Meaning-centred coaching (logotherapy)
Meaning-centred coaching applies ideas from logotherapy, the approach Viktor Frankl developed, to questions of purpose, values and how to live with what cannot change. It asks where you find meaning and how you can act on it, even when circumstances stay the same. Randomised trials of logotherapy group work report effects on hope and on anxiety about death in particular groups, but no trial of the one-to-one coaching form turned up, so its effects are untested in the sources checked.
What it is
A meaning-centred conversation looks at what matters to you, what you are responsible for, and what you can still do when circumstances are out of your control. Frankl's central claim in Man's Search for Meaning is that people can find meaning through work, through love, and through the attitude they take toward suffering that cannot be avoided (Frankl, 2014).
The coaching form is a conversation rather than a clinical treatment. It does not diagnose, and it treats the search for meaning as a reasonable thing to explore. Some logotherapy techniques, such as paradoxical intention, are clinical tools that a trained therapist is better placed to use than a person trying them alone.
Where it comes from
Viktor Frankl developed logotherapy in Vienna after his experience in concentration camps. His book Man's Search for Meaning is the best-known account of the ideas (Frankl, 2014).
Logotherapy has been used in group and counselling work. The trials found are of group logotherapy in prisons, cancer care and palliative care (Ghelbash et al., 2020; Heidary et al., 2022; Eskigülek & Kav, 2024). The one-to-one coaching form is a further step beyond those trials.
The principles underneath
Three routes to meaning
Frankl's account names three routes: doing or creating something, experiencing something or someone, and the attitude taken toward suffering that cannot be changed.
Stance still matters when change is not possible
When circumstances cannot be changed, the attitude you take toward them is still yours to shape.
Meaning is found, not invented
The coach asks what already matters to you, rather than offering a purpose.
Life asks something of you
The question moves from what you want from life to what life is asking of you in this situation.
How a session runs
- Describe the situation in which your life feels as if it has lost direction or weight.
- Name what has mattered to you in the past, in work, in relationships and in how you have faced hard things.
- Separate what is outside your control in this situation from what is still in your hands.
- Choose one concrete action that expresses what matters, and say how you will know you have taken it.
- Review the action at the next session, including what it meant to you as well as what it achieved.
When it tends to fit
- A loss, illness or setback has left you asking what the point of the next step is.
- Your work is busy and going well, but it has stopped feeling meaningful.
- A situation cannot change, and you are looking for a way to stand in it that still feels like your own.
What the research shows
Evidence: Some peer-reviewed studies
Randomised trials of logotherapy group work report effects in specific groups. A trial with imprisoned women reported a significant increase in hope after ten sessions of group logotherapy (Ghelbash et al., 2020). A randomised trial with patients with advanced cancer reported a significant decrease in anxiety about death and existential loneliness from before to after group logotherapy, and no significant decrease in the waitlist control (Heidary et al., 2022). A randomised trial of a logotherapy counselling programme in palliative-care patients names meaning in life among its outcomes (Eskigülek & Kav, 2024); Only its title was read, so its direction of effect is not stated here. A related approach, meaning-centred group psychotherapy for cancer survivors, found that at two years positive relations had improved more than under care as usual. Personal growth was higher than after supportive group therapy at one year, among completers only. No long-term effects were found on the other outcome measures (Holtmaat et al., 2020).
Where the evidence is thin: These trials test group logotherapy and group meaning-centred work, not one-to-one coaching. The adjacent meaning-centred trial found no long-term effects on most of its outcome measures at two years. The one-to-one coaching form has not been tested in the sources checked.
Sources
- Frankl, V. E. (2014). Man's search for meaning. Beacon Press.
- Ghelbash, Z., Yektatalab, S., Momennasab, M., & Foruhi, Z. (2020). Effect of group-based logotherapy on imprisoned women’s level of hope: a randomized controlled trial (RCT). International Journal of Prisoner Health, 17(2), 87–97.
- Heidary, M., Heshmati, R., & Hayes, J. (2022). Effect of Group Logotherapy on Anxiety About Death and Existential Loneliness in Patients With Advanced Cancer. Cancer Nursing, 46(1), E21–E30.
- Eskigülek, Y., & Kav, S. (2024). Effect of logotherapy counseling program on chronic sorrow, dignity, and meaning in life of palliative care patients: a randomized controlled trial. Supportive Care in Cancer, 32(9).
- Holtmaat, K., van der Spek, N., Lissenberg-Witte, B., Breitbart, W., Cuijpers, P., & Verdonck-de Leeuw, I. (2020). Long‐term efficacy of meaning‐centered group psychotherapy for cancer survivors: 2‐Year follow‐up results of a randomized controlled trial. Psycho-Oncology, 29(4), 711–718.
Where it stops
Meaning-centred work can touch grief, serious illness and thoughts about death. If someone is at risk of harm, or has thoughts of ending their life, a crisis line or a qualified clinician is the right support, not a coaching conversation.
Frankl's ideas are about facing suffering. They should not be used to tell someone that their suffering is good for them, or to play down injustice or abuse.
Techniques such as paradoxical intention are clinical tools. They are better used by a trained therapist than tried alone.
Practices for this approach
- Logotherapy
Frankl’s will to meaning — the techniques and the evidence for finding purpose in difficulty
- Logotherapy: Dereflection
Breaking the loop of self-surveillance by redirecting attention toward meaning
- Frankl’s Three Sources of Meaning
Creating, receiving, and choosing — the three distinct pathways to a meaningful life
- Meaning-Centered Therapy, Made Practical
Finding meaning amid suffering — the practices behind Breitbart’s palliative-care method