Logotherapy was developed by Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. In contrast to psychoanalysis, which is heavily retrospective and introspective, logotherapy is a meaning-centered psychotherapy that is focused on the future and the meanings to be fulfilled by the individual in his or her future, regardless of what the past has encompassed. The term itself has its origins from the Greek word Logos, or meaning. Frankl’s Logotherapy was part of The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy with its focus on the meaning of human existence and the individual’s search for meaning to his/her existence, and its de-emphasis on the the „vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanism which play such a great role in the development of neuroses.“ Striving to find meaning to one’s existence is thought to be the primary motivational force in humans, which according to Frankl, can contribute significantly to breaking up the self-centeredness of the neurotic.
Mervin Smucker [Summarized from Frankl, Viktor (1984). Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy.]