20 Practical Lessons by Victor Frankl to Solve Personal Psychosis, Fears and Find Life Meaning

The main question people ask themselves is, “What is The Meaning of My Life?”. Interestingly, it’s not unique only nowadays; people 200 years ago and earlier asked the same questions and were worrying about it.

Often on the Internet, I saw the book by Victor Frankl, Man in The Search for Meaning. Not only did the book cover and title give me interest, but also the following facts that I found about this author:

• Was a student of the Sigmund Freud
• Opened a new approach in psychology — Logo-therapy
• Survived a concentration camp during World War 2
• Helped many people to solve their psychosis, fears, and other problems

These reasons made me curious about this person, so I found his book and started reading with significant interest.

If you are interested in this book, you can get it by following the link above. And now, let’s learn 20 methods and practical lessons from Viktor Frankl to overcome all the problems we have in our lives.

Lesson #1 — Control Your Attitude

Many people (not only those with mental disorders) have regular psychosis, fears, and other cognitive issues that come to us in different stressful situations.

Viktor Frankl says that our anxieties and fears are not so important. Our attitude is the most important thing we have to focus on.

“If you Colonel had the same level of fear as me, you would have fled long ago.” — the response of a military doctor during shelling in the trenches during World War 2

The example above shows that a man could have a high level of fear and anxiety, but only in his arms a choice of how to act and what attitude to show.

Lesson #2 — Freedom to Choose Your Reaction

The man with psychosis doesn’t take personal responsibility for fears, mental disorders, psychosis, etc. It may be the reason of different factors: innate qualities, health problems, life traumas, etc.

The responsibility you have is to choose your reaction. Our reaction is not only our actions but also our inner voice.

If you are afraid not to accomplish your project, it’s your choice to continue working harder or give in to your fears.

Lesson #3 — Mistakes of the Past are Lessons, but not Justifications for Current Actions

Often, people act in the wrong way because of past events. It becomes like a green flag to do anything. If you ask the person why he did this, you will get an explanation that it’s all about past events.

We can’t judge these people, but we can learn from their mistakes.

If you had a bad experience in the past, then you should learn from it and become better in the future. Often, bad experiences may result in a wise teacher.

You have to learn from your own mistakes and other people’s mistakes.

Take your past as information, as an archive with events, people, and thoughts. With such information, you can make better decisions now and in the future.

Lesson #4 — Treat People as They Should Be, but Not as They Are

Have you ever heard advice that we should treat people as they are? In reality, it doesn’t work.

If we accept people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat them as they are what they should be, we help them become what they can become.

A perfect example is a school. Students who get more attention and believe in success from their teachers get better marks and knowledge.

Try to help people, look for ways to improve them, and treat them as possible future versions.

Lesson #5 — Focusing on Work Removes Anxiety and Extra Thoughts

Have you ever noticed that anxiety and worries come more often when we don’t do anything? People think more about the past and future when they have nothing else to do.

The excellent solution in this situation is to find something to do. You can work on your job, on your project. It’s even good for doing sports activities, finding hobbies, talking to friends, etc.

In case when your body and mind are busy, you don’t have enough time to worry, which makes you feel better and get in a better mood.

Lesson #6 — Make the Problem Purposely Worse if You Can’t Handle It

The man had a child who often peed in bed at night. It happened so frequently that the man tried everything, and nothing helped.

Then he tried an advice from the doctor. He said to the boy that every time he would pee in bed, he would earn 10$.

The boy was so happy to hear it. Now, he had plans to earn a lot of money. But as soon as he pushed himself to pee on the bed, he couldn’t do it.

So, during the week, the boy could only do it two times. After some time, the boy found it much more complicated than he thought and stopped trying to pee.

It was a natural solution that worked so fast. It may also help you if you find a way to apply it.

Lesson #7 — Use Humor Toward Problems

If you take your problems too seriously, they become much worse. It’s a known fact, and many people have had such an experience.

As in lesson #1, the right way to work on our problems is to choose the right attitude and think simply about them, using humor.

Laugh at yourself, your actions, and your decisions. It won’t help you solve your problems, but you will get in a better mood and not worry too much about what happened.

You can make better decisions if you feel better and have a good mood and energy.

Lesson #8 — The Magic of Paradoxical Intention

Paradoxical intention is a cognitive technique that helps individuals with anxiety, fear, phobias, eating disorders, and depression. This approach encourages clients to engage in the behavior they fear the most, which can ultimately help them overcome their fear and improve their mental well-being. According to Ascher (2002), paradoxical intention is a valuable technique for therapists to incorporate when working with clients struggling with these issues.

It’s a potent tool that helps many people solve their fears.

I show two examples where people had real fears and problems because of them and how they could solve them.

Situation #1

One man had the next fear: he sweated and was very afraid of it when he spoke in public. This fear made him sweat even more and even more nervous.

The advice he had from the doctor was to try to sweat as much as possible the next time he spoke in public.

So the next time this man felt he sweated, he said, “Alright, Now I will Sweat 10 Liters and Teach Everybody around How to Sweat Like a Master”.

After this self-discussion, the man felt confident and didn’t sweat. He spoke to people, and all his fears and anxieties disappeared.

Situation #2

One woman had hand tremors. It’s a known problem that appears with many diseases, especially Parkinson’s disease.

The doctor decided to use a Paradoxical Intention method here as well.

The next time he came to this woman, he asked her to compete with who could shake hands faster. She was confused but decided to try.

The man said, let’s do it faster and faster. After some time, the woman said, “Omg, enough! I feel tired. Let’s drink some tea”. She went to the kitchen, took a cup of tea, and drank it without tremors!

Every time the man visited this woman, they played this game, which helped the woman solve her problem.

Lesson #9 — Strengthen Your Phobia and Desire What You Are Afraid Of

The practical advice is similar to the previous one. Here, I want to add two more real-life situations where people with deep anxiety could solve their problems with this method.

Situation #1

One woman had the same dream every night where someone killed her. He often woke up and started crying and woke up her husband.

The doctor advised her to continue watching her dream by the end and not interrupt it.

After that, the woman saw the whole dream, understood it was only a dream, and started laughing. She still woke up her husband, but now, at least, she solved her fear.

Situation #2

One woman had agoraphobia for 14 years: she was afraid of going for a walk, to shops, and everywhere out of her home.

It’s a deep and complex mental disease that doesn’t give a person to live an everyday, calm life.

The doctor advised me to support these fears and thoughts.

The next time the woman went outside, she felt anxious and said, “Now I will show everyone around how I can feel fear, how my hands and legs can shake.”

She aimed to strengthen her fears and bad behavior, which helped.

Next time in the shop, this woman started talking to the cashier and felt she sweated.

This time, she showed everyone how much she could sweat, which also helped. She felt calm and could walk without any fear. After some months of practice, she could solve her disease.

Lesson #10 — Don’t Make Pleasure Your Main Goal

The more we strive for pleasure, the more decisively it eludes us.

It’s an absolute truth. Many examples include getting more pleasure from sex, more money from the business, more views from articles and videos, and so on.

Focusing on the result won’t give you anything besides anxiety, fear, sadness, and unjustified expectations.

We should focus more on the process. The current moment and how you act can give you more outcomes, so you need to concentrate on what you are doing and enjoy it. This approach allows you to continue working longer and get better results.

Recently, I got a fantastic example of such an approach; it’s the main character of the movie Forrest Gump.

Many people think about this person as a stupid boy who doesn’t see and understand what “normal” people do. But this silly man achieved the following things:

• Won the World Tennis Championship
• Became a stern military man
• Met three presidents of the United States of America
• He opened his own business, which became successful

This man only thought a little about the future. He doesn’t have worries about the Past and Future. The only thing Forrest Gump was focusing on was execution.

He learned to play tennis in the army and continued doing it until he won a championship. It wasn’t his goal; he just enjoyed playing tennis.

He didn’t know anything about fishing and failed many times, but he continued doing it and could make a successful business that gave him too much money after that.

The primary strategy of his life was focusing on the current moment and doing his best and what he loved to do.

Lesson #11 — Don’t Seek The Easy Way

Looking for an easy way is focusing on the result. You should do hard work if you have to. Learn to enjoy the process even if it’s too hard.

You need to understand that 99.9% of our lives are a process. Other 0.01% is the result. Outcomes are one-time moments that we see and may mark that they happened at some point.

But then we should focus on the process that takes time and energy. A good example is Forrest Gump, who liked everything he did and wasn’t afraid of hard work, condemnations, and mistakes.

Lesson #12 — Give Up Your Beliefs; Switch Your Attention From Yourself To People And Events Around

Many fears and anxieties come from our past, and we keep them with our beliefs and formula that if something happened, it could repeat in the future in different forms.

To solve these fears, we need to change our beliefs. Sometimes, it’s perfect to get another point of view to alter our thinking process.

All our fears and anxiety exist only in our heads. So we need to start from there.

Sometimes, switching attention to other people is good, like sex, conversation, public speaking, etc.

We think about ourselves too much: how we look and smell, what other people think, etc. But if everybody feels the same, isn’t it better to focus on someone else?

Become a watcher who listens, watches, feels, and makes decisions. Don’t focus too much on yourself; it may isolate you. Focusing on other people and evens opens your inner box to the world.

Lesson #13 — Prohibition as a Method of Solving the Problem

People love to break taboos. It’s difficult to explain why, but it’s part of our nature; people desire more of what’s unavailable.

For example, one couple had a problem with sex. The man worried too much and couldn’t “love” his woman.

The doctor gave the advice to do the next thing every day: “Lay naked together for at least an hour every day and do everything except sex.”

After two days, this couple returned to the doctor and said they “unfortunately” couldn’t follow this prohibition.

Weeks after this, the couple had no problem with their evil.

Lesson #14 — Dereflexion And Switching The Role (Patient/Doctor)

Sometimes, people focus too much on their problems that don’t allow them to solve them. It leads even to the worst scenario that this problem controls them.

In one situation, a couple had a problem with sex because the husband worried too much about it and finished too quickly.

To solve this problem, the woman said to her husband that she had problems with orgasms and never had them and asked him to help her.

She was a patient this time, and her husband became a doctor. He was focusing on his wife and did everything to solve her problem.

In this situation, he switched his focus from himself to his wife, and without worrying, he could solve his problems in bed.

Lesson #15 — If You Can’t Relax, Then You Should Tense Very Much

Sometimes, we focus too much on relaxation, which makes us feel even more stressed.

Otherwise, if we try to tense our body (do the opposite action to relaxation), then we will get more relaxation.

It’s bizarre about human psychology and the body that we try to do something challenging and often get the opposite result.

Lesson #16 — Fear Leads To Events; Forced Desires Distance From Events

If we fear something too much, then it happens. For example, if you fear sweating too much, you sweat too much.

Forced desire gives the opposite result. If we want to look confident, we worry too much about it and look confused and worried.

That’s why we should do things that make us fearful when we worry about something. And if we desire something too much, we should stop doing it and focus on the process.

Lesson #17 — If You Can’t Sleep, Try Not to Fall Asleep

Often, people who can’t sleep for a long time try forcefully to sleep. It gives them stress and doesn’t allow them to relax.

You will get a big desire to sleep at night if you try to do something else instead of sleeping: reading, watching, learning, working, etc.

You may think about something, make a plan or strategy, and decide what you will do in the morning. Focus on breathing and relaxation.

Lesson #18 — I Don’t Care About Perfection. I Don’t Care About Mistakes

One man worried too much that he would make some mistakes in his documents and the government would send him to jail.

He had a private law company, and every time he prepared documents, he rechecked them too many times, which gave him little time for family and relaxation.

The doctor told him that he had to change his attitude and, if something happened, accept it. He had to make as many mistakes as possible.

After that, the man starts to think he doesn’t care if he has problems; at least he does his work as perfectly as possible.

He even started to joke about the jail, but now he hadn’t so much stress and was sure he did enough for each client.

Lesson #19 — Lack Of Meaning and An Easy Life Leads to The Search for Meaning in Sex, Power, and Drugs

Men who have a lot of power and money have wives who don’t have any work. It leads to looking for hobbies and addictions.

Often, these people lose the sense of life and try to get it through addictions, pleasures, sex, alcohol, drugs, and entertainment.

Every person has meaning in life, and lack of meaning means we should work on it. As we discussed, many fears and anxieties come to us when we don’t do anything.

Finding a job or project to help us improve and support people around us is good.

Lesson #20 — We Have The Opportunity To Make Life Meaningful Not Only With Creativity And Love But Also With Suffering

People create many improvements and solutions when they encounter real problems. So, the real meaning of life isn’t only in getting pleasure, doing creative work, and love, but also in things we don’t like.

Suffering, anxiety, pain, and sadness can teach us many more things than pleasure. The only thing we should remember is that we should learn from the pain but not focus on it and then do bad things.

Pain is a teacher who teaches us how to become a better person.

Bonus Section. Two Quotes

“It is not as difficult as it seems to hate yourself; grace consists in forgetting oneself.”

“The only way to prolong LIFE is always to have an unfinished task.” I have never seen such a mountain of books as this 80-year-old man.