20 January 2021
It’s hard to argue with a man who, during a three-year imprisonment in a Nazi death camp, insisted that we choose our status as victims. That man was the Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl (1905-1997). At the core of his philosophy of survival was meaning. In last week’s blog, meaning was tied to purpose, a reason one rises (with intent) from bed each day. In the next few weeks, the basic propositions of logotherapy (meaning + therapy) will be analyzed and discussed.
Logotherapy’s most fundamental tenet will be recognized by regular readers: “No matter the circumstance, you always have the last of the human freedoms: to choose your attitude.” How many attitudes can there be? Fundamentally, only three: positive, neutral, or negative. And according to Frankl, we choose one of those three by default or conscious action. Which have you used to select your attitudes?
The default path is the path of least resistance, going with the flow, moving with the crowd. At first, it’s easy. But a failure to act as a thinking individual engulfs you in philosophical and psychological quicksand. We’ve all been there.
It can start at home, in a schoolyard, or in a business meeting. You feel something is wrong, your mind and body are resisting agreement, but you don’t want to be that person, the one who stands on her own convictions and does something. So, you silently witness the school bully as he beats up the new kid in school. Let’s examine the psychology of all three parties: the bully, the beaten, and the silent witness (which will take us into at least next week).
The silent witness has just experienced a failure of growth resulting from self-erasure. If the witness had acted by trying to stop the beating or defend the beaten, she would feel at least mild pride and a sense of having done the right thing in a difficult circumstance. Diffused responsibility happens when no one in a crowd is willing to act for fear of standing out, ridicule, or failure. The active witness will break through her own barriers of resistance and diffused responsibility as she knows silence is consent.
In most schoolyard situations, the danger to an active witness is probably manageable. What about the philosophical and psychological damage to silent witnesses? Is that manageable?
Dan Chalykoff facilitates two voluntary weekly group meetings, as well as private one-to-one appointments, for SMART-based counselling services at danchalykoff@hotmail.com
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