Logotherapy and existential analysis

Christopher Wurm

doi:10.9791/ajpanz.1997.13

Christopher Wurm

DOI: https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.1997.13

Abstract

50 years ago NZAP was founded- one year after the publication of Professor Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, published on his release from a Nazi concentration camp in 1946. Initially inspired by Freud, Frankl later tried to integrate the biological and psychological dimensions with a specifically human dimension, the noetic or spiritual dimension. Logotherapy an Existential Analysis aims to counter some of the self-fulfilling prophecies, introspection and therapeutic nihilism inherit in other treatments. Logotherapy aims to enable the patient to identify and fulfil meaning potentialities, such as by bringing out their capacity for self-transcendence.

Logotherapy and Existential Analysis can be used clinically in situations as diverse as mid-life crisis, fear of death, phobias and anxiety, alcohol dependence and other problems of living. There has also been some research interest in existential approaches over many years in New Zealand.

Author Biography

Christopher Wurm

As recorded in 1997.

MB, BS(Adelaide), FRACGP, Corresponding Member Gesellschaft fur Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse. Studied medicine, postgraduate in family medicine, then trained in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis at the Institut fur Logotherapie und andere Methoden der Psychotherapie in Vienna. Clinical lecturer at the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction at Flinders University, SA.