Miss B Pursues Death and Miss P Life in the Light of V. E. Frankl's Existential Analysis/Logotherapy

: Ewalds-Kvist B, Lutzen K

Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC

: 2015

: OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying

: OMEGA-JOURNAL OF DEATH AND DYING

: OMEGA-J DEATH DYING

: 71

: 2

: 169

: 197

: 29

: 0030-2228

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815570599

Ms B's in United Kingdom and Ms P's in Finland choices in life when dealing with acute ventilator-assisted tetraplegia were analyzed by means of Viktor E. Frankl's existential analysis/logotherapy. The freedom of will to existential meaning and to worth in one's suffering realizes in the attitudinal change the person chooses or is forced to adopt when subject to severe circumstances. Life becomes existentially meaningful relative to inescapable suffering by the completion of three values: creative, experiential, and attitudinal values. If the search for meaning on these paths is frustrated or obstructed, a person's will to meaning transforms into existential frustration along with an existential vacuum and feelings of despair emerge and harm the person's will to survive. However, a person's frustrated meaning in life, when subject to unavoidable severe conditions, can be averted and redirected by applying the basic tenets in an existential analytic/logotherapeutic approach to the extreme situation.