Lecture
A noogenic neurosis is a type of neurotic disorder produced by the loss of meaning in life and caused by the frustration of existential needs. A noogenic neurosis is a psychological state described within logotherapy, developed by Viktor Frankl. He linked it to the absence of meaning and goals in life. A person in a state of noogenic neurosis can be helped by following the principles of logotherapy. Here are several methods of help:
Support in the search for meaning: One of the main methods of logotherapy is to help a person seek out and define meaning in his or her life. Ask about his or her interests, values, and beliefs. Try to help him or her find areas of life that could lend greater meaning to his or her existence.
Psychological support: People suffering from noogenic neuroses may experience feelings of helplessness and despair. Psychological support from a psychotherapist or from close relatives and friends can be important for maintaining psychological well-being.
Creating a plan of action: Help the person develop a plan of action for achieving his or her goals and finding meaning in life. This may include setting specific goals, defining the steps needed to reach them, and drawing up a plan of action.
Reflection and self-analysis: Encourage the person to reflect on his or her experiences. This can help him or her better understand his or her needs and desires, as well as identify areas in which meaning can be found.
Service to others: Logotherapy emphasizes the importance of serving others and helping them. Try to inspire the person to take up volunteering or to help others in some form. This can lend meaning to his or her life and improve his or her well-being.
Creativity and self-expression: Encourage the person to engage in creativity and self-expression. This may be art, music, writing, or other hobbies that can help him or her express himself or herself and find joy.
Maintaining a daily routine and caring for one's health: It is important to pay attention to physical and mental health. Proper nutrition, physical activity, and regular sleep can help restore psychological balance.
Psychotherapy: Logotherapy can be an effective method for treating noogenic neuroses. A logotherapist can help a person seek meaning in life, resolve conflicts, and work through psychological problems.
Let us note the main psychotherapeutic strategies for working with a client in a situation of lost meaning in life.
When a psychologist deals with mental conflicts that are often grounded in
deep psychological trauma, one of his first
steps must be to enter into a particular “psychological mindset.”
A psychologist working with the problem of meaninglessness is required
to heighten his sensitivity to the problem, to begin listening differently,
remaining mindful of the importance of meaning in the lives of individuals; when
interacting with such patients the psychologist must attune himself to meaning,
thinking about the general focus and direction of the client's life. It is important to understand
whether the client goes beyond the bounds of his own “I,” beyond the limits of a monotonous
life.
The essence, the direction, of psychological help in such
situations is the aspiration to help the client go beyond the bounds of his own
life, beyond the limits of his interests.
How can such a refocusing be achieved? The psychologist must possess
heightened sensitivity and receptivity to the role of meaning in the client's
life, and then the client, picking up on his subtle cues, will become just as
sensitive to this question. The psychologist takes an interest in the client's life and
views, studying in depth his fundamental values in activity,
love, and experience.
The method of refocusing is an analysis of the client's life path, but not so much from
the standpoint of its events, which would call for a psychobiographical
debriefing, as from the standpoint of the search for and awareness of the meaning of his activity.
Often an isolated individual, who outwardly resembles a mouse,
pottering about meaninglessly in its corner, in his own isolated
life finds an important form of creative expression.
V. Frankl urged that one try to grasp a certain overall pattern, a
pattern of meaning, in the tragic events of a person's life path.
This calls for great resourcefulness on the part of the psychologist.
Let us cite one of Frankl's own cases, one that has found its way into
many textbooks of psychotherapy. An elderly physician came to him
in a depressed state, his wife having died two years before.
“How could I help him? What could I say to him? Well, I said
nothing, and instead posed a question to him: ‘What would happen,
doctor, if you had died first, and your wife had had to survive
you?’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that would have been terrible for her — how she would have suffered!’
Then I replied: ‘You see, doctor, she has been spared that suffering, and
it is you who spared her from it, but you must pay for this by surviving her
and mourning her.’ He did not answer me with a single word, but shook my hand and quietly left my office.”
This example bears out Frankl's contention that meaning must be sought in
any life situation, however tragic. He constantly emphasizes that when the
tragedy and suffering of the present day eclipse
all other life meanings, we can always find meaning in
life by taking up a heroic stance toward our own fate.
The discovery of life's meaning presupposes some way of conveying it to the
client. I. Yalom speaks of the problematic nature of such an approach, pointing to
its authoritarian character, to the violation of the client's personal autonomy.
But he does not hold to this position, and goes on to cite an example from the work of C. Jung. Jung
recounts a case in which he, too, openly offered a patient
a scheme of meaning. The patient was a young, educated Jewish
woman with an analytical turn of mind, suffering from a severe anxiety neurosis.
Having asked about her origins, Jung learned that the patient's grandfather had been
a rabbi, widely recognized as a tzadik, a holy man endowed with second
sight. She and her father had always laughed at this nonsense. Jung
sensed an insight into her neurosis and said to her: “Now I intend to tell you
something that you may not be able to accept. Your grandfather was a tzadik…, your
father betrayed the secret and turned his back on God. And you have a neurosis because
the fear of God lives within you.” This interpretation, C. Jung recounts, “struck her like
a bolt of lightning.”
The following night Jung had a dream in which he received his patient,
and knelt before her as before a goddess. Jung's dream showed him that
the patient was not merely a superficial little girl, but had within
her the makings of a saint. Yet her life was directed toward flirtation, sex, and
materialism. She had no way of expressing the most essential trait
of her nature — namely, that “in reality she was a child of God,
destined to fulfill His secret will.” Jung told the patient
his dream and his interpretation of it. A week later, he reports, “the neurosis
disappeared.”
The strategy of dereflection is fairly simple. It invites the patient
to turn away from his own ‘I,’ from his dysphoria, from the source of his
neurosis, and to shift his attention to preserving the sound parts of his own personality and to
the meanings available to him in the world. Dereflection should be regarded
as an attempt to help a person stop focusing on himself and instead engage with meaning
outside the ‘I.’
The position that the psychologist conveys to the person is this: owing to
the presence of ineradicable factors (genetic predisposition,
family history, features of the nervous system), the person has a high
baseline level of anxiety, about which little can be done.
The next step is to determine the person's attitude toward the situation
and to identify the meanings available to him.
The essence of the ‘dereflection’ technique is as follows: the psychologist
makes a considerable effort to divert the patient from his own,
neurotic ‘I,’ from his dysphoria, from the source of the neurosis. Following
this diversion, and together with it, the possibility arises of redirecting
his attention to the intact parts of his own personality and to the meanings available for
him in the world. (V. Frankl)
The technique of dereflection is simple and consists mainly in the fact that
the client is instructed to stop focusing on himself and to take up
the search for meaning outside the self.
When a client is excessively preoccupied with himself, a prolonged search for the causes of
anxiety within himself usually clouds the problem and, in the end, his
behavior becomes unproductive, leaving the client vulnerable,
self-absorbed.
V. Frankl recommends that therapists adopt the following position with respect to such
clients:
there exist ineradicable factors in personal life (family history,
genetically conditioned anxiety), in which the client has a high baseline
level of anxiety, about which little can be done apart from taking
medication;
the therapist must then proceed to determine the client's attitude
toward his situation and to identify the meanings available to him.
The overarching task of this technique is to shift the client's attention away from
himself and onto others. A therapy group is especially well suited to this
purpose (I. Yalom). Egocentric, narcissistic tendencies readily
emerge there, and the pattern of taking without giving inevitably becomes a key
problem within the group.
Paradoxical intention is used in phobic and obsessive states, which are
characterized by flight and struggle. Both phobias and obsessive states are
caused by the urge to avoid situations,
that provoke anxiety. A neurosis is produced not only by primary
conditions (the external and internal situation leading to the first appearance of the
symptom) but also by secondary ones (the entrenchment of anticipatory anxiety).
The task of paradoxical intention is to break, to disrupt, the circular
mechanisms of the first and second patterns of response in phobias and obsessive
states. This can be done by depriving the fears of phobias and
obsessive states of reinforcement. What is required of the person is that he
come to wish for the occurrence of that which he fears (in the case of phobia), or correspondingly
himself bring it about (in the case of obsessive-compulsive neurosis), the very thing he so
fears.
Here one must draw on that capacity for self-detachment so characteristic
of human beings, which is especially vividly reflected in
humor.
The paradoxical intention should be formulated in as
humorous a form as possible. Humor is one of the essential
human capacities. It gives a person the ability to gain distance
with respect to anything whatsoever, including himself, and thereby to attain
full control over himself. The mobilization of this essential
human capacity for distancing is precisely the goal in those
cases where paradoxical intention is applied.
Engagement was defined by I. Yalom as a galactic view of life.
“All that is good is vanity” (Schopenhauer). Doubts about the meaning of life do not
annul the reality of past significances. Engagement functions
here as an antidote to meaninglessness. The hedonistic paradox: the
more deliberately we seek pleasure, the more it eludes us.
Pleasure as a by-product of meaning (V. Frankl). A sense
of meaningfulness as a by-product of engagement.
Helping a person suffering from a noogenic neurosis requires patience and understanding. It is important to remember that every person is unique, and the methods of help may vary depending on his or her individual needs and situation.
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