Existential frustration does not always entail neurosis
Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration. Frankl would strictly deny that one’s search for a meaning to their existence, or even their doubt of it, in every case is derived from, or results in, any disease. Existential frustration is in itself neither pathological nor pathogenic. A persons concern, even their despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury their patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is their task, rather, to pilot the patient through their existential crises of growth and development.
Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflicting claims of id, ego and superego, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment.
References
- Frankl, Victor. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning Chapter 2 Logotherapy In A Nutshell (p. 115). Boston, MA: Beacon Books.
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