The Ecological Resonance of Man’s Search for Meaning
Or, using logotherapy to cope with eco-distress.
In 2023, The Guardian released an article about the toll that the nature crisis is taking on the mental health of young people. In it, they spoke to Amy Goodenough, the mother of a 14-year-old girl whose mental health has been impacted by the pandemic, climate change, and the increase in war over the last few years, and who has lost sleep “worrying about the Willow project, the oil and gas drilling scheme in Alaska recently approved by Joe Biden” (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler).
What struck me about this article was the nihilism that Goodenough perceived in her daughter. Goodenough described her as “apathetic about studying because she [didn’t] see the point when the world [was] going to end anyway” and noted that she was constantly “worrying about things she [couldn’t] control. [She was] really scared of the world she’s going to be released into” (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler). What was frightening for Goodenough was that she had no way to comfort her daughter. As she pointed out, “[It was] hard, because her fears [were] founded in reality. [It was] not like the monsters-under-the-bed fears of small children. These [were] real concerns that [she couldn’t] just magic away” (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler).
The growing research around eco-distress, as well as the climate anxiety I have felt, left me with several questions. How do we alleviate collapse anxiety, when its antidote relies on fundamental systemic transformation to mitigate the forces that cause the anxiety in the first place? How do we keep living, knowing that it is more likely than not that life is going to become significantly worse in the next decades? How do we help ourselves and our children overcome apathy in the face of increasingly possible annihilation, so that we might find ways of living both through and in the wake of disaster? These questions occupied my mind when I picked up Victor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
Man’s Search for Meaning is a profound, personal account of resilience and hope in the face of some of the most brutal circumstances humans have ever faced: the holocaust. It details Frankl’s experiences in the camps and the cruelty, privation and hopelessness he and other inmates had to battle to survive. However, beyond Frankl’s recollections, the book also contains his informed theories about the state of mind required to navigate and overcome unavoidable suffering.
As I read, I felt a growing conviction that Frankl’s school of psychology, logotherapy, and his meditations on finding hope and meaning even in the most hopeless scenarios, are relevant in our ongoing nature crisis. We are living at a point in history when a liveable future is uncertain, instances of collapse and catastrophe increase daily, and many around the world are already suffering as a result of ecosystem breakdown and extreme weather – all of which makes hope about the future seem not just impossible, but illogical.
And yet, if we want to stand a chance of solving and surviving this crisis, we have to find the impetus to keep going despite the increasing precarity. I believe that Frankl’s theories offer one avenue into the psychological survival of a situation that inspires immense nihilism and despondency – a state we must each overcome if we are to build alternative ways of living and relating to one another that help us persist in the face of ecological breakdown.
What Is Logotherapy?
Before I explain why I think logotherapy is ripe with the potential to be an antidote to eco-anxiety, I first want to dig into Frankl’s explanation of the theory.
Let’s begin with his definition. Frankl describes logotherapy as follows:
Logotherapy … focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. (104)
Logotherapy takes as its core tenet that the pursuit of meaning is what drives us forward in life, allowing us to overcome avoidable suffering and endure the unavoidable. Therefore, as a therapeutic practice, “Logotherapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life” (Frankl 108).
Frankl asserts that the pursuit of meaning is the remedy to what he calls the “existential vacuum”, the “experience of … inner emptiness, a void” that many humans sense “within themselves” (111). He suggests that we can only fill the “existential vacuum” through “the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task” (110) that allows us to recognise that life is meaningful once again.
Up to this point, it might seem that “meaning” sounds too nebulous, amorphous and maybe even esoteric to be of real use to anyone. This is where it is important to recognise whence Frankl asserts human meaning and purpose derives: responsibility. Frankl suggests that meaning emerges from the fact that life holds each of us responsible for our place in the world. Furthermore, Frankl suggests that a way of discovering one’s personal purpose lies in asking not “what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us” (85).
This makes logotherapy a process of cultivating responsibility in the individual, both respons-ability to the world around us – the ability to respond to the demands that life places upon us, and responsibility – accountability to a facet of life to which we feel we can bring value. For Frankl, “logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence” (113-114).
Moreover, Frankl argues that awakening to the purposeful responsibility inherent in each of us allows us to transcend situations of abject suffering. For Frankl, “life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable” (139). Furthermore, he emphasizes that what allows the individual to survive extreme horror is the recognition that suffering offers “an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of [such] experiences, turning life into an inner triumph” (81) by focusing on one’s responsibility, and allowing it to buoy one through choppy waters. Moreover, Frankl insists that the loss of awareness of one’s responsibility and the hope it nurtures is almost invariably self-destructive, as “the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect” (84).
While it might seem easy to dismiss Frankl’s theories as nothing more than a clichéd insistence that a “positive mindset” will help one overcome any struggle, this is an oversimplifying misreading. Frankl is not calling for toxic positivity, that one should attempt to ignore the pain and pretend that everything is perfect. Instead, he is pointing out that any situation is worth attempting to survive because there is always a reason for survival. Crucially, when the individual has realised the important responsibility that they must survive to fulfil, they know the “'why' for [their] existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how’” (88).
Finally, Frankl ends his reflections with an important injunction towards the pursuit of meaning as a way to improve our world. In his words:
[T]he world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. (154)
Here, Frankl makes clear the demands that the web of life places upon us. We are under threat, not only from the nuclear power unleashed in Frankl’s moment but now from a looming crisis of unprecedented existential proportions: the complete destruction of our home and all our companion species. There has never been a more vital time for every person on our planet to tend to the meaning they find in life and their hope for the future, and allow it to drive them to make our home more hospitable.
A Salve for Eco-anxiety:
While reflecting on Frankl’s explanation of logotherapy in the context of the psychological pressure of the nature crisis, three features demand attention. The first is his assertion that hopelessness is toxic and is as great a threat to survival as the circumstances of suffering. The second is that the pursuit of meaning, the discovery of our personal responsibility to life, cultivates hope and motivates us to survive suffering so that we might fulfil our responsibility to one another. The third is that life is meaningful, even in situations of abject suffering
As I discussed earlier, anxiety around the nature crisis is on the rise, especially among young people. Some psychologists are weary of using phrases like “climate anxiety” or “eco-distress” because they argue that such terms pathologize a rational response to an extreme situation and make it seem as though individuals are “too sensitive or having irrational thoughts” (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler). However, this doesn’t reduce the fact that many of us – according to some measures, 73% (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler) – are suffering immense mental anguish in response to the progressive decimation of our home.
This anxiety is entirely warranted when we consider that, while it is by no means too late to solve the nature crisis, we are running out of time. Globally, humans are experiencing increases in extreme weather that are devastating vulnerable, impoverished communities AND those living in relative security and comfort (Makhaye). We know that we are approaching climate tipping points, which will likely turn unusual, avoidable disasters into commonplace experiences (Slawson). We are watching species evaporate before our eyes, and know there are millions of others disappearing forever before we have a chance to know them (Weston). In response to this suffering, we are confronted with absolute apathy from the corporations and corrupt governments that have caused our current crisis and are selling us down the river for a few more dollars before it all falls apart (Klein 12). It’s enough to encourage nihilism in even the most hopeful of treehuggers.
Yet, according to Frankl, if we give into the pervasive pressure to lose hope, our end is nigh. Nihilism destroys our capacity to become responsi/able to the demands the nature crisis places upon us. If we decide that there is nothing to hope for, we give ourselves license to extract, exploit and consume until there is nothing left – because what is the point of doing otherwise?
In the face of what can seem like a wall of cynicism that insists humans are parasites on the earth and that we may even deserve to go extinct, nurturing a hope that we may be able to survive, thrive, and transform our world is crucial to making the changes necessary to keep heating below 1.5C and our environment somewhat stable. We have the chance to take this moment of extreme pressure as an “ample opportunity … to add a deeper meaning to … life” (Frankl 76), and in so doing, grow a hope that all is not lost and that we stand a chance of not just surviving, but improving our world.
But to grow this hope, we must also nurture purpose. And at a point when the entire web of life is at stake, what greater purpose is there than to each find a way to transform our relationship with each other, human and nonhuman, to the benefit of all?
The actual shape this purpose takes will be unique to the individual. Perhaps you might find meaning in starting a community vegetable garden. Perhaps your purpose is learning to make your own clothes, or helping your local animal farmers transition to plant farming, or starting a support group for others struggling with eco-anxiety. Maybe it’s engaging in direct action – whether this means picketing your local court to protect an endangered toad species (as I had the pleasure of doing last year) or paddling out to confront massive seismic testing ships preparing to send deafening blasts through the ocean floor. And there is already a psychological precedent that these sorts of actions make the fear more bearable. Psychologists have noted that, in response to eco-anxiety, “one of the things people find helpful is participation, activism and connection with other people” (Skopeliti and Gecsoyler).
The next few decades contain unprecedented challenges and suffering as a result of the damage already done around us. Regardless of whether we manage to stay behind the 1.5C boundary, at this point in time, we have already experienced rapid biodiversity loss, our air is already choked with pollution, and our world is hotter than it has been in a long time (Klein 28). The consequences are no longer avoidable. But, we can survive by remembering that we are purpose-oriented creatures who each have unique contributions to make to our warmer, less stable world. Our sense of purpose cannot disappear when life on our planet inevitably gets harder. According to logotherapy, survival itself depends on our capacity to pursue meaning, no matter how difficult our circumstances become.
And there is so much to survive for. While the nature crisis represents the greatest existential threat humanity has, possibly, ever faced (Klein 15), it is also an enormous opportunity. As Naomi Klein emphasized 10 years ago in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, the nature crisis is a “civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us that we need to evolve” (25). As much as it is a disaster, it is also
The best argument [we] have ever had to demand the rebuilding and reviving of local economies; to reclaim our democracies from corrosive corporate influence; to block harmful new free trade deals and rewrite old ones; to invest in starving public infrastructure like mass transit and affordable housing; to take back ownership of essential services like energy and water; to remake our sick agricultural system into something much healthier; to open borders to migrants whose displacement is linked to climate impacts; to finally respect Indigenous land rights-all of which would help to end grotesque levels of inequality within our nations and between them. (Klein 7)
Should we choose to evolve, the nature crisis represents the chance to change the way we relate to each other and the planet in a way that not only mitigates its worst effects but leaves us with systems founded on care, equity and sharing. It invites us to address the inequality and oppression that define our present moment, which would “get to the root of why we are facing serial crises in the first place, and would leave us with both a more habitable climate than the one we are headed for and a far more just economy than the one we have right now” (Klein 10).
Moreover, Klein asserts that the aftermath of disaster is the perfect space in which to establish new modes of being. Disasters “activate the latent and broadly shared generosity” (Klein 406) that pervades society, and the rubble left by disasters becomes a blank canvas on which to create something entirely new and better than what came before. What might seem utterly hopeless becomes a space teeming with purpose and meaning for its inhabitants.
Finally, after contemplating her eco-anxiety, Klein suggests that “the real trick, the only hope, really, is to allow the terror of an unlivable future to be balanced and soothed by the prospect of building something much better than many of us had previously dared hope” (28). In this, she aligns with Frankl’s argument that it is the time for “each of us” to use our inherent purpose-orientation to overcome our justifiable terror and “[do our] best” (Frankl 154) by ourselves and our web of life. Ultimately, if we want to overcome eco-anxiety and start to build something that maintains the liveability of our planet, we each need to cultivate a sense of purpose in response to our moment of increasing suffering, and in doing so, nurture an activating hope that we not only might we survive, but build something worth surviving for.
I was inspired to read Man’s Search for Meaning after the inimitable Leena Norms named it her best read of 2023. She also devoted a minisode of her podcast No Books on a Dead Planet to considering a different aspect of the climate relevance of Frankl’s work. She reflects on whether environmental action is worth it if we cannot win back everything that has and will be lost, greeting grief with grace, and bringing glitter along to the apocalypse. I highly recommend giving it a listen, because it helped shape my thoughts for this piece and left me feeling uplifted and energized (As Leena always does).
“Mulching” is a project of layering and digesting the theoretical mulch that environmental thinkers have produced around the nature crisis, the ecological impact of our ideas, and how we might change our thinking to benefit our environment. It is a space for reflection on the web of life and connection with others figuring out how we might learn to live better with our companion species.
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Works Cited:
Frankl, Victor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Rider & Co, 2008.
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate. Allen Lane, 2014.
Makhaye, Chris. “KZN flood disaster: ‘Water was quickly rising and I saw that my house would fall’.” The Daily Maverick, 24 May 2022, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-05-24-mop-up-begins-after-devastating-floods-strike-kzn-twice-in-just-over-a-month/. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Skopeliti, Clea and Sammy Gecsoyler. “‘Terrified for my future’: climate crisis takes heavy toll on young people’s mental health.” The Guardian, 30 Mar. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/30/terrified-for-my-future-climate-crisis-takes-heavy-toll-on-young-peoples-mental-health. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Niranjan, Ajit. “Earth on the verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points.” The Guardian, 6 Dec. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/06/earth-on-verge-of-five-catastrophic-tipping-points-scientists-warn. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Weston, Phoebe. “Number of species at risk of extinction doubles to 2 million, says study.” The Guardian, 8 Nov. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/species-at-risk-extinction-doubles-to-2-million-aoe. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024.
Fantastic article. So well thought out and a fascinating distillation of Frankl and Klein. Thank you. Love it.