Viktor Frankl

Existential thought is a very motivating force and Deckers (2010) suggests this is a driving force behind many psychological needs (be it through death of loved one which often causes humans to contemplate their own death, or concerns for isolation, identity, freedom, and meaning versus fate in life).  Viktor Frankl is a proponent of logotherapy which suggests the motivational force driving humans is to find meaning in life; he is a psychotherapist, survivor of the Holocaust, and philosopher.  In the book, Man’s Search for Meaning (1959; 1992), he not only tells his personal story of surviving the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, but also devises his theory of logotherapy in part two of his book:

In the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is “the last of human freedoms”—the ability to “choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances”… Logotherapy focuses…on the future, that is to say, on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient in his future. At the same time, logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. Thus, the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced. (Preface, p. 104)

It does seem odd that although there are times when physiological needs are unmet (e.g. starving in a concentration camp), psychological needs persist (to find meaning in life as motivation to live).  Of course, Frankl explains this so much more succinctly: “Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning” (p. 105).  This is probably one of my favorite theories of motivation to ponder…

Deckers, L. (2010). Motivation: Biological, psychological, and environmental (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

Frankl, V. (1959, 1992 reprint). Man’s Search for Meaning (4^th ed). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.