Frankl’s premise that therapy should take the spiritual aspect of humanity into account immediately plunges logotherapy into controversy.
How does logotherapist dare to discuss values and philosophical questions about life with the client? Is logotherapy a religion?!
Frankl does not avoid the question but faces it head on.
Psychotherapy, logotherapy included, is a separate discipline from religion. Logotherapy is not meant as a substitute for religion only as a supplement to it.
However, the challenge is inescapable, as it arises out of the very core of logotherapy as “psychotherapy in spiritual terms.” By definition, such a therapy touches on values and therefore borders on religious issues. In moving along the boundary between psyche and spirit there necessarily arises a danger of overstepping boundaries and entering the religious sphere, where psychotherapy does not belong.
Why then, does Frankl insist on a therapeutic definition that is so fraught with danger and so inviting of debate?
Logotherapy is a bold psychotherapy. It dares to enter the realm of values because to heal human beings there is no choice but to treat them as such, not as biological, psychological or mechanistic apparatus.
When we realize that meaning in life comes from values, and when we understand the healing power of a person sensing life as a task set before him, “it makes for feeling existence profoundly as responsibleness, and in so doing starts an inward process…” (p. 269)
Frankl is not content with making people “free from” psychological blocks or difficulties as other systems do. He wants to help them to become “‘free to’ take their responsibility upon themselves.” (p. 273)
The expression ‘their responsibility’ does not reflect bad English on Frankl’s part. That the responsibility is “theirs” is exactly the point. They feel it as responsibility that belongs particularly to them, and the task is waiting, so to speak, for them to do it.
In a way, every medical practice evaluates and therefore there can be no medical practice untouched by values and ethical assumptions.
Yet, this does not answer our original question but only sharpens it. The real question is, by what authority does the logotherapist discuss values and spiritual problems? If the therapist takes a stand on values, is he not arbitrarily imposing his personal outlook and interfering with the therapeutic process? (pp. 269-275)
Thus far, Frankl has explained why values must inextricably be involved in therapy. He has yet to explain how the therapist is to avoid overstepping the bounds in the process. This will be discussed in the second half of the chapter.