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The Doctor and the Soul

Disciplines:
psychology
philosophy

Summary

Frankl's systematic theoretical account of logotherapy — his meaning-centered psychotherapy — developed before Man's Search for Meaning but less widely read.

Core Contribution

Logotherapy systematized: the will to meaning as the primary human motivation (against Freud's will to pleasure and Adler's will to power). The noögenic neurosis: neuroses that arise from existential and meaning problems rather than psychosexual conflicts — requiring logotherapy, not psychoanalysis. The spiritual dimension: the human being as irreducibly spiritual — capable of taking a stance toward even unavoidable suffering. The full theoretical framework from which Man's Search for Meaning is a narrative illustration.

Historical Influences

Edmund Husserl Max Scheler

Intellectual Lineage

Existential Psychology Phenomenological Psychiatry

Allied Works

Man's Search for Meaning The Will to Meaning The Unheard Cry for Meaning

Contemporaries & Peers

Man's Search for Meaning The Will to Meaning

Minds Influenced

Existential Psychotherapy Positive Psychology

Intellectual Posterity

Logotherapy Meaning-Centered Therapy

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