I am about to set out on a new project – commenting on Viktor Frankl’s book, The Unconscious God. The books premise is this: “There is, in fact, a religious sense deeply rooted in each and every man’s unconscious depths.”(p.10)
Although I agree with the premise, summarizing this book poses two challenges for me. a) I don’t want to repeat what I’ve said in my comments on The Doctor and the Soul and b) I want to stick to ideas that are concrete and practical, even if they have a philosophical base.
As usual, Frankl begins by speaking from within the context of his day, and compares his approach to those of Freud and Adler.
Picking up on a certain categorization of the three main virtues as objectivity, courage and a sense of responsibility, Frankl says we might be tempted to make a simple parallel between these virtues and the thinking of Freud, Adler and Frankl.
Regarding Adler, Frankl keeps the parallel simple. The Adlerian approach aims to give encouragement. This parallels the virtue of courage. (p. (p. 19)
Although Frankl does not emphasize encouragement and empowerment, his existential approach called logotherapy is empowering. However, it is different from Adler’s and other modern versions of empowerment.
From the standpoint of rugged individualism, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps and the kind of all-powerful approach portrayed in movies like “The Secret,” empowerment means whatever you want you can get. You just have to want it badly enough.
The goal in logotherapy is different. It is to develop a “basic trust in being,” i.e. a trust in life. You are part of something greater than yourself. You may have to accept that you won’t get everything you want. It’s humbling to look at life this way but on a deeper level it is actually more empowering to sense that the power comes from beyond you than it is to think that all the power lies within you, when it in fact does not.