Talk:Logotherapy

'Logos' has multiple meanings
'Logos' doesn't just mean 'meaning'. It also means 'word', 'speech' (ordered speech, more specifically), amongst others. Veritas.Ddd1600 (talk) 00:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes! I thought the same when reading. There's no 1-1 correlation in English. It has the sense of "well reasoned" when meaning speech (as opposed to "charismatic rhetoric") and the sense of "comprehensible" when meaning word (as opposed to babble). Similarly it only has the sense of "meaningful" in that it means "well-ordered" as opposed to chaos. Such translation would often be in the context of logos of Kosmos as opposed to the chaos of Kaos. This is the first time I'm seeing it used to mean "personal meaning of an individual being." 2604:2D80:DE09:D400:BCAF:5E86:D00F:D0AE (talk) 17:48, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

My recent reverts.
I 've reverted this article back to a few months ago because instead of an overview of logotherapy it had turned into a plug for some motivational mba speakers book/talks. The editor had even the nerve to say that this motivational speaker's management rehash of man's search for meaning was a "follow up" to what is arguably one of the most influential books of the 20th century. I am in principle against having someone use wikipedia for their personal gain, advertisement or aggrandizement. That said I would have been willing to let some portions in if they added anything of value to the article, instead what we had was this motivational speaker's (styled a la covey's seven habits of highly effective people) 7 core principles which were never part of Frankl's original work or of any serious current in logotherapy as a whole. 84.254.52.25 02:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

James Charles Crumbaugh
I have moved this section of the article to the talk page because I can not find anything to show that Crumbaugh is notable, nor that he is important to the development of Logotherapy.

"James Charles Crumbaugh"

"James Charles Crumbaugh (1912 - 2005), American psychologist and parapsychologist born in Terrell, Texas, was also very influential in cultivation of Logotherapy in the realm of alcoholism. Educated at Baylor University (B.A., 1935), Southern Methodist University (M.A., 1938), and the University of Texas (Ph.D., 1953)."

"During World War II he served as an assistant psychologist in the U.S. Army Air Force Aviation Cadet Classification Program (1941-45). After the war he became an instructor in psychology at Memphis State University, a post he held while finishing his doctorate (1947-56). He served in the Veterans Administration Post-Doctoral Training Program in Clinical Psychology (1956-57); as chairman of the Department of Psychology, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois (1957-59), and as research director of the Bradley Center, Columbus, Georgia (1959-64). In 1964 he became a staff psychologist at the VA Hospital at Gulfport, Mississippi."

"Crumbaugh used Logotherapy to develop a recovery system for alcoholics and went on to write several books on the subject including 'Logotherapy: New Help For Problem Drinkers' and 'Everything To Gain.'"

If material is added to establish his notability, and his importance in Logotherapy, the section may be returned to the article. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 14:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed 'Critiques' section
This section was written by one person -- who has made no other contributions save this to the site -- citing a single article. At best, this is poor scholarship, at worst, it violates Wiki-policy on POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.44.165.181 (talk) 19:31, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Reverted same. The material comes from a peer reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. If balance is needed, please supply. The fact that a WP:SPA made the contributions (largely) from a single source does not address the value/validity of the material.--S. Rich (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * IP editor has again deleted the section. (I've reverted with a note to use WP:BRD.) The above remark re poor scholarship -- is IP editor saying the WP:RS (the APA article) is poor scholarship or that the addition of the APA material is poor scholarship on the part of WP editing? --S. Rich (talk) 15:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * IP editor has bad-mouthed the original scholarship of the criticism section. I refer editors to  and  which indicate that Timothy Pytell's work is published by Oxford University Press.--S. Rich (talk) 18:42, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

3 out of 5 critisisms have nothing to do with Logotherapy but rather only Frankl which does nothing for the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.114.135.25 (talk) 16:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It appears that S. Rich has an ideological bias against logotherapy and is not editing in good faith. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.47.24 (talk) 06:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Most of the criticism come from one source, and one author; even if his work has been published by an APA journal, it does not mean that it is accurate, especially since the topic of Pytell's article is history rather than the psychology, and the APA is, after all, not the American Historical Association. Also, to speak of Theresienstadt as a "Model Ghetto" and not a concentration camp means to fall for what the Nazi propaganda wanted people to believe. Obviously, they've done a good job for the person who wrote this segment. However, Wikipedia's own Theresienstadt entry makes it relatively clear that Theresienstadt was what it was: a concentration camp. Anyway, to use such word jugglery in order to downplay Frankl's (and many others') time in the camps seems to me to be relatively tasteless. Furthermore, you cannot find any of this in the APA journal paper; it seems: for a good reson. Also, has anyone ever noticed that the Vienna Rothschild Spital was not a Nazi hospital, but the last remaining Jewish hospital in Vienna after the Anschluss? Anyway, what I find most irritating is that all of this has much to do with Frankl himself, but not with logotherapy as such, so why are these personal criticisms not moved to the Frankl biography page? Aren't ad hominem attacks (or praises) really below the general intellectual level of a free encyclopedia such as Wikipedia? Hence my plea: please clean up this messy entry.62.178.21.231 (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Rewrite lead
Can someone familiar with this subject please rewrite and simplify the lead? I'm a well-read and highly educated person but the lead of this article doesn't tell me very much (that is understandable) about this subject. Readers should be able to read the lead and come away with a very basic understanding of the subject and its main points; this lead does nothing but confuse and mystify readers. ElKevbo (talk) 05:14, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Honestly, I'd estimate the majority of the leads I've read on Wikipedia aren't helpful summaries or introductions to the topic. Sometimes I think people throw stuff in there because they don't know where else to put it. 2604:2D80:DE09:D400:BCAF:5E86:D00F:D0AE (talk) 17:40, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

As a first step, I just erased the section on "time spent in concentration camps". It would belong to the Viktor Frankl page, but not the one on logotherapy as a school of counseling and psychotherapy. Furthermore, the section was weird and inconsistent beyond repair: it first said that Frankl was in four concentration camps (incl. Theresienstadt), in the next sentence it promoted or at least accepted the Nazi dictum that Theresienstadt was "model ghetto" and not a concentration camp and claimed that therefore, Frankl was in the camps for "only 6 months" or so. I don't know who is so interested in downplaying what people endured in Theresienstadt, but the mere fact that such a question should come up in an entry on a psychotherapeutic school implies that it did not belong here, but to the Viktor Frankl biography entry (and perhaps the Theresienstadt entry, too). If time (and S. Rich and other readers) allows, I would like to help to make this article a little more relevant and focus more on logotherapy as such.62.178.21.231 (talk) 09:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Inaccuracies and defamatory claims
This page contains a number of inaccuracies and defamatory claims:

Claim: In 1969 Rollo May argued that logotherapy is, in essence, authoritarian. He suggested that Frankl's therapy presents a plain solution to all of life's problems, an assertion that would seem to undermine the complexity of human life itself.

May contended that if a patient could not find his own meaning, Frankl would provide a goal for his patient. In effect, this would negate the patient's personal responsibility, thus “diminish[ing] the patient as a person”.[19]

Fact: Only in very rare instances would Frankl suggest that the logotherapist, rather than guiding the patient to him- or herself discover his or her personally meaningful tasks, may help the process along by pointing towards concrete areas in which the patient may fulfill meaning. However, as Batthyány points out, it is not quite clear why May would not trust in the patient’s ability to decide for him- or herself whether he or she would take up the logotherapist’s advice. In fact, from the viewpoint of logotherapy, the real authoritarianism lies precisely in the fact that May, rather than Frankl, appears to heavily overestimate the authority and control the therapist exerts over the patient, whereas Frankl and logotherapy stress the individual responsibility of the patient even, if not especially within, the therapeutic process.

Claim: Frankl responded that he combined the prescription of medication, if necessary, with logotherapy, to deal with the person's psychological and emotional reaction to the illness, and highlighted areas of freedom and responsibility, where the person is free to search and to find meaning.[21]

Fact: This refers to an entirely different discussion – the question of medication in psychiatry. Frankl merely represented the viewpoint of modern scientific psychiatry. This is hardly a controversy nowadays, unless if you are, perhaps, following the Church of Scientology or a member of the now largely defunct antipsychiatry movement.

Claim: On Frankl's doctrine that one must instill meaning in the events in one's life, that work and suffering to find meaning, will ultimately lead to fulfillment and happiness.

Fact: This is an oversimplification. It would be more correct to say that Frankl added meanig to the catalogue of human motivations, and further research found that meaning is not only a motivating factor but also an important factor in coping and resilience. In the past 30 years, numerous empirical and clinical studies have proven the validity of this concept.

Claim: In 1982 the highly cited scholar and holocaust analyst Lawrence L. Langer, who while also critical of Frankl's distortions on the true experience of those at Auschwitz,[25]

Fact: False allegation / misleading wording. Langer was critical of Frankl’s interpretation of the holocaust, but not his experience.

Claim: A biographer of Frankl would later remark on the penetrating insight of Langer's reading of Frankl's holocaust testimony, with Langer's criticism published in 1982 before the biographer's research, the former had thus drawn the controversial parallels, or accommodations in ideology without the knowledge that Victor Frankl was an advocate/"embraced"[28]  the key ideas of the Nazi psychotherapy movement ("will and responsibility"[29] ) as a form of therapy in the late 1930s.

Fact: Once again, the "biographer" is none other but Pytell himself (see Ref. [28],[29], etc.). Frankl was not an advocate, but a staunch critic of the key ideas of the NS PT movement, and in fact wrote two papers against the NS PT movement, one of them published in a well-known Anti-Nazi journal („Der christliche Ständestaat“, edited by NS resistance fighter v. Hildebrand). Additionally, logotherapy’s emphasis is not on the „will“, but rather on „the will to meaning," and "freedom and individual responsibility“, whereas the Nazis framed responsibility in collective, i.e. „völkische“ terms – which, according to Frankl, was not a legitimate category.

Claim: When at that time Frankl would submit a paper and contributed to the Göring institute in Vienna 1937 and again in early 1938 connecting the logotherapy focus on "world-view" to the "work of some of the leading Nazi psychotherapists",[30]  both at a time before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.[31] [32]

Fact: The Göring Institute Vienna was founded in 1938; there was no Göring Institute Vienna in 1937. The Göring Institute Vienna was founded after the “Anschluss”, i.e. March 1938, as a partner institution of the Berlin Göring Institute (founded in 1936). Jews were not allowed to contribute to the Göring Institute Berlin or Vienna. Additionally, Frankl published two articles 1937/1938, both were scathing critiques of Göring and the Nazi psychotherapy movement.

Claim: The origins of logotherapy, as described by Frankl, were therefore a major issue of continuity that Biographer Pytell argues were potentially problematic for Frankl because he had laid out the main elements of logotherapy while working for/contributing to the Nazi-affiliated Göring Institute. Principally Frankl's 1937 paper, that was published by the institute.[32]

Fact: The “Zentralblatt” was not the Journal of the Göring Institute, but of the International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy (IGMSP), which was founded in 1927, and the title page of the 1937 issue in which Frankl published his paper (a critique of the NS psychotherapy movement) clearly states: Journal of the International General Society …. The Göring Insitute Berlin (founded in 1936) had its own Journal, and of course no Jewish psychiatrists were allowed to publish therein, making this claim obviously historically utterly uninformed – and the latter is indeed a criticism Pytell received from many historians. Pytell published one book (his dissertation on Frankl), and his citation index consists mostly of self-citations. Here are some of the scathing critiques, by intellectual historians, of Pytell’s discussion of Frankl and the Holocaust:

[…] outdated discourse about Vienna’s kaleidoscopic Jewish culture exacerbated by numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations […]; Statements, which abound in the work, rankle in the face of the vast wealth of literature on Central- European and Viennese Jewish culture that has proliferated in the two decades since Pytell began his research on Viktor Frankl. […] Not surprisingly, the footnotes reveal that this is a result of the most recent literature cited dating from the 1980s (his misreading of Lisa Silverman’s brilliant work notwithstanding). Erroneous renditions of German nomenclature and quotations abound, whether owing to the author or the editor is unclear, yet enhancing the sense that this work could have engaged better with the Central European context.

[…] frankly patchy in its narration of Frankl’s life in his Central European environs. […] underdeveloped, lacking a conclusion and too often indulging in superficial digressions into scholarly literature on the Holocaust

[…] Pytell has simply not done his homework. [The book] shows contemporary history at its muck-raking weakest […] hardly excusable ignorance […]

[…] ignores much of the literature on Viennese Jewry’s role in the wider cultural arena.

Claim: A disparate group of others also raise doubts in regard to acts which Frankl willingly pursued in the time before his internment …

Fact: No reference is given as to who this “disparate group of others” is. The links below again only refer to the one person discussed above (and below), i.e. Timothy Pytell.

Claim: This association, as a source of controversy, that logotherapy was palatable to National Socialism is the reason Pytell suggests, Frankl took two different stances on how the concentration-camp experience affected the course of his psychotherapy theory.

Fact: Again, Pytell is the only source; yet Frankl – from 1945 onwards – said that he developed logotherapy before his deportation when he wrote the textbook of logotherapy (The Doctor and the Soul) in 1942 – a copy of which he smuggled into the camps, lost in Auschwitz and rewrote and published in 1946.

Claim: Namely, that within the original English edition of Frankl's most well known book, Man's Search for Meaning, the suggestion is made and still largely held that logotherapy was itself derived from his camp experience, with the claim as it appears in the original edition, that this form of psychotherapy was "not concocted in the philosopher's armchair nor at the analyst's couch; it took shape in the hard school of air-raid shelters and bomb craters; in concentration camps and prisoner of war camps."

Fact: This „claim“ does not appear in the book, but in the advertisements for the book. Frankl was not the author of this claim and bitterly complained against it in a letter to Beacon press. Would Frankl claim (or Pytell seriously believe that) Frankl was in prisoner of war camps, bomb craters or air-raid-shelters? He would have lucky to have been in the latter two, for that was only possible for those who were not incarcerated in the concentration camps.

Claim: Frankl's statements however to this effect would be deleted from later editions, though in the 1963 edition, a similar statement again appeared on the back of the book jacket of Man's Search for Meaning.

Fact: Again – not Frankl’s statement, but Beacon Press‘ statement. It was deleted because Frankl asked the publisher to delete it.

Claim: Frankl over the years would switch between the claim that logotherapy took shape in the camps to the claim that the camps merely justified his already preconceived theories, as the definitive word on the matter, in 1977 Frankl himself began to clarify the controversy stating "People think I came out of Auschwitz with a brand-new psychotherapy. This is not the case."[33]

Fact: See previous.

Conclusion: The current Wikipedia entry on Logotherapy contains a number of inaccuracies and false allegations, all made by one single person (Timothy Pytell). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexvesely (talk • contribs) 18:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Determinism
The article mentions "Frankl developed a unique view of determinism," but the view is presented unclearly. "A person can detach from situations and themselves, choose an attitude about themselves, and determine their own determinants, thus shaping their own character and becoming responsible for themselves." Most of this sentence doesn't seem relevant to free will or determinism. And "determine ones own determinants" is ambiguous. Further, those seeking to better understand find no mention of Frankl or his views in Determinism, nor any mention of determinism in Viktor Frankl. 2604:2D80:DE09:D400:BCAF:5E86:D00F:D0AE (talk) 17:59, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Lead needs a revamp
I feel like the first sentence of the lead should only (or primarily) explain what logotherapy is instead of starting with who developed it Oneequalsequalsone (talk) 23:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)