Definition
Logotherapy is the school of psychotherapy founded by Viktor Frankl. The name draws on the Greek logos, meaning — and the therapy takes the search for meaning as the central motivational force in human life. Frankl described it as the "third Viennese school of psychotherapy," following Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology.
Where psychoanalysis looks backward to uncover the causes of a symptom, logotherapy looks forward to the meanings a person is still able to fulfill. It is future-oriented and task-oriented: the therapeutic question is less "what happened to you?" and more "what does life now ask of you, and how will you answer?"
Why it matters
How it works
A logotherapist helps a patient locate concrete sources of meaning in their actual situation. Meaning is never generic; it is the meaning of this person, in this moment, facing this task. The therapist does not supply the answer but widens the patient's field of vision so that the available meanings become visible.
Logotherapy also treats specific clinical patterns. Paradoxical intention addresses anticipatory anxiety and phobia; dereflection counters the excessive self-observation seen in some compulsive and sexual disorders. Both work by redirecting attention away from the self and toward a meaning beyond it.