VFI VIKTOR FRANKL ARCHIV WIEN VIKTOR FRANKL CHAIR

VFI VIKTOR FRANKL ARCHIV WIEN VIKTOR FRANKL CHAIR FOR PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM at VIENNA UNIVERSITY

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The Two Fold Revolution of LTEA Freedom of Will Image of Man Frankl: Nous history Motivation Theory vis-a-vis Freud: Libido Adler: Self Esteem Behav. : Learning

Tracing history of ideas in Frankl‘s works 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1925 1942 1945 1955 1970 1985 1997 Psychodynamics + Collectivism(s) / Biologism + Behaviorism + Transpersonalism + Psychologism 5

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1925 1942 1943 1955 1970 1985 1997 Individual Past + Biology /Collective Past + Environment + Feeling + The Self (cf: Vitz: The Cult of the Self) = too many variables explaining too much = the philosophical paradox of overdetermination 6

Another Overdetermination Example: Nature vs Nurture and Human Intelligence 1. Genetic Studies: Pedigree and Twin Studies (Monocygotic Twins Raised Apart) Molecular Genetics 2. Social Studies: Support Programs (Malleability of IQ), etc. Adoption Studies Cognitive Training 7

Overdetermination 1. Genetic Studies: 72 % 2. Social Studies: 70 % Total: 142 % Zimbabwe 8

Overdetermination: When too many causes hide the effect they should explain 9

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1925 1942 1943 1955 1970 1985 1997 After 1997 Individual Past + Biology /Collective Past + Environment + Feeling + The Self (Vitz: The Cult of the Self) Contemporary behavioural sciences: find the big TOE 10

Logotherapy as a discipline of dialogue The Contemporary Challenge? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1925 1942 1943 1955 1970 1986 1997 Individual Past + Biology /Collective Past + Environment + Feeling + The Self = The Brain Under determinitation = Reductionism to the core 11

The Contemporary Face of Reductionism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Individual Past Biology Environment Feeling The Self Neurophysiology 12

The Contemporary Face of Reductionism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Individual Past Biology Environment Feeling The Self The Noetic Person Neurophysiology Frontal Cortex 13

You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. […] You’re nothing but a pack of neurons. Crick 1994: 11 14

For the first time in their approx. 150 years, the behavioural sciences not only tell us how we function (mechanics of the mind), but also who we are (architecture and substance of the mind). 15

Some contemporary views on the soul 16

The materialist‘s problem Think back to the time before matter had collapsed into the first stars. Since the universe at this time consisted of simple particles randomly scattered through vast reaches of spaces, it seems unlikely that there was experience anywhere to be found. If the universe in this condition was wholly experience free, how can simply rearranging the same elementary particles have given birth to something fundamentally new and different: consciousness? How can the bringing to getherof non experiential things ever produce an experience? Even the simplest experience seems to be something wholly other than a collection of physical atoms. 17

A new EMPIRICAL challenge for logotherapy: No longer motivation theory but image of man. And no longer as a philosophical issue, but as an empirical problem. 18

Logotherapy as a continuing idealist revolution against reductionism ?

Logotherapy as a continuing idealist revolution against reductionism Who will accept the new challenge? Elisabeth Lukas: Not who, but when will you do it. ?

n (nous) y y y f f f Noetic Person Psycho physical Organism

Noetic Person expresses itself Organism i. e. affects Experience & Behaviour Measurable (Tests, Observation, etc. )

Batthyany & Guttmann (2006) 620 peer reviewed studies 1975 2005 Batthyany (2012) Follow up review article 91 peer reviewed studies 2005 2012

Noetic Person expresses itself Organism i. e. affects Experience & Behaviour Measurable Reducible

Noetic Person expresses itself Organism i. e. affects Experience & Behaviour Measurable Reducible

Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2. Psychiatry Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or 27 neurological illness.

How do we test the Credos vis a vis mind brain reductionism? 1. Seek Frontier Situations and Conditions which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human person 2. Enables us to do fine grained analysis of the ontological structure of the human person 3. Use interdisciplinary methodology 4. Test predictions of materialism vs dualism 28

Perfect Case 1: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD 1. Kidnaps the will 2. Robs patients of freedom despite better knowledge & intentions 3. Affects all dimensions of the patient. 4. As disorder of the freedom of will, it is the paradigmatic case for our research project. 29

Neuronal Causes (Jeffrey M. Schwartz et al. , Los Angeles) (Scott Rauch et al. , Boston)

Brain Differences – persons with OCD use different brain circuitry in performing a cognitive task than people without the disorder – (Rauch et al. J. of Neuropsychiatry, 1997)

Orbitofrontal Cortex the error detector Functions of the self control are implemented by OFC amygdala circuitry Evolved to temper pursuit of pleasure (limbic system) with consideration of context and risk Basal Ganglia Caudate: the “thought gear shift” Anterior Cingulate gut feelings Appropriate response to internal and external stimuli Projects to autonomic, visceromotor and endocrine systems

Glucose Metabolism in the Orbitofrontal Cortex

OCD and the Predictions of the Psychotherap. Credo 1. 2. 3. 4. Difference btw. symptom and person Soul/noetic core cannot fall ill and therefore can distance itself from psy phy dimensions is free not from conditions, but free how to deal with them 5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? Empirical test of Psychotherap. Credo (i. e. Soul Hypothesis): Apply this to OCD = 4 Steps (J. Schwartz, UCLA)

(J. Schwartz, UCLA) For one month, when obsessions come, then: (1) Relabel It’s not me, it’s OCD, a brain disorder. (2) Reattribute I feel an urge against my will. It is not my will, but a mis firing brain. (3) Refocus I decide against my kidnapped will and do what is really meaningful. (4) Revalue It works. And the urge is getting lower in comparison to the result of my meaningful work.

(1) Relabel Self distancing (2) Reattribute Self Distancing (3) Refocus Self Transcendence (4) Revalue Insight

I. Soft Prediction: Psychotherapeutic Credo should work, i. e. symptom reduction: Therapeutic Results after one month (only!) II. Strong Prediction of the Soul Efficacy Hypothesis: Should affect brain mechanics, i. e. nous matter interaction.

I. Weak/soft Prediction: Confirmed! Therapeutic Results after one month (only!) 1. 87% patients are symptom free 2. this is even better than paradoxical intention (usually 75%)

Predictions of the Psychotherap. Credo 1. 2. 3. 4. P Difference btw. symptom and person Soul/noetic core cannot fall ill and therefore can distance itself from psy phy dimensions is free not from conditions, but free how to deal with them 5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? P P

Core Prediction of the Soul Hypothesis: 1. 2. 3. 4. P Difference btw. symptom and person Soul/noetic core cannot fall ill and therefore can distance itself from psy phy dimensions Soul/noetic core is meaning oriented 5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? P P

Core Prediction of the Soul Hypothesis: 1. 2. 3. 4. P Difference btw. symptom and person Soul/noetic core cannot fall ill and therefore can distance itself from psy phy dimensions Soul/noetic core is meaning oriented 5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? P P

5. Causal efficacy of the soul on brain? n ? y y ? f f f

Glucose Metabolism in the Orbital Cortex: Same patient, severe OCD for > 20 years before and after four weeks „treatment“

Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry)

Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry)

Credo becomes an empirical fact There is one particularly key point, both clinically and philosophically, to comprehend about what occurs at the interface of the conscious mind and brain activity in the course of treatment–those moments always involve an active process. For at the moment when the man with OCD summons the mental strength to exert his will and physically actualize his new understanding by adaptively changing his meaningful behaviour, he will be overcoming tremendous biological forces that are operating in order to resist that change. And the force represents the essence of what the words active and purposeful really mean. In brief, these findings seem to tell us one thing, and they do so very loudly: “You are not your brain”. (Schwartz 1999, J Clin Neuropsychiatry)

Replications: Pure O Subtype OCD Social Phobia Generalized Anxiety Disorder Histrionic Subtype Borderline … Keyword: Intentional Neuroplasticity (similar to, but going beyond Pathoplastics)

Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo P The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2. Psychiatric Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or 48 neurological illness.

Challenge and Methods: 1. Seek Frontier Situations and Conditions which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human person Psychosis, Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, and Death 49

Psychosis, Dementia, Alzheimer Disease, etc. 1. The strongest form of the brain determinism 2. Patients forget who they are, what they are, bizzare behaviour, disinhibition, violence, aggression, catatonia, etc. Death: Depending on your view of the human person: 1. Either: An even stronger form of brain determinism: decides about your existence or non existence 2. Or the strongest form of self distancing from a diseased brain. 50

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A small chance, but still a chance 1. A Frontier Situation which may loosen the closely knit structure of the human being (mind, body, spirit) Perhaps something happens, if only in the very small time window of the process of dying which is unexpected by materialism, yet predicted, or at least possible, from the viewpoint of personalism? 53

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Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) Psychiatric Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness. 57

London Replication (Sir Peter Fenwick, Royal Society of Medicine) & Vienna Replication (AB and group) Survey Studies: nurses, helpers, caretakers In the past year, did you ever observe unexptected return to clarity against medical odds in your patients? Phenomenology, potential medical factors, etc. Age group and other demographic factors, etc. 58

Fenwick et al: 22 nursing homes (UK: England, Scotland, Ireland) Batthyany et al: 30 nursing homes (German speaking countries) Results: 77% and 82% of respondents (ca. 150 staff members) reported one or more such incidents in the past year. No correlation with medical factors other than impending death >84% of unexpectedly lucid dementia patients died within days. 59

Numbers vs. Persons: „Before this happened, I was fairly cynical about the human vegetables I cared for. Now I understand that I am caring for nurslings of immortality. I actually see them growing up towards death. I know I cannot prove this to you, but had you seen what I saw, you would understand that a brain disorder can affect the soul but it cannot destroy it. I only wish I would have known this earlier“ – A respondent (nurse) 60

Numbers vs. Persons: „Before this happened, I was fairly cynical about the human vegetables I cared for. Now I understand that I am caring for nurslings of immortality. I actually see them growing up towards death. I know I cannot prove this to you, but had you seen what I saw, you would understand that a brain disorder can affect the soul but it cannot destroy it. I only wish I would have known this earlier“ – A respondent (nurse) Frankl: The noetic person is disturbable, but not destructable. 61

Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) 1. Psychotherapeutic Credo P The belief in the ability of the soul within the human under all conditions and circumstances to pull back and separate itself from its psychophysical dimensions and to assume a productive distance from it. 2. Psychiatry Credo The belief in the persistence of the noetic person (soul) even behind the foreground symptoms of psychotic or neurological illness. P 62

Frankl‘s Core Ideas on the Noetic Person (Soul) (1950) Psychotherapeutic Credo & Psychiatry Credo Anti thesis to person to brain reductionism both (a) on a causal level (b) on an ontological level. Esse est efficere 63

Logotherapy as a discipline of dialogue The Contemporary Challenge has been met 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1925 1942 1943 1955 1970 1986 1997 Individual Past + Biology /Collective Past + Environment + Feeling + The Self = The Brain Each challenge brought logotherapy a step forward, so let‘s see where this will lead to … 64

Perhaps we will never loose our selves. 65

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