Viktor Frankl ● Self-Actualization is not the Goal — Transcript

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1. 0:00In your work, you uh
2. 0:03you quote uh Nietzsche quite a bit. His
3. 0:05uh
4. 0:06line, "He who has a why to live for can
5. 0:09bear almost any how."
6. 0:12What do you think he meant by that?
7. 0:14>> What I think meant
8. 0:15>> What do you think he meant by that?
9. 0:18>> The same as I intended to convey to my
10. 0:21readers and uh students
11. 0:24that the vision of a meaning ahead of
12. 0:26someone
13. 0:28a meaning in
14. 0:29wait for someone to be fulfilled by
15. 0:32someone
16. 0:33that this
17. 0:35contributes most than anything else
18. 0:38under equal other circumstances
19. 0:42uh
20. 0:43for survival.
21. 0:45>> Meaning is the most important thing in
22. 0:47our lives?
23. 0:49>> Certainly because a what I call a will
24. 0:51to meaning
25. 0:53the
26. 0:54wish to find and to fulfill meaning
27. 0:58is the basic motivation in human beings.
28. 1:01>> Well, this certainly runs counter to
29. 1:04much of the determinist
30. 1:06notions that are
31. 1:07uh being bandied around these about
32. 1:09these days as man is a machine, man is a
33. 1:11computer
34. 1:13man is a product of instincts.
35. 1:16>> Man is something like a rat
36. 1:18in experiments, psychological
37. 1:20experiments. Of course, you're right.
38. 1:24But uh not only against it the so-called
39. 1:27deterministic concepts of man
40. 1:30but also regarding the motivational
41. 1:33theories of uh certain psychotherapeutic
42. 1:37system.
43. 1:38>> Let's talk for a minute about um
44. 1:40logotherapy
45. 1:42which arose out of this notion of a
46. 1:44search for meaning.
47. 1:45>> Logotherapy
48. 1:47is one among other types of
49. 1:49psychotherapy
50. 1:51is we may say
51. 1:53a meaning-centered
52. 1:56psychotherapy.
53. 1:58In as much particularly as logotherapy
54. 2:01sees you a human being not predominantly
55. 2:06determined, not to say dominated, by the
56. 2:09will to pleasure, as you were
57. 2:11mentioning, nor by the will to power,
58. 2:14along the lines of Adlerian teachings,
59. 2:17but basically, fundamentally, by a will
60. 2:20to meaning. That is to say, the desire,
61. 2:25the impulse to find, to discover in
62. 2:29life, or better to say in each life
63. 2:31situation, concrete life situation
64. 2:34confronting someone, the desire to find
65. 2:37a meaning therein and going and to go on
66. 2:40to fulfill it.
67. 2:41>> I was very intrigued. One One of the
68. 2:42most surprising things
69. 2:44I've read recently was that
70. 2:48you said that when you talk to European
71. 2:51students,
72. 2:52only 40% said they had suffered this
73. 2:55sort of inner void.
74. 2:57And yet,
75. 2:5881% of American students experience the
76. 3:02same thing.
77. 3:02>> These are two different things to go.
78. 3:04>> We think of it just the opposite. We
79. 3:05think of the Europeans as being
80. 3:07buried under this existential dread and
81. 3:10and
82. 3:11sense of purposelessness and and
83. 3:14Americans as being optimistic and
84. 3:15upbeat.
85. 3:16>> However it might be,
86. 3:18whether the one or ones or the others
87. 3:21are suffering more
88. 3:23or less respectively from this
89. 3:26existential vacuum.
90. 3:28The ones who seem to suffer less
91. 3:32should not look at the others with
92. 3:35contempt,
93. 3:36but look at the others with compassion.
94. 3:41And
95. 3:42look for anything possible to help the
96. 3:46others.
97. 3:48>> Now, this void manifests itself as
98. 3:51>> in apathy, in boredom,
99. 3:54lack of initiative, lack of interest,
100. 3:58interest in the real with the world or
101. 4:00initiative in changing something within
102. 4:04the world for the better.
103. 4:06This frustration
104. 4:09is a
105. 4:12a proof
106. 4:13of the existence of a will to meaning.
107. 4:16Unless we were imbued by will to
108. 4:19meaning, by the wish to find meaning and
109. 4:21discuss discover and fulfill meaning in
110. 4:25life, we never would be able to
111. 4:27experience an inner void.
112. 4:29So, this is in a way also something
113. 4:32positive.
114. 4:33>> Now, you've listed three types of
115. 4:34values: creative values, experiential
116. 4:37values, and attitudinal values.
117. 4:38>> And you may find a meaning, the average
118. 4:41man, the man on the street or the woman
119. 4:43on the street, may find a meaning
120. 4:46>> [clears throat]
121. 4:46>> day by day in doing a deed,
122. 4:50in creating a work.
123. 4:52And
124. 4:53>> That's the creative.
125. 4:54>> Creative. And in experiencing something,
126. 4:59the beauty,
127. 5:00the truth as a researcher,
128. 5:03or
129. 5:04the the good in dealing with people as a
130. 5:07teacher or whatsoever.
131. 5:08>> There's an extraordinary moment in um
132. 5:11Man's Search for Meaning where you talk
133. 5:12about being in one of the one of the
134. 5:14Nazi camps
135. 5:16and all of you going out to look at a
136. 5:18sunset.
137. 5:19Is that
138. 5:20>> Exactly. This is a paradigm
139. 5:23>> [clears throat]
140. 5:23>> of experiential values, of finding a
141. 5:26meaning in experiencing without doing
142. 5:28anything, without achieving or
143. 5:30accomplishing anything, but just in
144. 5:32giving oneself to the immediate
145. 5:35experience of something go say beautiful
146. 5:38going on in the world. This is the
147. 5:40second avenue. But there is also a
148. 5:44um a a a another
149. 5:47of experiential values
150. 5:50Excuse me. Not only
151. 5:53experiencing something, but also
152. 5:55experiencing someone. More than that,
153. 5:58experiencing experiencing another human
154. 6:01being in his or her very uniqueness. And
155. 6:05it is the main attribute of a human
156. 6:08being that he is a person in contrast to
157. 6:13any animal. He is a person and a person
158. 6:16is always something absolutely unique,
159. 6:19irrepeatable in the evolution of the
160. 6:22cosmos as it were, incomparable with any
161. 6:25other human being. And this uniqueness
162. 6:28can be got hold of solely
163. 6:32by a loving person because he not only
164. 6:35sees the essence, but also the
165. 6:37potentials in the beloved person.
166. 6:40Thereby, as I put it before, promoting
167. 6:42him, alleviating it to reach out to
168. 6:45attain this potential and to fulfill and
169. 6:49thereby actualize also himself, but not
170. 6:53by preaching self-actualization.
171. 6:56It's nonsense. Self-actualization can
172. 6:59only fall into your lap automatically
173. 7:02once that you have fulfilled a concrete
174. 7:05meaning, done the best of a situation.
175. 7:08Then you actualize yourself as a
176. 7:11byproduct.
177. 7:12>> Let's talk about the third set of
178. 7:14values, which is the
179. 7:16attitudinal.
180. 7:17The idea of
181. 7:19uh
182. 7:20choosing how to respond to suffering.
183. 7:23>> Choosing the attitude.
184. 7:25>> Yes.
185. 7:25>> Yeah.
186. 7:26If there's no possibility in a given
187. 7:28situation
188. 7:30to
189. 7:31uh fulfill the meaning of a situation by
190. 7:35giving oneself to the experience of
191. 7:38beauty and so forth, nor to
192. 7:42If you have lost the capability to do
193. 7:45your job, to do your work, even then
194. 7:48there is an ultimate possibility to find
195. 7:50and fulfill meaning fulfill meaning. Not
196. 7:53only the ultimate, it is even the
197. 7:56potential to fulfill
198. 7:59the deepest meaning to attain the
199. 8:03highest values.
200. 8:05By the your approach to the given to the
201. 8:08situation a tragic or tourist situation
202. 8:12confronting you.
203. 8:13>> You said that um
204. 8:15uh in part of the initial shock of
205. 8:18being put in a death camp
206. 8:20was the was was ultimately an acceptance
207. 8:23that we knew we we knew we had nothing
208. 8:25to lose except our ridiculously naked
209. 8:27lives.
210. 8:29Is that the situation
211. 8:31that they're in?
212. 8:33>> In a way
213. 8:34>> Is this when you Is this when you make
214. 8:35the choice of how you're going to
215. 8:38your last value choice is how to react
216. 8:41to the situation?
217. 8:42>> there you stood there naked
218. 8:45with nothing you could have had.
219. 8:48But all the more what counted and
220. 8:51mattered was what you were being rather
221. 8:55than having possessing anything.
222. 8:59Or or
223. 9:01the the being. So it what counted was
224. 9:05what you make out of the situation.
225. 9:08With
226. 9:09what attitude you you adopt in the given
227. 9:12situation. And there's a multitude a
228. 9:15wealth of possible attitudes to how to
229. 9:18approach it. So we have to decide.
230. 9:21>> The ultimate I would take it attitudinal
231. 9:24value challenge
232. 9:26that we all share is how we're going to
233. 9:29face death.
234. 9:32How do you prepare people for that? How
235. 9:34do you prepare yourself for that?
236. 9:36>> Uh
237. 9:37I couldn't prepare anyone else unless I
238. 9:39I am
239. 9:40would have prepared uh myself.
240. 9:44Because you are if we are psychiatrists,
241. 9:47your patients feel exactly whether or
242. 9:51not you are really convinced of what you
243. 9:54are teaching and telling them.
244. 9:57Now, I'm convinced that in contrast to
245. 10:01the usual aspect here
246. 10:03or be it sound aspect to life.
247. 10:06And more more specifically to the past,
248. 10:10to life's transitoriness.
249. 10:13And this includes uh that we approach
250. 10:15each of us are approaching death. In
251. 10:18contrast to that
252. 10:20I maintain
253. 10:22that in the past nothing is lost.
254. 10:26But right on the contrary
255. 10:29everything is stored
256. 10:31forever.
257. 10:33It is not annihilated by transitoriness,
258. 10:36but on the contrary, it has been it is
259. 10:39becoming preserved forever.
260. 10:43Something you have done can never be
261. 10:45undone. Something you have experienced,
262. 10:49something you have even experienced in a
263. 10:51negative sense, uh going through
264. 10:53suffering.
265. 10:54And if you have for instance if you have
266. 10:56suffered gone through this suffering
267. 10:59honestly, courageously, and with dignity
268. 11:03who in the world what what in the world
269. 11:05can deny can annihilate this? What you
270. 11:08have done has been done forever.
271. 11:11In both ways, in a negative as in a
272. 11:16positive way. It cannot it cannot be
273. 11:18undone. And the past is a storehouse
274. 11:23of what you have done, what you have
275. 11:25experienced, what you have gone through,
276. 11:29and what you have done out of all the
277. 11:32negative and tragic aspects as even
278. 11:35encountered within your life.
279. 11:37>> Norman, I thank you for being on the
280. 11:38show. And I want to thank you at home
281. 11:40for watching my