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Alenka Vujkovac, psychotherapy and counselling

Logotherapy

A therapy of meaning

Logos means meaning. Logotherapy responds to the eternal human question about the meaning of existence, the meaning of suffering, and the meaning of everything we experience and do.

The approach was developed in the 1940s by the renowned Viennese psychiatrist Dr Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), after he survived the horrors of the concentration camps during the Second World War. At the heart of his theory is the conviction that the primary motivational force in human beings is their search for meaning.

Green fields under clouds
Photo: Alenka Vujkovac

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Three premises

  1. A human being is free, with the ability to decide and choose for themselves – and at the same time to take responsibility for those choices.
  2. The basic human striving is the will to meaning.
  3. People search for meaning in every moment and every period of their lives.

How this shapes my work

My main guiding principle in psychotherapy is that every person is a world of their own, special and unique. That is why therapy, too, has to adapt to each individual. Things that bring about important shifts or open new horizons for one person may not work at all for another.

Over more than a hundred and twenty years, a great many psychotherapeutic approaches have grown out of Freud's original psychoanalysis. Each has its own characteristics and emphasises particular aspects. None is better or worse – some suit certain people and problems, others suit different ones. Research has also shown that the success of therapy does not depend on the psychotherapeutic approach: the largest share of success comes from a genuine relationship between client and therapist.

That is why in my work I try to combine and draw on insights from different approaches. Logotherapy is the approach in which I specialised, but it is not the only thing I bring into the therapy room.

More about logotherapy