Psychotherapy sessions based on Meaning

Franklin Man’s Search for Meaning summarises this as follows: “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

Emmy van Deurzen writes in Psychotherapy and the Quest for Happiness, “Therapy when practised well is a fine but delicately balanced intervention in another person’s life. It requires a devotion to truth and merciless pursuit of right living”.

The Concept of Dimensional Ontology

Elisabeth Lukas writes in her book Living Logotherapy page 21-25:
Viktor E.Frankl presented his concept of the human being by means of his concept of “dimensional ontology”. He unfolded being human into three dimension: somatic, psychological, and spiritual.

The somatic level of a human is easy to define: it corresponds to all physical phenomena. It includes organic cell activity and biological-physiological bodily functions, including all associated chemical and physical processes.

The psychic plane of the human being is to be understood as the sphere of conditions: mood, instincts, desires, affects. To these psychic phenomena we add intellectual talent, acquired patterns of behaviour, and social formation. In short, cognition and emotion are “at home” in the psychic dimension.

What is left over for the spiritual plane? An endless amount! The “primal human” aspect, namely the freedom to determine one’s attitudes to body and condition. Independent decision-making (“intentionality”), technical and artistic interests, creative activity, religiosity and ethical sensibility (“conscience”), an understanding of values and love are all located in the spiritual dimension of the human being.

• Psychotherapy with its many different approaches is not exactly lacking in ambiguities and contradictions… with reference to Frankl’s words, it can be assumed that it still suffers from the consequences of improper projections.
• The most human things in a man, like value structures or the inborn desire for meaning, must not be lost in the jungle of psychological interpretations.
• Logotherapy endeavours to avoid this error by perceiving the spiritual as its own human dimension-the real one, if not the only one and by investigating whether the influence of the spiritual on the other two dimensions can be used for therapeutic purposes.
• For this reason, it does not neglect the psychic-social and physical dimensions, but it sets itself the specific research goal of exploring the extent to which the spiritual forces in humans can be mobilised.

1. to remove spiritual frustrations
2. to correct mental disorders
3. to alleviate (psycho)somatic suffering

What to expect:

• Acquire a wider self knowledge
• Raise inner control to alleviate psychic disorders, by a movement of the spirit which gains distance from the self and works on the self from this distance in a healing and corrective fashion.
• Raise inner growth to maintain good health in all situations of life that require a capacity for achievement, love and suffering. Inner growth can only be achieved by a movement of the spirit that transcends the self by listening to a call of meaning
  (Elisabeth Lukas – Living Logotherapy p.67)

Services: Free 30 minutes initial online meeting
Online sessions are offered of 1hr duration
Contact: elena.aroni@gmail.com