Working on the noetic dimension of man: Philosophical practice, logotherapy, and existential analysis

Abstract

Abstract Philosophical practice and logotherapy have much in common. Philosophical counselors and logotherapists are working with similar methods on the noetic dimension of man. Furthermore, the problems of their clients are the same, namely noetic. A challenging noetic problem of modern times is the existential frustration, which is not an illness but a “healthy pain”. No wonder that the neuropsychiatrist and philosopher Viktor E. Frankl, the founder of logotherapy and existential analysis and a pioneer of philosophical practice, explicitly called on philosophers to help existentially frustrated people. Significantly, Lou Marinoff mentioned Frankl's logotherapy and diagnosis of the existential frustration and identified the noetic dimension, which can be found in Frankl's dimensional ontology, as the province of philosophy. Nevertheless there is more to discover. In principle, the spiritual exercises by the ancient philosophers are nothing more than the methods of logotherapy: Socratic dialogue, modifica...