Existential Analysis and Logotherapy, developed by Viktor Frankl, MD PhD and further expanded by Alfried Längle, Univ. Prof. MD PhD is a therapeutic approach offering a comprehensive framework of four fundamental motivations for understanding human existence, guiding the person in exploring one’s need for survival, enjoyment, meaning, and freedom, and helping to lead more authentic and meaningful lives.
By addressing these motivations in therapy, one can achieve greater self-awareness, healing, personal growth, and a deeper sense of purpose and fulfilment.
In the context of holistic mind-body therapy, these motivations are used to help one explore and understand one’s life in an integrated way across the somatic (embodied), psychological (psyche), and cognitive (noetic, spiritual) dimensions and in relationship with the world. The process aims to recognize and address obstacles that hinder the fulfilment of these motivations, increase self-awareness regarding how these motivations influence one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and support personal growth and the development of a meaningful and fulfilling life.
✦ What does it mean to truly be?
✦ How do you find joy and meaning in your everyday experiences?
✦ Do your actions and decisions align with your deeply held values and personal truths, or are you running on automated pilot?
✦ Are you making these choices with self-awareness and inner consent?
“Existential Analysis can be defined as a phenomenological psychotherapy aiming to help the person to gain a free emotionality, to find authentic inner positions, and to come to a responsible way of expression and action with oneself as well as with others and the world at large. The central method for that purpose is called “Personal Existential Analysis”.
The result of a successful existential analytical psychotherapy is manifested by living with inner consent to one’s own acting and being in a dialogical exchange with one’s world. Existential Analysis aims to install the free and responsible person as the acting (and not merely re-acting) centre in its own life. It therefore tries to mobilise the person’s decisive potentials (Karl Jaspers) based on an activated emotionality (Max Scheler) and a dialogical exchange (Martin Buber) with the situational inner/outer givings (Viktor Frankl).”
– Alfried Längle
The Existential Fundamental Motivations
1. Safety & Belonging
Feel secure in the world. Sense of belonging. Be able to exist in your environment and conditions. Find acceptance.
2. Values & Relationships
Experience life as worth living. Be touched by values in the world. Say yes to life with all its warmth and suffering.
3. Self-Worth & Authenticity
Exercise autonomy, self-reliance, self-determination, responsibility, freedom, having a clear sense of self, and living authentically.
4. Meaning & Purpose
Find meaning and purpose in life emerging from personal values and ideals. Have resolve, direction, and a sense of contribution.
“The essential task of existence is to find the correspondence between our potential for participation (for creativity, action, and encounter) and what is possible, needed and not done, and what we see, feel, and understand to be waiting for us despite the possibility of risk and error.”
– Alfried Längle
Seamlessly integrated across the embodied, psychological, and cognitive or noetic dimensions of the human existence, these four fundamental motivations represent a profound foundation that supports a life rich with meaning and depth. They invite us to embrace the full spectrum of our existence, where we not only seek safety and affirmation in simply being but also open ourselves to the joy and beauty woven into the very essence of daily life.
In honouring our need for authenticity, we are called to live in harmony with our true nature, daringly expressing who we are whilst navigating the delicate balance between freedom and responsibility. And in our quest for meaning, we are beckoned to transcend the individual self, finding purpose that resonates with our deepest values and connects us to something beyond.
These pillars remind us that fulfillment is not a destination but a dynamic unfolding, an art of being that requires us to engage with life consciously and wholeheartedly. When we align ourselves with these motivations, we move toward a wholeness that honours both the sacredness of our individual journey as well as our inherent place within the greater human story.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
– Viktor Frankl
