Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

September 23rd, 2019

Often in therapy you are educating the client to adopt a different perspective. One aspect to logoeducation is teaching the client to put the spotlight on meanings and values, rather than on one’s self-concerns. Self-absorption is very much of a therapeutic issue.  People who are depressed are self-absorbed. People who are paying excessive attention to themselves are incapable of getting over their stage fright. And so on.    …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

September 15th, 2019

The three phases of therapy are diagnosis, therapy and follow-up. In the first phase, diagnosis, the therapist asks lots of questions and identifies the problem. Gathering information helps to formulate a plan of what to do. The down side is that the same questions that give the therapist a better picture of the problem actually adds to the client’s despair and depression. The reason for this is that the client has been thinking obsessively …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

September 9th, 2019

There is power to our choices. The Talmud describes a perspective of wisdom, of prophecy and of God on what happens to the sinner. Firstly, what is a sin? Tradition teaches that it is like shooting an arrow at a target and missing the mark. We are endowed as human beings with the desire for greatness, and instead we act shamefully. We are endowed with the desire to be helpful and instead we are hurtful. We want to empower and we dis-empower. We w …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

September 1st, 2019

Logotherapy could be called a training program in how to listen to the voice of conscience. More to the point, it trains you to hear the voice that comes through conscience. You are at every moment in a dialogue with life, or consider it a dialogue with God. The role of the Logotherapist is to facilitate the dialogue that conscience hears. The questions that the Logotherapist asks are actually questions that the client needs to ask him or herself …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

August 26th, 2019

I have just spent an intensive week at the Internal Compass music festival. One of the things I learned from Henrique Eisenman, a musician from Brazil was ‘You don’t need to play in order for the music to exist.’ Music exists in an inner space and an outer space. For example, you can play a melody repeatedly and feel it reverberating in your head. Alternatively you can hear a melody in your head first and then play it. You have …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

August 12th, 2019

One of the frequently asked questions in Logotherapy is: How do you know what is the right question to ask? There is a case cited by Elizabeth Lukas in her book Meaning in Suffering of an 18-year-old girl who, due to a medical condition appears to be 12 years old. As soon as Lukas met the girl and addressed her as ‘young lady,’ the girl picked up an ashtray from the table and angrily threw it across the room. This was yet another indi …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

August 4th, 2019

After my article “Meaning in Loss” I was asked: “I like the part in the article where you explain that ‘it was meant to be’ is not in line with Frankl's theory. However, do religious people usually say ‘It was meant to be,’ in the sense that it was G-d's will?” One of the ways to find meaning in suffering is to adopt a philosophy that frames the situation from a higher perspective. However, while s …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

July 28th, 2019

Logotherapy helps people with philosophical problems that impact their life. For example: How do people deal philosophically with the problem of loss? One may deal with their pain by embracing a new reality with an attitude of ‘It was meant to be.’ If you are one of those people, you might not agree with Frankl’s formulation of the tension that is felt between what ‘is’ and what ‘ought not to be.’ In suff …
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Author: Batya Yaniger, PsyD

July 23rd, 2019

And Miriam chanted for them ‘Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously.’ (Exodus 15:21) The word va'ta'an, translated as ‘chanted’, is used in modern Hebrew to mean ‘answered.’ However, in this context, no one is asking Miriam a question. Rather, something profound has just occurred. A nation of slaves has miraculously been redeemed, and now, just as the Egyptian army is in hot pursuit and all seems to …
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