University of Greenwich, London
- 18/12/2022
