Frankl’s solution to the dilemma of the inherent danger that logotherapy, as a “psychotherapy in spiritual terms,” will overstep the bounds of its jurisdiction and spill over into the religious realm, is stated clearly by him on page 275 of The Doctor and the Soul: “To be human…is to be conscious and responsible. Existential analysis aims at nothing more and nothing less than leading men to consciousness of their responsibility.”
But when we get into the details of what any given person should do at a given point in time, responsibility as a concept gives no particular directives.
Neither the “what” or the “to whom” that makes up your responsibility is spelled out by the therapist. The therapist’s job is only to help you experience your existence as responsible. Once you feel your responsibility, you will know how it translates into action.
And if you don’t know, the therapist helps you evaluate your life for yourself. Evaluation is something that must include values. Yet, the logotherapist does not impose his or her own values; the logotherapist helps bring clarity, so that you can make decisions commensurate with your own values.
The therapist will assist in the process of evaluation by exploring consequences of one action or another. What is the loss, what is the gain, and what do you ultimately want?
There are cases of danger to life, such as suicide, where the therapist cannot simply tell the person to do what he wants. But such extreme cases only prove the rule, namely the goal of leading the client to autonomous decision-making. (pp. 275-280)
I have to laugh at critics of logotherapy who are up in arms about an approach that brings awareness of responsibility and facilitates autonomous, value-conscious choice, claiming that the client can want what is ethically wrong.
I want to know: Is there any therapeutic approach that deigns to suggest what is ethically right?!
What is the alternative to strengthening the sense of responsibility and the capacity for independent choice?
Do you want to take away the client’s autonomy and patronizingly tell the person how he or she should be behaving? Or, perhaps, do you want to pretend that values are not important because “we don’t talk about that here.”
I for one would stay far away from such approaches.
With all the temptations and distorted perceptions that people have, I believe they know right from wrong, when they are helped to get clarity about what is at stake. When they are made conscious of their responsibility, they take it.