Existential Analysis
Logotherapy and Existential Analysis undertake to deal with psychic sufferers who are not sick in the clinical sense. For our psychotherapy in spiritual terms is specifically designed to handle those suffering over the philosophical problems with which life confronts human beings.
— Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul
Alfried Längle, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist, trained closely with Frankl and took Logotherapy a decisive step further. Where Frankl had placed meaning at the centre of human existence, Längle observed that meaning alone was not always sufficient to deal with the full range of human suffering. His response was to develop Existential Analysis as a theory that included Logotherapy, but that allowed for a more comprehensive approach to help individuals with the problem of meaning of life and other possible psychological ailments.
At the heart of Längle's work are four fundamental conditions of existence, which he calls the basic motivations. Each one poses a question that every human being must answer in order to live authentically. The first question asks whether we can be in the world and the conditions of our existence as they are. The second asks whether we enjoy the values present in our life. The third concerns our relationship to ourselves, namely, whether we are allowed to be who we truly are. And the fourth returns to Frankl's territory, whether there are things that we must do because they are valuable and, therefore, meaningful to us.
Längle expands the central role of feelings when answering the above questions. He emphasizes that feelings are not obstacles to existential clarity but the very instruments we must use to guide ourselves in our seeking for fulfillment. Feelings and emotions are how we register what genuinely matters to us, as distinct from what we think should matter or what others expect. In an age of relentless productivity and social performance, many people have lost contact with this inner register, which is precisely why so much apparent success can still leave a residue of emptiness or even despair.
Längle's central concept of innere Zustimmung (inner consent) captures our relationship with feelings beautifully. A fulfilled life is not one that is successful in terms of having achieved its goals, but one that is lived with genuine inner agreement, i.e., a felt sense that what one is doing, and how one is living, is truly one's own.
This is the tradition my practice draws on. Not as a system to be applied, but as a set of principles that guide the exploration. What do I actually feel? What, beneath everything, do I consent to? Am I happy with how I am? Do I have space to be myself? These questions are not answered just by thinking but by feeling, a process that can be a surprisingly challenging in an age where emotions are thought of as impediments to our goals.
