Copyright 1997, 2001, 2009; all rights reserved. This article may be reproduced as long as it remains intact and credit is given to the author.
Dr. Elisabeth Lukas is a clinical psychologist who applies logotherapy in her healing and training. She has been called by Viktor Frankl "the greatest practitioner of logotherapy in the world." The following is based on notes taken at a four-day workshop she conducted in Dallas, Texas in 1995. It is divided into several parts:
6. & 7. The near and distant future
Figure 1: Temporal explication exercise: nine parts of a person’s life.
At the Southern German Institute of Logotherapy, Lukas’ counseling and training center, four years of study are required. In the first two years, 300 hours of theory is studied. The third year is supervision, called "Applied Logotherapy." The last year is "self-experience," called "Lived Logotherapy." One of the major tenants of logotherapy is that the practitioner must live it in order to practice it.
In Dallas, Lukas shared the "self-experience" exercise in a four-day workshop (July 30-August 2, 1995). She reminded us that logotherapy does not encourage techniques which focus on the self, as that only causes hyperreflection. "Lived Logotherapy" is not concerned with self-actualization, but self-transcendence; even so, it is not to be used on clients, as it is intended as the culmination of training for practitioners and may be far too intense for clients.
This exercise involves what Lukas calls the "temporal explication of the person." Though comparable to a "guided autobiography," it is specifically designed as a "confrontation" of one’s "existence with the logos." The life stages of a person are divided into nine parts, as outlined in Figure 1.
A semi-circle was used to connect the first and the last parts of life; Lukas points out that the "first and the last are encircling us, they are not directly parts of our lives, but have a lot to do" with who we are.
Throughout this exercise Lukas focusses on an "Inner Dialogue" within the person. A dialogue is a conversation between two, "but who are the two-you and yourself? Who is it?" If we are totally honest and totally alone, then in the background of the dialogue appears the "Super-you-it lifts up somehow, it transcends the ‘I.’" This is the meaning of the desert experience; it allows one to speak with oneself.
Lukas adds that the other voice does not always answer immediately, as in customary dialogues. This was illustrated earlier in The Story of the Tiger and the Fox, when "God answered in the night."
If we want to look at these nine parts of life in confrontation with the logos, we must do it in the Inner Dialogue; we cannot do it as a group. In the fourth year of training, the students are instructed to work through these exercises alone and in silence, then tell the group about the result. The group, in turn, gives feedback or support, though interpretation and speculation are not allowed.
In the Inner Dialogue, it is necessary to differentiate the "psychic" (that which originates from the psyche) from the "spirit" (that which originates from the spiritual dimension). To facilitate this, a single, blank sheet of paper is used, with a line drawn down the middle of it, as in Figure 2. On the left is the heading "the telling of the chronological story." This "telling" is about the facts or possibilities which exist. It is not possible for the writer to record everything, so there is always a choice which must be made as to what is most important.
Figure 2: Format used for temporal explication exercise.
On the right side are three questions: 1) how do I feel about it? This is a psychic, emotional response. 2) What do I think about it? What do I associate with it? This is also a psychic response, "a form of clarification." Perhaps the most important is 3) what stand do I take toward it? What position? How do I deal with it? This question is answered "as a spiritual person." This leads to a decision: "do I accept it, or do I have something yet to do?"
With the last question, the exercise becomes a "confrontation with Meaning." Lukas quotes Kierkegaard: "you can understand life backwards but first you must live it." "The question here is not ‘was my childhood [or adulthood, etc.] pleasurable,’ but ‘can I now see meaning in that part of my life? Is it fulfilled? Can I integrate this meaning? Or is meaning still calling me, like a telephone still ringing? Is there something in my past [which] I still have to forgive, apologize for, become conscious of, go to a person and compel...?’"
There are three axes, or polarities, with which we can examine our lives. These are negative/positive, received/given out, and past/future, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Polarities of understanding the human being (Lukas, 1995, Dallas).
Lukas notes that traditional psychoanalysis only examines and works with the left side of these polarities: the negative, what is received by the person, and the past. Rarely is consideration given to what is positive, what is given out, or an examination of the future.
But in this exercise (and in logotherapy in general) a balance is sought between these polarities. Both negative and positive aspects of life are examined. What is received and what is "radiated out" are both important to understanding the human being. Logotherapy does not dwell on the past, but focusses whenever possible on the present and future of the person.
Perhaps the most important part of this exercise was the introduction that Lukas gave to each section. Though the talks were brief, they bring a new perspective of the unfolding of life that ordinarily may be overlooked by someone merely doing an exercise. In fact, from a theorist’s viewpoint they constitute a dynamic developmental theory of man. In summary form, here are each of the nine parts.
"There is not as much as we know about our parents as we think. Our parents have raised us, have known us since birth. It takes a long time for us to mature, [and] then our parents have changed. When we have children, we can better understand our parents, but then our parents are already old. We did not grow up in their time, we do not know their experiences." Sometimes they tell us stories that help us to better understand them.
"Our parents have given us life. Frankl says that life is opportunity; without them we would not have this opportunity." Frankl speaks of the "minimal existence" versus the "total existence." We get more than the chromosomes of our parents, but our parents can only give us minimal existence, not total existence. "Our parents are human beings, with negative qualities just like we have."
Lukas (also in 1991a) quotes the Fourth Commandment of the Old Testament, from Exodus 20: "honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee" (1991a, p. 66). In modern psychology (and in society today) what is emphasized is what the child receives from the parents. It is assumed that if the parents honor their children, the children develop well. Or if the child loves his or her parents, the parents do well. (This is similar to the "black box" view of the person mentioned earlier.)
But Lukas points out that this is not what the commandment tells us: the child is to honor the parents, so his or her "days may be long." That is, there is an effect on the child who honors this commandment (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: What the child gives is more
important that what is received
(from Lukas, 1991, and Dallas, 1995).
Lukas adds: "what you send out comes back. It is not what the child received, but what the child gives" that defines who he or she is. She used the analogy of a boat which is being built, and is anchored (connected) in the water. Similarly, the child is connected to the parents by a "chain." "Only two things can break the chain: one, the child must thank the parents for what they did, or two, the child has to forgive the parents for what they did wrong." Only one of these has to occur, once in a lifetime, for the chain to be broken.
Every person experiences trauma. Lukas compared a person’s life trauma to a rock in the bottom of the ocean. In ebb tide, it is seen; at high tide, it is not seen. "But the [reef] is not produced by an ebb." During an ebb in the natural course of life, the reefs and traumas are exposed. "If life is full enough with meanings, trauma is submerged; if there is no meaning in life, the person will have a lot of symptoms. Which is the cause and which is the effect?" It is helpful to "fill up life with values, meaning."
Before two members of our group shared their reflections, Lukas talked about "presence" and "being with." These are qualities of the human spirit, and she encouraged us to practice them as we experienced their life stories.
There are three aspects of our humanity: environmental, hereditarial, and spiritual. It is the spiritual that makes man a "co-constructor, a co-creator of his own life," according to Frankl.
Children have a different experience of time than adults. To a child, "an hour seems like ten years. The parent says ‘I am going shopping; I’ll be back in two hours.’ To the child it seems like an endless time of being alone." This is why childhood experience goes very deep. On the other hand, children are strong, and have "strong, self-healing powers." Lukas quoted Albert Schweitzer: "If you have had a good childhood and good parents, you cannot give it back to your parents; you are obliged to give this good to the world, to pass it on to other generations."
During this period we are still dependent on our parents, though we have "one leg out of the nest." In the earlier period we are like the "baby bird with an open beak." Now we close the beak, we are not waiting for others, and we move to the edge of the nest, not as dependent on others. In adulthood, we will spread our "spiritual wings" and "fly out into the world," leaving "the egocentricity of the nest." Then we will get to see life from a "new perspective;" we can fly wherever we want. "But you must find your worms yourself. This is what it means to be an adult." Lukas quotes Frankl: responsibility is "terrible and splendid."
So in the school years the person is in a transition between the total dependence of childhood and the freedom of adulthood. Lukas called the school years "the offer of life, of chance, of opportunity." She pointed out that it is a "privilege to be able to go to school. Others, and in other times, did not have this chance.... For the spirit, school broadens the horizon."
Each stage of life in this exercise will have a differing length for each person, depending on life circumstances and age. For a person just out of college, adulthood will be a very small part of this exercise; for a person nearing retirement, there will be much to write about. This period is probably the most flexible in working out this exercise.
In childhood we had no control; we were "victims of circumstance." In our school years we were "young, easily misled or tempted." There was "not much inner resistance." Now, in adulthood, we are responsible. We have "four fixed points" which must be investigated; we "always have to look at these points" from the perspective of the present as we examine our adulthood (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: In examining our adulthood, four
fixed points must be examined
(from Lukas, 1995).
These involve what we have received (both good and bad), and what we have given out (good + and bad -). Lukas referred to these as "gifts of life (received +), sufferings (received -), merits (given out +) and guilt (given out -)." The difference between those who are psychologically healthy and those who are psychologically ill "lies in the lines they draw between the present and these four points."
In logotherapy, "time flows from the future to the past." Lukas elaborated: the present is neither the past nor the future, but stands on the "borderline" between them. "Everything of the past has come into truth and can never be removed from the truth." The past "will be true forever." It does not matter whether a person has died; the past will always be truth. "It does not matter if you have forgotten it, or if a million years have passed and no one knows." The past--the truth--is "independent of knowledge." This truth goes "into eternity. No power or entity can put it out of eternity." Truth, then, is eternal in the past. However, it is "limited on the borderline of the present." What we call the future has "something to do with death," which "can immediately take away all your possibilities."
So the person has "two huge areas of power: truth eternally on the left, which death cannot take away;" and the future possibilities, from which we choose with the knowledge of the certainty of death. In sum, Lukas states: "we must rescue the possibilities and move them to the past, for safekeeping in eternity."
Lukas cites two paradoxes: 1) Our past is our real future. At the end of our life there is no future, but our past is the totality of our life. 2) We enter the world not by birth but by death. When we die, we become our life. At birth, all is future possibility; at death, all our past is "eternal truth."
All of us have an infinite number of possibilities in the present, and we can be aware of at least several of these. Some are more precious than others. Doing something good, showing love, working on a project, manifesting beauty.... Now is the present. Lukas asks: "where do we stand on this borderline?"
Here we enter a different arena, one that is "not in reality." The near future is "not in being; it is part of ‘can-being,’ what can be." It is the area of possibilities. "It is the prelude of being." Some of the "possibilities never come to being, so they fall into nothingness. Either we pull [a possibility] out of the teeth of death, or it comes to nothing." The near future can be next week, next month, next year, or the next ten years.
The distant future has "a different color." Here all that is concrete loses color, becomes pale and hazy. The distant future deals more with "the qualities of my being: who is the person I want to become?"
"The ‘I’ in the present stands and faces my Self in a distant time. The two ‘I’s meet; ‘I-now’ versus ‘I-future.’" We must ask ourselves if we like this "I-future" person. It is an encounter of the real self with the ideal Self, which gives a "quite different quality" to our perspective. "All these concrete things, building a house, getting married... lose importance."
Our motives become primary: we "now speak of intentions. ‘The intentions are ours, the effect is God’s.’" We may never know the effect of our intentions and actions, but our "intentions have their own beauty, their own quality; they inspire us, regardless of whether they come true or not." Independent of their effect, the plan has its own quality.
"Intentions have an excellent diagnostic quality." For example, if one’s intentions are beautiful, the plan resulting from those intentions has its own beauty. Logotherapy looks not only at the deeds of the past, but also the intentions of the future.
Lukas gave an example of what she called "anticipatory joy," for example, "plans for a house that never come to be. The hope of something always carries with it the possibility of disappointment. The only way not to have the chance of disappointment is to be hopeless."
The near future involves more concrete plans, that array of infinite possibilities that we face and choose from as we harvest them into the past, those that we plan and work for. The near future is "directly connected to the present." The distant future, on the other hand, "has a greater connection to our dying than to the present." It is here that "you see yourself as God meant you to be." There is a "shift from having to being;" we are no longer self-centered, but "self-transcending."
The distant future is not necessarily old age, but it can include the possibility of losses, illness, decline, "foreboding of departure," and suffering.
Lukas (1995, Dallas, also from 1993, Toronto) began this section with the example of Tolstoy’s Confessions, which "shows the process of a man who has reached nearly everything in his life" and yet wonders if he has lived his life in vain. "All this will be lost. There will be a time when his property is owned by someone else," his children are dead, and his books no longer exist, when his name is no longer known. "He woke up and said, ‘why did I do any of this, what was it for?’" "To think of death is taboo. We live as if life is forever, but it is not. Death may be nearer than we think. Sometime you or I will die; this realization can protect you from despair."
She reminded us of Frankl’s observation: "behind each despair is an idolization." There are two types of values: "earthly" or "relative" values and "Higher Values." Lukas quotes Frankl, in that each value in life is relative and must not be set as an absolute. "Each relative value is a place holder to the Higher Value which is not on earth. In the moment we set a relative value as absolute, we act as if the jacket, holding a seat at the movie, is what is meant to be there." For example, when parents lose a child, "there is always great grief." This is normal. But when there is idolization, when the parents live "only for the children, then there is despair."
We must remember that "not only will we die, but also our children; our works will be forgotten totally." By reflecting on our mortality, and our death, we can put our values in perspective: "some are bigger and higher than others, but none [are] converted to an Absolute Value."
In working with values and the idea of death, we can only use negative noölogy or negative knowledge. By this, Lukas refers to knowledge about the Spirit, about noös, an awareness which is "beyond our grasp. We can only make declarations or definitions about Spirit of what cannot be; we cannot say what it is. It is like lines of a painting or picture which convey perspective; they converge outside of the picture to an imaginary absolute point (see Figure 6). Negative noölogy refers to an Absolute which is beyond understanding, but conveys a perspective to our lives."
Figure 6: The lines converge outside the
picture to an absolute point
(Based on Lukas, 1995, Dallas).
Existentially, in death, "we come out of time and space again [italics added]. Spirit is always located beyond space and time. We enter timelessness. This means we ‘arrive’-all people ‘arrive’-at the same time and same moment. There cannot be an ‘after death’ because there is no time after death."
Lukas noted that, in people who are close to death, there is "a strong spiritual dynamic... a strong spiritual movement." She attributed this to the Spirit wanting "to clarify life - did I live in vain or not?" What are the meaning possibilities of our dying? What do we make of this, what decisions do we make?
Lukas asked us to imagine a stone which is thrown in the water and leaves circular ripples. "The stone does not see its ripples, but sinks to the bottom. We look in a mirror and ask: ‘why is my life not in vain?’"
"What are the traces we leave behind?" The answer to this question is "not for us, but for the world." As we look "behind us or after us" we see that "we have been an instrument through which something sounded and heaven influenced creation. God says ‘I have created you and you were my instrument. I allowed you to be and you have worked on my creation. What was your contribution to this creation?’"
Last edited 07/12/11