The 'Ideal Logotherapist'

In Chapter 8 of her book 'Introduction to Logotherapy Meaning and Practice: Meaningful Living' (2020, Ed. McLaffery Jnr, C, and translated by J. B. Fabry, Purpose Research, Charlottesville, Virginia), the eminent Logotherapist, Elisabeth Lukas, wrote about what it meant to be an 'ideal' logotherapist.

Dr Lukas also made another salient point when she observed,

'If we are to help our clients: we must acknowledge our continuing search for meaning and also show that we have found fulfillment'.

Logotherapy is a demanding vocation: it deals with life in all its rawness and unfairness; it sees bitterness, failure, shame, guilt, struggle, worry, and a plethora of other experiences as integral to life.

It also invites us to transcend the tragedies of life and find meaning in that experience, to encounter hope and purpose through our suffering.

That is not an easy task.

That is why us Logotherapists have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and wrestle with the contradictions in our clients, and ourselves, that surface as we embark upon the work of healing through meaning.