The State of Empirical Research on Logotherapy and Existential Analysis

Abstract

The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed sys- tem. I have termed this constitutive characteristic “the self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfi ll 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. What is called self-actualization is not an attain- able aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence