SOURCE: "The Frankl Meaning," in Human Behavior: The News Magazine of the Social Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 7, July, 1977, pp. 56, 58-62.

Cohen is an American journalist, freelance writer, filmmaker, and founder of Psychology News. In the following essay, he discusses Frankl's attempt to connect his understanding of the spiritual dimension of humanity with psychotherapy and, in particular, the logotherapeutic approach.

The titles of Viktor Frankl's books—Man's Search for Meaning, The Doctor and the Soul, The Will to Meaning—made me expect a gloomy man who could be the hero of one of Bergman's bleaker films. Frankl lives in the heart of Vienna's medical district. The streets are narrow, quiet and a little dark. I pushed open the big heavy door of the block of flats where Frankl lives and found myself in a long, shabby hallway. My footsteps clanged on the stone floor. Certainly, it was going to be...