I was asked recently, “How can I tell someone who is suffering with illness or loss that they should be positive about their experience? After all, I haven’t gone through what they’re going through.”
I answered that you can face them with the understanding that although you cannot know what it’s like to be them, you are aware that not everyone who is successful by societal standards is happy, and many people who are not successful by societal standards are very happy, and you can learn from those who manage to be happy how to help this person.
I have to acknowledge their suffering and thereby take away their aloneness. But knowing that there are people who have suffered who have used their experience to make a meaningful life for themselves, I can internalize the belief that living a fulfilling life is possible for this person as well. And this belief will propel me forward to help this person continue to search.
Everyone has problems. Everyone has disappointments. Frankl writes that when we are disappointed in a love relationship this, too is an enriching experience, that fosters inner growth and maturity.
Frankl describes a type of person we meet up with all the time. Someone who has been burnt by divorce or rejection of some kind escapes into unhappiness of the past to avoid happiness in the future. Instead of opening his eyes to the wealth of new opportunities for love, he shuts his eyes and refuses to see. “He wants to be secure, not receptive.” (p 152)
“Such a person must be re-educated” Frankl says, to learn to be open to possibilities.
When I was explaining logotherapy to a group recently I said that logotherapy gives people a different orientation regarding how to view a human being and a different orientation regarding how to view problems.
A human being is a spiritual being, with unique strengths and a unique mission and space to fill in the world. Problems, challenges and struggles are seen within the context of your life’s mission.
Rather than seeing problems as something to be rid of as quickly as possible, problems challenge you to learn and make you question yourself. Problems create tension between what is and what ought to be, thereby stimulating needed change. What appears to be a meaning-detour turns out to be a commission to do a meaningful task.
One of the people in the group I was speaking to responded with “Oh. You are talking about reframing.”
With this one word, she felt she had grasped the concept.
I am not so sure she grasped it. Reframing is not a technique that can be superimposed on a distorted perception of life. We meet people every day that seem to have a thick wall preventing them from hearing your reframed attempt to suggest a positive outlook on life.
That’s why Frankl calls it “re-education.”
The re-educating process starts with making the person aware that he’s running away from life. Once he becomes aware of this reaction of his, he can learn to be open to possibilities for what he can do in the future. But you can’t tell him about possibilities until he’s at a point of being receptive to it.