Abstract
The author demonstrates heuristic ways to differentiate healthy from pathological meanings in life. He argues that no one can tackle such a task without first detecting the purpose of life. To find it, one must recognize that, ultimately, life does not belong to anyone, and this on two accounts: First, it is received through parental union, and second, it is only temporal and must thus be “given back.” Life is a loan that must be returned through death. These two polar realities, it is here believed, inform the whole of existence and guide us toward healthy growth (positive existential mental health).
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See O'Connell, W. E., “Frankl, Adler, and Spirituality”,J. Religion and Health, 1972,11, 134–138.
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See especially Adler, A.,Superiority and Social Interest, ed. H. Ansbacher and R. Ansbacher. Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University Press, 1964.
Lacocque, P-E,Meaning in Life: Healthy and Pathological Aspects. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms International (Order #8026846), 1980.
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Cf. Lacocque, P-E., “Desacralizing Life and Its Mystery: The Jonah Complex Revisited”,Journal of Psychology and Theology, in press. The termdesacralization was coined by Micrea Eliade. He defines it as a refusal to detect awe, mystery, and the sublime in life. Abraham Maslow has also borrowed Eliade's term to define neurotic behavior. Cf. Eliade, M.,The Sacred and the Profane. New York, Harper and Row, 1961. See also Maslow, A. H.,The Psychology of Science. Chicago, Henry Regnery Company, 1966. See esp. his chapter 14, “The Desacralization and the Resacralization of Science”, pp. 138–153.
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I use the concept of PEMH in contradistinction to Kotchen. In his paper, existential mental health is defined as a state in which one has achieved” a sufficient store of meaning to enable (a person) to master suffering and to direct daily action” (p. 174). Kotchen does not take into consideration that meaning in one's life can as easily be present in healthy individuals as it can be in many disturbed people. For a critique of existential mental health theory, refer to Lacocque,Meaning in Life: Healthy and Pathological Aspects,op. cit. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms International (Order #8026846), 1980, see also Kotchen, T.A., “Existential Mental Health: An Empirical Approach”,J. Individual Psychology, 1960,16, 174–181.
E.g., Goodnick, B., “Mental Health from the Jewish Standpoint”,J. Religion and Health, 1977,16, 110–115; and Maguire, M.R., “The Ultimate Value Question”,Couseling and Values, 1978,22, 274–278.
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Adolescence, as I see it, represents the first developmental stage in which a person is fully able to understand cognitively the meaning of life. This does not necessarily imply that one cannot have a strong sense of it prior to that stage (as in the case of Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, or St. Exupéry, for instance). What I mean here is that, due to physiological factors in particular, adolescence symbolizes the first opportunity for a person to integrate cognitively that which he or she might have been feeling all along on the affective level. For more on this, see Lacocque,Meaning in Life: Healthy and Pathological Aspects, ——op. cit., especially chapter 3.
Serrou, R.,Tereas of Calcutta. New York, McGraw-Hill Co., 1980, p. 76.
E.g., cf. Crumbaugh, J.C., “Cross-Validation of the Purpose-in-Life Test Based on Frankl's Concepts”,J. Invidual Psychology, 1968,24, 74–81; Frankl, V.E.,The Unheard Cry for Meaning. New York, Simon & Schuster Co., 1978; Lacocque,Meaning in Life: Healthy and Pathological Aspects, op. cit. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms International (Order #8026846), 1980; and Yalom, I.,Existential Psychotherapy. New York, Basic Books, 1980.
See my development on the Jonah Complex in Lacocque, “Desacralizing Life and Its Mystery”,op. cit.; or in Lacocque, A., and Lacocque, P-E.,The Jocah Complex. Atlanta, Georgia, John Knox Press, 1981.
Adler,Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind, ——op. cit., p. 277.
Schweitzer,Albert Schweitzer: An Anthology, ——op. cit..
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Lacocque, PE. On the search for meaning. J Relig Health 21, 219–227 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02274181
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02274181