Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, is best known for his psychotherapy centered on the search for meaning in life (a highly Jovian trait, astrologically linked to Sagittarius), which he called logotherapy.
Frankl was born on March 26, 1905, at 5:46 PM in Vienna. In the early days of his practice, he was particularly influenced by Freud and Adler, even though the rest of his life would largely put him to the test regarding the “meaning” one can give to one’s existence and to life’s trials…
Moreover, his existential approach to meaning closely aligns with Jung’s symbolic and archetypal approach.
Indeed, in 1942, he was deported to a concentration camp, along with his parents and his brother, who would perish there.
This ordeal profoundly shaped his future work as a psychoanalyst, centered around one major question: What gives people the energy to survive under such conditions ?
During this period, he formulated the intuition that those who survive are, in reality, often simply those who manage to find a meaning and a reason to keep going, even in the worst trials, those who can visualize an “after”, a hypothetical future, where better things become possible…
It is this capacity to perceive the profound meaning of things, beyond all trials, that somehow galvanizes individuality and incarnation.
He moves beyond the Freudian school, which focuses on the pursuit of pleasure, and beyond the Adlerian school, which focuses on the expression of personal power, to address the fundamental question of meaning, of the “why”, which helps us transcend suffering, provided that things fit into a purpose or a goal that illuminates the whole (as Nietzsche’s quote goes, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”).
The goal of his psychotherapy was precisely to help patients discover this meaning and to explore and deepen it, whatever it might be ! (a meaning which, astrologically speaking, can be estimated to express itself through the realization of the entirety of one’s birth chart)
For some, this may be linked to work, social function, or life mission; for others, it will be more about family and emotions; for still others, it will align with a mystical vision centered on inner work in the face of life’s various inevitable sufferings…
He develops these various concepts in his major book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, a book that is at once a testament to his experience, his survival of the camps, and a work of psychology applicable to daily life.
Understanding that the human being is spiritual in essence, the worst life trial remains the loss or absence of meaning, which then digs a profound existential void, often lethal, and forming an open door to the various neuroses and depressions of the modern world.
Frankl strongly insists on the fact that this meaning of life must be found in an “active” way, through permanent research, questioning, and empirical experimentation (see what I evoke regarding ikigai); it is not necessarily something that just falls into one’s lap for everyone.
The most important thing, at its core, is to have an open attitude, that is to say, an inner posture ready to welcome novelty and change, even within suffering, even in a situation one judges a priori to be harmful and without any way out.
It is about welcoming each day’s experience as it comes and for what it has to offer, and knowing how to also be grateful for and accompany it, which can be found in the little things that allow for contemplation and wonder, knowing how to discern beauty in all things, and being capable of loving nature and one’s immediate environment.
Astrology and the birth chart help us precisely to better understand our assets, to better highlight and utilize them.
We can help ourselves by working with our cycles (secondary progressions, transits) to help break imposter syndrome or procrastination mechanisms.
Frankl also has a very Stoic approach in his teaching, which teaches us to fully and consciously will what we already have, simply to defuse the fears and frustrations that are often major hindrances to fulfillment.
Present Jupiter transits are often important drivers of our daily quest for meaning, as they help represent a focusing of this meaning in the current period, to discern where our integration into the present collective is best being built for us, what we get up for in the morning, and what we are building socially.
As Pluto also says in its lesson on antifragility, even a great trial can ultimately act as a factor of reinforcement and existential structuring !
Good and bad times are the two inseparable facets of existence that build life and that the human being must transcend; or, as Nietzsche also extensively develops in his work, one must love even suffering because it is the foundation of all elevation. There are no great men without great suffering; it is by the measure of suffering that we measure the strength of accomplishment…
Viktor Frankl’s Birth Chart
Without much surprise, we find in his chart powerful and major Jovian and Plutonian dominants…
His Anima, lunar and Venusian, is strongly marked by Jovian and Plutonian forces, with the Sagittarius Moon opposite Pluto in the 9th House, Venus conjunct Jupiter in the 8th House, and then with his Mars in Scorpio as well.
Here, the parts of suffering and mourning coexist heavily through the Plutonian Calcinatio, but so do the forces of spiritualization and elevation through the highly Jovian Sublimation, a very powerful combination revolving around these two alchemical processes that articulate in a major way within him.
His 7th House Sun remains very common among psychology professionals; Jung and Freud had this same placement. Its Aries positioning, tightly conjunct the Black moon, likely helped him greatly in initiating the active dynamics of his therapeutic process, including the need for overcompensation in the very structuring of individuality.
This Sun / Black moon conjunction is, moreover, also at the apex of a highly energetic T-Square with the two transpersonal planets Uranus and Neptune, somehow equidistant between the path of knowledge and the path of devotion.
This is perhaps where what differentiates him from Jung is played out; Jung was more clearly and directly immersed in the “numinous” (the profound experience of the sacred in all things), whereas Frankl sought to be much more concrete and pragmatic to adapt to the daily existence of everyone, finding meaning even in the baseness of everyday life.
That said, Frankl retains truly very deep transpersonal forces in his chart, and it is hardly surprising that this translated into a profound quest for meaning within him, and that he managed to harness this to help others later on, teaching them his own journey to help them discover the meaning of life unique to each individual…
Frankl died on September 2, 1997, his progressed Sun reaching conjunction to his natal Neptune, a grand mystical aspect of fusion with the universal…