The Personalism of Viktor Frankl or Franklian Personalism
By Timothy K. Lent, Ph.D.
Dr. Lent is a lecturer in religious studies, bioethics, medical ethics and philosophical ethics; author of Viktor E. Frankl Anthology; ordained to ministry with a Ph.D. in Ethics from North-West University, South Africa.
Download as PDF: Lent, Timothy K., ‘‘The Personalism of Viktor Frankl or Franklian Personalism.’’ (2025). Institute for Christian Personalism.
Introduction
Viktor E. Frankl (1905 – 1997) – the eminent 20th century psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and Founder of Logotherapy, the Third Viennese "School" of Psychotherapy, after the respective "schools" Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) or psychoanalysis, and Alfred Adler (1870 – 1937) or individual psychology – was influenced by the "philosophy" of personalism. Like many “schools” of philosophy, personalism is difficult to define, or at least arrive at a rigid definition. It is very broad in perspective. Like existentialism, personalism cannot be confined to one particular system of thought. It is typically associated with existentialism but it crosses other disciplines, such as psychology and theology. However, a central idea of personalism is the recognition of the irreducible value or worth of the person.[i] Personalism, then, is a presupposition, a basic attitude toward the dignity of every human person.
I. The Uniqueness of Every Human Person
There are five Franklian principles of personalism, which are relevant to men and woman today. The first principle is that each human being is unique. There are many similarities between human beings. The reason is that all human beings have the same nature, a human nature. Because every human being has the same nature, every human being is equal in value or dignity Sometimes, of course, the individual can get lost or feel lost in the masses, collective human beings. One may talk about “humanity,” “the human race” or “humankind” in general, in the abstract. But a human being is a person, a concrete, specific, precise, here-and-now individual. For example, Frankl writes:
‘Each human being is unique ... and thus neither expendable nor replaceable. In other words, he is a particular individual with his unique personal characteristics who experiences a unique historical context in a world which has special opportunities and obligations reserved for him alone.’[ii]
Elsewhere, Frank notes, ‘to be equals to be different.’ ... For the uniqueness of every individual human being means that he is different from all other human beings.’[iii] Each person, then, is sui generis, one of a kind, a distinct or separate person who is different from every other person in the world. Since each human being is unique, then the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) is right when he observes, ‘We ... forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people’.[iv]
II. The Unrepeatable Worth of Every Human Person
The second principle of Franklian personalism, which is closely related to the first, is that each human being is unrepeatable in worth. No two human beings are the same. For example, I received a birthday card which said, “When God made you, He threw away the mold.” In other words, I cannot fit into the mold out of which you were made; nor can you fit into my mold. Take another example: Hundreds of thousands of human beings may share the name “John.” But no one else can be John the person, because he is a unique individual, unrepeatable in worth. Even cloning cannot make two human beings exactly the same, because while the human body can be duplicated, the human spirit cannot. As Frankl comments, “a unique person ... can never be replaced by any double, no matter how perfect a duplicate.”[v]
III. The Preciousness (Dignity or Worth) of Every Human Person
The third Franklian principle is that every human being is precious, which refers to the worth or dignity of a person. The reason is that there is a “core” to a human being; in other words, because each human being has is spirit, each is an “I,” a “self,” a “person.” In the words of Frankl, “ a human being is no thing.
This nothingness, rather than nothingness, is the lesson to learn from existentialism.”[vi] In short, a person is a subject rather an object, a “who” rather than a “what,” someone rather than something. Logotherapy affirms, writes Frankl, "the unconditional value of each and every person.”[vii] Such value or dignity, according to Frankl, is “indelible.”[viii] That is to say, a person’s value can neither be erased nor lost. But what about murderers, rapists or pedophiles? Ontologically, they still have the same dignity as any other person. Morally, however, they have not lived up to their dignity. In short, they must be treated as persons, even when they have failed to act as such.
Human dignity, as Frankl writes, “is always to be ascribed to the individual person whether he preserves ... [it] or tarnishes it.”[ix] To say the human person is precious also means, in the words of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain, “A single human soul is worth more worth than the whole universe of bodies and material goods. There is nothing above the human soul, except God.”[x] In other words, in all creation, nothing is more valuable than a human person. Thus, one person is more valuable, has more worth, than all the money in the world. Eastern (Orthodox) Christian theologian Kallistos Ware explains why:
“Human persons are not to be measured quantitatively; we have no right to assume that one particular person is of more value than any other particular person, or that ten persons must necessarily be of more value than one. Such calculations are an offense to authentic personhood. Each is irreplaceable, and therefore each must be treated as an end in his or her self, and never as a means to some further end. Each is to be regarded not as object but as subject.”[xi]
IV. The "Categorical Imperative"
The fourth Franklian principle, which is closely related to the third principle, is called the “the second formulation of Immanuel Kant’s 'categorical imperative.'"[xii] It is an ethical principle for how one human beings should treat each other. Kant writes, “Act so as to treat man, in your own person as well as in that of anyone else, always as an end, never merely as a means."[xiii] The Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyl, before he became Pope John Paul II, agrees, writing, "The person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end."[xiv]
Frankl, while not directly referring to the second formulation of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, applies the concept itself to human relationships, writing, “On the human level, I do not use another human being but I encounter him, which means that I fully recognize his humanness.”[xv] That is to say, human beings are not things to be used but persons to be respected. Again, referring to employer-employee relationships, Frankl observes, "the dignity of man forbids his being himself a means, his becoming a mere instrument of the labor process, being degraded to a means of production.”[xvi]
Still again, Frankl applies the notion of the categorical imperative to sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. For Frankl, sex is truly human, when it is an expression of love between two persons. He calls it “[T]he normal approach to the partner, with sexual behavior on the human and personal level. There they no longer would see the partner as an ‘object’ but rather as another subject. This would preclude their regarding the other human being as a mere means to an end – any end. On the human level, one no longer ‘uses’ the partner but encounters him.... On the personal level, he meets the partner on a person-to-person basis, and this means that he loves the partner. Encounter preserves the humanness of the partner; love discovers his uniqueness as a person.”[xvii]
V. The Uniqueness of Each Moment
Fifth, because each human person is unique, each has a unique moment in history to accomplish certain tasks in his or her life. In the words of Frankl, “Each human being is unique ... and thus neither expendable nor replaceable. In other words, he is a particular individual with his unique personal characteristics who experiences a unique historical context in a world which has special opportunities and obligations reserved for him alone.”[xviii]
For example, thousands of individuals may be able to do John Doe’s job. But no one else can be John doing his job. It is unique for him alone, because he is unique and the moments in which he does his job are unique. Thus, he fulfills unique meanings during those moments, which no one else can fulfill for him.[xix]
Doctor-Patient and Therapist-Client Relationships
Frankl’s personalism applies to doctor-patient relationships. Medical doctors should bear in mind that the individual who goes to see them is – first or foremost a who, then a what; a person, then someone having a sickness or illness in need of healing. Frankl, for example, reminds surgeons (including himself) and psychotherapists that “we are not merely treating diseases but dealing with human beings.”[xx]
Franklian personalism also applies to therapist-client relationships.[xxi] If the therapist cannot relate the client, at least so that he or she feels valued as a person, then it is difficult for healing to take place. It is not enough, then, for the therapist to be objective and detached with his or her client. What also matters, according to Frankl, is “the human relations between doctor and patient, or the personal and existential encounter.”[xxii] That is a personalist principle. In other words, a client is someone, not something, a subject to be respected and merely an object to be analyzed.
Summary of Franklian Personalism
Fankl's Commentary on Rabbi Hillel’s Teaching
Rabbi Hillel (circa 70 B. C. E. – 10 C. E.), in one of his "famous" teachings, says:
“If I do not do this job –
who will do it?
And if I do not do this job right now
– when shall I do it?
But if I carry it out only for my own sake
– what am I?”[xxiii]
For Frankl, Hillel’s first question, “If I do not do this job – who will do it?” suggests that a human person is unique or singular and thus, a person’s life can neither be repeated nor replaced by another person.[xxiv] According to Frankl, Hillel’s second question, “And if I do not do this job right now – when shall I do it?” suggests that in every moment of a person’s life, he or she has “a specific and particular meaning to fulfill.”[xxv] Frankl "sees" in Hillel’s third question, “But if I carry it out only for my own sake – what am I?” the self-transcendence of human existence. In other words, a person’s life points to something beyond himself or herself, such as loving other persons, completing the day’s tasks, standing for a worthwhile social, political or moral cause. Frankl's "point" is that a person finds meaning out in the world, not by being fixated or exclusively focused on himself or herself.[xxvi]
References
[i] John Hellman, Emmanuel Mounier and the New Catholic Left, 1930 –1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p. 4.
[ii] Viktor E. Frankl, Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967), p. 44.
[iii] The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, 3rd ed. (New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books/ Random House, 1986), p. 72.
[iv] Arthur Schopenhauer, “Book II – Counsels and Maxims,” in Complete Essays of Schopenhauer: Seven Books in One Volume, trans. T. Bailey Saunders (New York, N.Y.: Willey Book Company, 1942), Bk. II, Ch. II, p. 25.
[v] Viktor E. Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, op. cit., p. 136.
[vi] The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy (New York, N.Y.: New American Library, 1969, 1st printing 1970), p. 6. Italics are the publisher’s.
[vii] Man’s Search for Meaning, 3rd ed. (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 151.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Psychotherapy and Existentialism, p. 111.
[x] Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Democracy and the Rights of Man and the Natural Law (San Francisco, CA.: Ignatius Press, 2011), p. 73. The Ignatius edition is two books in one. In English, the first book was published in English in 1944; the second, in 1943.
[xi] Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1979, reprinted 1986), p. 65.
[xii] Note well: The categorical imperative is one with three formulations. Hence, Kant’s statement is not the second categorical imperative.
[xiii] Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Kant: Immanuel Kant's Moral and Political Writings, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Random House, Inc., 1949), p. 178. Italics are mine.
[xiv] Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T. Willetts (San Francisco, CA.: Ignatius Press, 1993), pp. 41, 228.
[xv] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning (New York, N.Y.: Insight Books/ Plenum Press, 1997), p. 92.
[xvi] The Doctor and the Soul, p. 126.
[xvii] The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism, rev. ed. (New York, N.Y.: Washington Square Press, 1978, Washington Square Press ed. 1985), pp. 81-82.
[xviii] Psychotherapy and Existentialism, p. 44.
[xix] Ann. V. Graber, Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy: Method of Choice in Ecumenical Pastoral Psychology, 2nd ed. (Lima, OH.: Wyndham Hall Press, 2004), p. 101.
[xx] Viktor E. Frankl, The Will to Meaning, op. cit., p. 28.
[xxi] The principle also applies to counselor-counselee relationships.
[xxii] Viktor E. Frankl, The Will to Meaning, p. 6.
[xxiii] Rabbi Hillel, quoted by Viktor Frankl in Psychotherapy and Existentialism, p. 89. Another translation of Hillel is “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?" Commentary by Ovadiah ben Abraham of Bartenura. Pirkei Avot, 1, 14. Sefaria: Jewish Texts Library. [Web:] https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/35125?lang=bi [Date of access: 22 February 2025]. Hillel was a famous scribe and rabbi who founded the School of Hillel (or Beit Hillel, the House of Hillel) around 20 B. C. E. Rabbi Shammai was a contemporary of Hillel and founded the School of Shammai (or Beit Shammai, the House of Shammai). Hillel and Shammai respectively represent two different schools of rabbinic thought.
[xxiv] Ibid., p. 89.
[xxv] Ibid., pp. 89-90.
[xxvi] Ibid., p. 90.
