Human Being in Logotherapy and Its Educational Implications

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study is to investigate Victor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy which is full of suggestions to spiritual education. Victor E. Frankl who contributes to the existential approach in counseling has presented Logotherapy which is a new psychotherapy emphasizing the spiritual possibility of human being. Frankl’s Logotherapy can be applied to spiritual education that can give the lights on the modern educational problems. He came to the conclusion about the serious problems of contemporary human being as the existential emptiness. He also shows the way that man can overcome the emptiness by pursuing the meaning of human existence and finding out the purpose of his own life. Frankl says that the three characteristics for human existence are spirituality, freedom and responsibility. He emphasizes especially on the human spiritual nature and the need to find out meaning of his life. It would be the key to overcome the mental limits of human being not just to cure psychological restrains. Eventually we shall have a new horizon for the understanding of human beings and the meaning of life from the transcendental existence. Logotherapy’s basic assumptions about human being are freedom of will, will to meaning and meaning of life. It means that human beings are the liberal, responsible and transcendent existence to choose their own meaning. However, it needs the endeavor to overcome their own limits of the life time. It would lead man to spiritual dimension of mind by awakening the existential condition and proceeding the transcendental will. That can be the beginning steps to the practical application in the educational fields.