Existence cannot be analyzed

Strangely enough, the sentence: “Existence cannot be analyzed” comes from the founder of “existential analysis”, Viktor E. Frankl. Of course he was right. According to the Duden dictionary, “analyze” means to (scientifically) dissect, break down, examine, dissolve something. However, existence, understood philosophically as the mode of being appropriate to man (and only man), is unity and wholeness; it can neither be dissected nor broken down, can only be examined to a very limited extent and cannot be dissolved. So what is the concept of “existential analysis” all about? We have to look at this matter from a historical perspective. Frankl had difficulties with the “baptismal name” of his spiritual child. In 1926 he came up with the word logotherapy. The then 21-year-old certainly didn’t think that the similarity to the specialist term speech therapy would lead to misunderstandings and confusion among the general public, which generations of speech therapists would later have to contend with. Speech therapy was probably still underdeveloped and little known at the beginning of the 20th century. “Logotherapy” was in itself a suitable name, as the question of meaning, the “logos”, plays a major role in the form of therapy created by Frankl. In principle, the “baptism” would have been complete. However, Frankl the doctor and psychiatrist was preoccupied with something well into the 1930s. It was the time in which Sigmund Freud rose to worldwide stardom in his field. Psychoanalysis became a fashionable hit and was on everyone’s lips. Frankl knew Freud personally, had been appreciated and protected by him in his younger years, and yet had turned away from his teachings for well-considered reasons. This must have caused a fierce inner conflict within him. It became a matter close to Frankl’s heart to reverse the “degradation” of the human being, who in Freud’s models was reductionistically projected down to the psychophysical level, and to “uplift” the image of the human being in its (also) spiritual dimensionality. “Where is the therapeutically interested psychology that would include these ‘higher’ layers of human existence in its outline and, in this sense and in contrast to the term ‘depth psychology’, would deserve the name ‘altitude psychology’?” wrote Frankl in 1938 in the “Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie”, thus creating another “baptismal name”. (Viktor E. Frankl, “Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse”, Piper, Munich, 1987, page 18) But unlike the term depth psychology, the term altitude psychology did not catch on. In the popular sense, people could imagine something by depth psychology: uncovering deep layers of consciousness, digging for hidden emotions and longings, searching for repressed traumas, etc. When it came to the term altitude psychology, however, her imagination failed her. But back to the ominous year of 1938. We notice from the fervor of the above quote that Frankl wanted to establish a real counterpoint, a clear antithesis to psychoanalysis, not only in terms of content, but also semantically. Instead of depth – height!

And subsequently: instead of psychoanalysis – existential analysis!
Because the following text reads:
“Where, in other words, is the theory of the psychic as such and, in particular, of neurotic events, which, extending beyond the realm of the psychic, takes into account the entire human existence, in all its depth and height, and could therefore be called existential analysis?” The next “baptismal name” was born. Frankl’s psychotherapeutic complex of theories, which extends to the entirety of human existence, was therefore intended to complement
if not replace psychoanalysis. Frankl’s warning call was: Pay attention! The psyche is only one part of human existence! Only, the word “psyche” had the epithet “analysis” attached to it, and now, for reasons of contrast, this epithet was also attached to the word “existence”. Frankl struggled for precision of definition. In the same essay he wrote: “…in the form of an existential analysis which starts from the undeniable primal fact of human responsibility as the essence of human existence and aims at nothing more and nothing less than the complete recognition of this fact by the patient …” (Viktor E. Frankl, “Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse”, Piper, Munich, 1987, page 26) He made it clear that human existence – in contrast to psychological processes – includes (volitional) freedom, which entails human responsibility. In doing so, he wanted to establish existential analysis as the theoretical-anthropological foundation on which the applied methods of logotherapy are based. Strictly speaking, however, his existential analysis was not a true counterpart to psychoanalysis, because it comprises theory plus practice and is not split into two concepts, as Frankl’s approach is now.
After the war catastrophe, when Frankl returned to “normal life”, he still paid homage to the idea that he had to defend himself against psychoanalysis with counter-arguments. In his book “The Unconscious God”, Frankl took Freud’s concept of the unconscious to task. In 1959, he wrote in the “Handbuch der Neurosenlehre und Psychotherapie”: “According to existential analysis, there is not only unconscious instinctuality, but also unconscious spirituality; in other words: we know and recognize not only an instinctual unconscious, but also a spiritual unconscious, and the Logos, which the therapeutic formulation of existential analysis, logotherapy, makes so much the whereto and whence of its endeavor, is rooted in the unconscious, From this we can gauge how little the Logos in our sense has to do firstly with the ratio and secondly with the intellectus.” (Viktor E. Frankl, “Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse”, Piper, Munich, 1987, page 58) When you consider that 30 years later Alfried Längle accused Frankl of logotherapy being too rational and too cerebral, of neglecting the psyche, of having to “salvage” the emotions, etc., you have to be very surprised in view of these early Frankl texts. Did Frankl ever deny emotions and drives? He only claimed that they do not make up the whole human story. Did Frankl overvalue understanding and reason?

He relativized it in view of the Logos … But the important thing about the passage quoted above is the following: One paragraph further on, Frankl gave decided explanations on the confusing “baptismal name” of his spiritual child: “In all of this, existential analysis is actually not an analysis of existence; for there is no analysis of existence any more than there is a synthesis of existence. Rather, existential analysis is an explication of existence. Except that we do not overlook the fact that existence, the person, also explicates itself; it explicates itself, it unfolds itself, it rolls itself up, and it does so in the course of life … But existential analysis does not only mean the explication of ontic existence, but also the ontological explication of what existence is. In this sense, existential analysis is an attempt at a psychotherapeutic anthropology, an anthropology that precedes all psychotherapy …” That sounds rather complicated, but it means nothing other than the theoretical foundation of logotherapy. It should be noted, however, that the book “The Unconscious God” in particular shows how closely the conception of man and methods are interwoven, for example in the chapter “Existential Analytical Interpretation of Dreams”. It deals with a series of therapy conversations! When I asked Frankl in the 1970s whether we could simply speak of logotheory and logotherapy if he wanted to separate theory and practice, he immediately agreed. At this point, the psychoanalytic star had long been in decline and Frankl’s desire to “counter-polarize” had died out. Frankl happily accepted the title of my dissertation “Logotherapy as personality theory”. He was of course just as pleased that aspects of logotherapeutic anthropology (the will to meaning, fulfillment of meaning as a motor of mental health …) were empirically confirmed in it; and the word “existential analysis” was not even mentioned. Even when I titled a chapter of my book “Psychological Precaution” “Logophilosophy” in 1989, Frankl had no objections to this term. On the numerous trips that Frankl took to the USA, Frankl was also confronted with the fact that in English “existential analysis” was associated with Ludwig Binswanger’s “Daseinsanalyse”. This confusion did not sit well with Frankl. In both English and German, there was also a tendency to abbreviate longer word formations. Even instead of “psychoanalysis”, it was increasingly said that someone was doing an “analysis” – and everyone thought of Freud’s couch. A similar shortening would also have threatened the word “existential analysis”, which would have increased the confusion to gigantic proportions. In short, Frankl gradually tended to say goodbye to this “baptismal name”. But things turned out differently. Alfried Längle, a former fan of logotherapy, began to sympathize with this old Frankl creation. The more Längle criticized Frankl and the further he distanced himself from the original logotherapeutic ideas, the more intensely he became fixated on “existential analysis”, which he interpreted as he saw fit. When he suggested to Otmar Wiesmeyr, the director of a state-recognized Austrian training institute at the time: “You keep the logotherapy – I’ll keep the existential analysis!” this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

None of us wanted Frankl’s brilliant oeuvre to be divided up, regardless of what it was called. Frankl himself begged Längle to call his “varied” teaching – which was no longer compatible with Frankl’s concepts – something other than logotherapy or existential analysis. A wish that has not been fulfilled to this day, almost a quarter of a century after Frankl’s death. As a result of this affront, many logotherapy associations and societies were forced to use the term “existential analysis” again in order to avoid losing an original piece of Frankl’s work to an organization that had discarded Frankl as “old-fashioned”. The term “existential analysis” would probably not have been saved from becoming obsolete, but they did want to protect it from misuse. Nevertheless, I personally believe that it is a rather unfortunate choice of term that should be allowed to rest at some point. In fact, logotherapy is understood internationally as a complete package of a dignified view of human nature, excellent theory and efficient therapeutic treatment guidance – and that’s exactly what it is!
Elisabeth Lukas

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