1. Meaning-Seeking, Self-Transcendence, & Well-Being
© Paul T. P. Wong
Conference on Life and Death Education National Taipei University of Nursing & Health Science October 19, 2013

2. Overview Viktor Frankl and life education
Spiritual dimension of human beings
The will to meaning as a primary human dimension
Self-transcendence as a universal value
Three levels of self-transcendence: Ultimate, Situational, & Calling

3. Two Challenges for Life Education
Fear of Death – This existential anxiety has driven people to do all sorts of destructive things. According to Yalom, it is also responsible for various kinds of mental and emotional disorders. The challenge is how to transform fear of death into love of life and the good death.
Egotistic Tendencies – One of the aims of life education is to change selfishness into a state of selflessness trough self-transcendence.

4. Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy
Frankl has much to offer to Life Education
Healing needs to occur at the spiritual level.
Needs to address questions of suffering and death
Meaning can be found in the most horrible situations.
Needs to awaken the defiant human spirit
For more information, visit

5. Frankl and Life Education
The spiritual nature of human beings
The intrinsic meaning and value of every life
The intrinsic meaning and value of suffering
The freedom of choice and defiant human spirit
The primary motivation for meaning and self- transcendence
The presence of meaning in all situations

6. Life Education and Suicide Prevention
The best prevention of youth suicide is life education.
When students learn the intrinsic value of life, the spiritual values of faith, hope and love, and the defiant spirit of heroism, they are more likely able to survive the competitive pressures and rather bleak future.

7. Meaning and Suicide Prevention
Having reasons for living or leading a meaningful life is inherently incompatible with taking one's own life.
There is a compelling reason on both logical and empirical grounds why meaning-therapy is ideally suited for preventing suicides.

8. Meaning and Well-Being
Overwhelming evidence of the benefits of meaning
Increases in happiness, positive affect, productivity, creativity, better relationships, better physical health, resilience
Decreases in depression, anxiety, illnesses, anger, fear, etc.
Meaning is healthier than happiness
Wong’s (2012) Human Quest for Meaning

9. Noetic Dimension The dimension of the human spirit
It is the healthy core or “medicine chest” of logotherapy.
It contains uniquely human attributes, such as: will to meaning, ideals, creativity, faith, love, conscience, self-detachment, self- transcendence, humor, goal-striving, and taking on commitments & responsibilities.
According to Fabry (1994), the noetic dimension or the human spirit is the “medicine chest” of logotherapy, containing such various inner resources as love, the will to meaning, purpose in life, hope, dignity, creativity, conscience, and the capacity for choice. Logotherapy focuses on activating the noetic dimension through a variety of therapeutic means, among them the appealing technique, modification of attitude, Socratic dialogue, paradoxical intention, and dereflection. It is worth noting that the current practice in academic psychology to define spirituality in terms of meaning and purpose (Wong, 1998b) is, to a large extent, influenced by Dr. Frankl’s emphasis of the spiritual nature of the noetic dimension.
“The inner dimension of the person is called the spirit. The spiritual core is the deepest centre of the person. It is here that the person is open to a transcendental dimension. It is here that the person experiences ultimate reality. Frankl’s logotherapy address that central spiritual core through psychotherapy. ” (Coulson, as cited in Graber p. 51)

10. Two Approaches to Meaning
Mechanistic
Spiritual
Associative meaning
Rational explanation
Intellectual understanding
Modernist paradigm
Scientism
Self-actualization
A means to happiness
Subjectively created
Existential meaning
Transcendental explanation
Experiential understanding
Postmodernist paradigm
Science and arts
Self-transcendence
An end in itself
Based on objective values

11. Meaning vs. Values The two concepts are closely related
Meaning is subjective and can vary from moment to moment
Value is more objective & enduring, acquired through culture and social leaning.
Frankl points out the danger of creating subjective meaning without any concern for values 
Meaning needs to be guided by time-tested universal values
Meaning-seeking for self-transcendence is based on our spiritual values of compassion, conscience, and serving others

12. Key Attributes of Spirituality
Freedom of will: Not only freedom from some negative condition but also freedom to something rewarding
Will to meaning: Striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force
Meaning of life: One can always discover meaning in life regardless of life’s circumstances
The three basic tenets of logotherapy are: Freedom of choice, will to meaning, and meaning of life. All three tenets are essential for living a meaningful life. Freedom of choice simply emphasizes the human capacity for self-determination and choosing the right attitude even in the most restrictive circumstances. Will to Meaning refers to the primary intrinsic motivation of seeking meaning and living a meaningful life even for terminal patients. Will to meaning is essential for resilience and well-being; it can be best understood as the will to live in spite of pain and suffering (Frankl, 1969/1988). Meaning of life can be discovered until one’s last breath. This affirmation of meaning is based on the spiritual or noetic dimension. Fabry wrote: “People’s lives will be meaningful to the extent that their human spirit is able to tune in on the ‘Ultimate Meaning’ (Frankl, 1985, p. 141) in the suprahuman dimension of the Spirit (with a capital S)” (Fabry, 1998, pp. 297–298).

13. The Will to Meaning It is the primary motivation for living.
Everyone needs to find the true meaning of one’s own life.
Will to meaning is essential for resilience and well-being to the extent that it means one’s capacity to live in spite of pain & suffering
Will to meaning = seeking self-transcendence
“Finding meaning or the will to meaning is the primary motivation for living….the meaning that an individual finds is unique to each person and can be fulfilled only by that one person….Frankl emphasized that the true meaning of each person’s life is something that must be discovered by activity in the world through interaction with others, not solely through introspection….. Challenging a person with a potential meaning to fulfill evokes the will to meaning.” (Graber p. 65)
“Self-transcendence is called in logotherapy the ‘will to meaning’. If man can find and fulfill a meaning in his life, he becomes happy but also capable of coping with suffering. If he can see a meaning, he is even prepared to give his life.” (Frankl’s [1969] The Will to Meaning, as quoted in Graber, p. 296)
The emptiness and despair that people feel and their quest for meaning are evidence of the will to meaning.
There are many triggers of the will to meaning:
Challenging a person with a potential meaning to fulfill
Confronting a life crisis – every crisis is a new opportunity to find new elements of meaning in that situation
The delusion and emptiness after achieving success - “Is this all there is?”
Life transitions
Frankl (1967) likened the quest for ultimate meaning to the Israelites following the “cloud” in the biblical story of Exodus.
We are meaning-oriented. The will-to-meaning is “the basic striving of man to find and meaning and purpose” (Frankl, 1969, p. 35). The will-to-meaning is possible because of another human capacity and tendency of self-transcendence: “Being human is being always directed, and pointing to, something or someone other than oneself: to a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter, a cause to serve or a person to love” (Frankl, 1978, p. 35). As spiritual beings, individuals have the capacity to distance themselves from the psycho-biological organism and transcend their own limitations to achieve a higher purpose.

14. The Usefulness of the Self-Transcendence Construct
A conceptual framework for both theistic and non-theistic spirituality
A spiritual vision for the future of humanity
Emphasizing the spiritual values of selfless love and serving the common good

15. Self-Transcendence according to Frankl
“[Self-transcendence] denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” (Frankl, 1985, p. 133)

16. Self-Transcendence according to the Buddha
“A man struggling for existence will naturally look for something of value. There are two ways of looking…if he looks in the right direction, he recognizes the true nature of sickness, old age, and death, and then he searches for meaning in that which transcends all human suffering. In my life of pleasures, I seem to be looking in the wrong way.” (Shakyamuni Buddha, 1966, p. 8)

17. Self-Transcendence according to Jesus
“And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.’” (Luke 9: 23-24, NASB)

18. Maslow’s Revised Need Hierarchy

19. A Short Life of Universal Moral Values (Kinnier et al, 2000)
Commitment to something greater than oneself (self-transcendence or spirituality)
Self-respect (Personal responsibility & conscience)
Respect for others (The Golden Rule, common humanity)
Caring for living things & environment (Ecology)

20. Schwartz’s Model of Universal Values

21. Freedom & Responsibility
Logotherapy emphasizes the responsible & meaningful use of freedom.
Human existence can only be understood in terms of responsibility.
The will to meaning is based on a sense of responsibility.
Responsibleness means meeting the demand quality of every situation.
“Human responsibility is a responsibility springing from the singularity and uniqueness of each man’s existence. Man’s existence is a responsibility springing from finiteness….This finiteness of life, the limited time man has upon this earth, does not make life meaningless. On the contrary, we are saying death itself is what makes life meaningful. We have said that a part of the singularity of life is the singularity of every situation….Part of the uniqueness of life is the uniqueness of every man’s destiny.” (Frankl, 1986, p. 74)
“With his unique destiny, each man stands, so to speak, alone in the entire cosmos.” (Frankl, 1986, p. 75)
“Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress” (Frankl, 1985, p.86) as the Nazi concentration camps.
Make meaningful choices each day, each moment by seeing the larger picture and following our reasoning and intuitive conscience rather than impulse and instinct.
Frankl (1978) realizes that “Human freedom is finite freedom. Man is not free from conditions. But he is free to take a stand in regard to them. The conditions do not completely condition him” (p. 47). Frankl believes that although our existence is influenced instincts, inherited disposition, and environment, an area of freedom is always available to us. “Everything can be taken from a man, but…the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (Frankl, 1963, p.104). Therefore, we all have the freedom to take a stand towards the deterministic conditions, to transcend our fate. In short, we always have to the freedom of will to transform negatives into positives, at least with respect to our attitudes.
Responsibility and responsibleness:
Frankl differentiated between responsibility and responsibleness. The former comes from possessing the freedom of will. The latter refers to exercising our freedom to make the right decisions and reactions to the demands of life. One of the objectives of logotherapy is to teach others the importance of responsibleness. Frankl (1984):
“We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life -- daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” (p. 98).
“This emphasis on responsibleness is reflected in the categorical imperative of logotherapy, which is: Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now”…Such a precept confronts him with life’s finiteness as well as the finality of what the makes out of both his life and himself.” (Frankl, 1984, pp )
Responsibleness is also derived from the life’s unique demands on each individual. Frankl (1967):
“Each man is unique and each man’s life is singular; no one is replaceable nor is his life repeatable. This two-fold uniqueness adds to man’s responsibleness. Ultimately, this responsibleness derives from the existential fact that life is a chain of questions which man has to answer by answering for life, to which he has to respond by being responsible, by making decisions, by deciding which answers to give to the individual question. And I venture to say that each question has only one answer -- the right one! This does not imply that man is always capable of finding the right answer or solution to each problem, or finding the true meaning of his existence. Rather, the contrary is true; as a finite being, he is not exempt from error, and, therefore, has to take the risk of erring.” (p. 31)
One of the therapeutic goals of logotherapy is to make clients conscious of their responsibility. Existential analysis aims at nothing more and nothing less than leading men to consciousness of their responsibility. (Frankl, 1986, p. 275)

22. Meaning of Life
Life has meaning under all circumstances. It is our responsibility to respond to life’s demands.
Each person must discover the meaning potential of each situation.
The ultimate meaning lies in its pursuit.
The situational meaning can be experienced through three avenues of value (creative, experiential, attitudinal)

23. Three Levels of Self-Transcendence
Seeking ultimate meaning
Seeking situational meaning
Seeking one's calling
All three levels of self-transcendence are based on intrinsic motivation.
We need all three levels to become a fully functioning human.

24. Level 1: Seeking Ultimate Meaning
To reach beyond our physical limitations
It is beyond our comprehension
We can only gain a glimpse of the invisible glory of the transcendental realm
For non-theistic seekers, seeking ultimate meaning means seeking the ultimate ideals of goodness, truth, and beauty

25. Adaptive Function of Religious Beliefs
There is a huge literature on the adaptive benefits of religious beliefs and spiritual practices (e.g., Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001; Pargament, 1997)
Provides a framework to make sense of the big questions
Faith community develops around each religion
Religious beliefs & practices lead to positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2002)

26. The Role of Faith & Spirituality in Health
Prayer contributes to healing and recovery
Faith enhances quality of life, hope, and happiness
Religious beliefs affect medical decisions
Spiritual beliefs facilitate death acceptance
Coping with chronic pain, disability and terminal illnesses
Addressing existential issues
Making it an integral part of holistic care

27. Empirical Findings on the Benefits of Faith
Greater longevity
Higher quality-of-life score
Lower blood pressure
Fewer cardiovascular problems
Fewer cases of depression & anxiety
Better immune functioning
Faster recovery from surgery
Healthy life style

28. Level 2: Seeking Situational Meaning
To reach beyond our mental and situational constraints and connect with our spiritual values.
This involves being mindful of the present moment with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and compassion.

29. Definition of Mindfulness
According to Dr. Dan Siegel, mindfulness may be defined by the acronym OCEAN.
O = Openness
C = Compassion
E = Empathy
A = Attention/Attentiveness
N = Nonjudgment

30. Definition of a Meaningful Moment
It is deeply felt – It touches your emotions in a deep and lasting way. More than a fleeting feeling, it reaches your innermost being.
It is deeply processed – It involves deeper layers of meaning beyond the factual and superficial.
It is enlightening – It provides a solution to some puzzling problems or leads to some new discovery.
It is transforming – It enriches your life, changes your life’s direction or restores a sense of purpose and passion to your life.

31. Adaptive Benefits of Mindfulness & Self-Transcendence
Mindfulness is based on self-detachment & self-transcendence.
It provides a space between us and painful experiences.
It avoids our habitual dependence on negative thinking.
It allows us to connect with spiritual values.

32. Level 3: Seeking One’s Calling
To reach beyond self-actualization and pursue a higher purpose for the greater good
It involves engagement and striving to achieve a concrete meaning in life
It involves a life goal of contributing something of value to others
It often has a transcendental origin

33. The Concept of Calling Based on one's interest & talents
Based on the demand and need of the situation
Based on the felt responsibility to serve the common good
Based on a sense of calling from the transcendental realm

34. The Intrinsic Meaning & Value of Every Life
Frankl (1985, 1986) often appealed to the intrinsic value of life in order to rescue patients from their suicidal ideation
Terminal cases or victims of paralysis
Suffering as a rare opportunity for human achievement

35. Affirmation of the Intrinsic Value of Life
Everyone has the image of God or the Buddha nature.
Everyone is singular.
Everyone can make a unique contribution.
Everyone has the potential to grow spiritually.
Everyone matters to someone.

36. Adaptive Types of Reminiscence
Instrumental reminiscence - Remembering an incidence or a moment when they were able to overcome a difficulty or resolve a problem
Integrative reminiscence – Remembering cases in which they were able to achieve reconciliation with an alienated loved one or gain a spiritual insight about an unresolved issue
Both types were beneficial to the elderly (Wong & Watt, 1991)
Recalling such memories at the end of each day may also have the same adaptive function

37. Spiritual Needs of the Elderly
Existential issues – Suffering, alienation, death
Need for self-transcendence & hope beyond death
Life review – Resolving past guilt and regret
Spiritual care – Need for consolation, human connection, and a sense of meaning & purpose

38. Conclusion
Viktor Frankl’s unique approach to meaning and spirituality contributes to both suicide prevention and authentic happiness.
One can experience the spiritual value of self- transcendence at three levels.
It provides a positive vision for life education and society.
It can serve as a practical guideline for daily living.