There are three schools of Viennese psychiatry: Freudian, or the will to pleasure; Adlerian, or the will to power; Logotherapy. I've just finished a book on the third,
The Will to Meaning, written by its founder, the late Dr. Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor. The practice has three basic beliefs: 1) Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones; 2) Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life; 3) We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering. I understood roughly 50% of the book, which is written in clear, accessible prose but filled with technical terms. Although it is geared to professionals and students of psychiatry, there are many nuggets laymen will appreciate. For instance: "...each man's life is unique in that no one can repeat it." "There is no such thing as a universal meaning of life but only the unique meanings of individual situations." "A lively and vivid conscience is the only thing that enables man to resist the effects of the existential vacuum." "Flight from the self allows for avoiding a confrontation with the void in the self." "The past is the safest mode of being." "Logotherapy is no panacea." Frankl sees value in all the psychiatric approaches, and in the use of drugs. An example of Logotherapy in simplified form is as follows: An insomniac will be told to go to bed and intentionally try not to sleep. Surprisingly, unlike many scientists and academics, the author invites religion into his practice. He cites a case in which a young rabbinical student, a survivor of WWII, came to him riddled with doubt. Suffering symptoms of schizophrenia, he spent two and a half years in a sanitarium. Frankl counseled him to look on that time as similar to Jonah's in the belly of the whale. As one who has struggled with existential angst his entire adult life and, perhaps unknowingly, as long ago as childhood, the book was valuable. Of course, these issues are never fully resolved, perhaps not even in death. I keep busy to avoid thinking about the existential vacuum, to try to provide meaning to my life. That's why I dread bad weather. It prevents me from filling those three hours I devote to the floating book shop, three hours more in which to find diversion on rainy, snowy or frigid days. My literary efforts are my main reason for living. There are thousands of writers, but each one is unique in the way he views and presents life in his work.
Shrinks may have to create a fourth category: The Will to Sell Books. The forecast called for clearing skies. I prepared psychology to fight the wind that would usher in the front. To my surprise. it was raining when I left the building and not windy. I waited in the car, doing a crossword puzzle. I set up shop, thinking the rain had cleared out. It returned a half hour later. I went home and took a nap. I set up again at about the time I'd usually be closing. The temperature had dropped considerably. My thanks to the three kind folks who bought four books between them, and to Herbie, who donated a hardcover mystery.
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
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