'Anti-norm': Mental health expert's perspective on uncertainty

Viktor Frankl often quoted Nietzsche, who said: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Frankl was an Auschwitz survivor, author of the book Man’s Search for Meaning, and developer of Logotherapy. Logotherapy is a form of existential therapy based on the premise that the primary motivational force of individuals is to find meaning in life.

For Frankl, surviving the trauma of captivity, dehumanizing treatment, and threat to life became his meaning and purpose. For me as a mental health practitioner, Frankl has been my guru. Everything I do, personally and professionally, has made sense. Since October 7, 2023, I find myself constantly adapting to an anti-norm. Nothing makes sense. Our experience has turned things on their heads. And so with the quote. I have now modified the Nietzsche quote to read “He who can be in the how can bear the why.”

The organic, biological unit that we humans are has a limit as to how much we can take in or absorb before our system screams out, “No!” We have an innate capacity to adapt and, therefore, protect ourselves from harm. That capacity, however, is influenced by our sense of how much control we have in the situation or event in which we find ourselves.

Although Nietzsche’s “why” is not my “why,” engaging with it is still more difficult than doing so with the “how.”

“Why” is abstract thinking. We don’t have the luxury to spend on thinking about the “why” when we are emotionally overwhelmed, feel threatened, and unable to take it all in. However, the “how” is more productive. “How” is cognitive thinking. Control, how much or little of it we have, is the key factor that determines the success or failure of our thinking.

Mental health [illustrative] (credit: PIXABAY)

Two crucial principles of Frankl’s are the following:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space wherein lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, one’s own way.

I grew up with an attitude of facing challenges head-on and surviving, no matter what. I was secure in my focus and acted accordingly.

So, what is the difference now? Why am I experiencing this wave of fright?

During a recent pause, I found my answer: I feel disconnected from what made sense to me. I find myself immersed in the flow of Heraclitus’s river; gripping onto a log or a vine, or clinging to a rock from time to time, pausing to catch my breath.

Often, when we face a tragedy, we begin to question any belief system we have. Trying to adapt to this anti-norm, where nothing makes sense, has not shaken my spiritual identity. I realized that it is my physical identity that has been shaken.

As an integrator, I know that the first stroke toward shore would be to find my spiritual identity in the physical world. By being aware that I am the swimmer in this river; I can work with its current and navigate my path within its flow. I can find my way toward shore, climb up onto the bank, and ground myself as an observer of everything around me. As an observer, I am free to make choices anew.

After years abroad, I returned to Israel in 2009. I now choose to remain connected with the place where my parents chose to be married, a place where they chose to start a family, and to which my family chose to return after wandering for 47 years. This choice grounds me and connects me to a history and a community.

As much as we strive to be individuals, unique with our fingerprints, we are social beings and depend on others and a community. I choose to stay connected.

I find myself in a Frankl moment. I choose to experience fear as the communicator fear is, bringing my attention to what is happening so that I can strategize appropriately.

Now, to pause and catch my breath.■

The writer is a creative arts psychotherapist who lives and works in Ra’anana.