The Meaning Project

Your Search for Meaning is the flagship course from The Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy scheduled to start in January 2024. This will be a 6-month program, working with the team of logo-philosophers from The Meaning Academy, to work through your personal journey to discover meaning in your life. In this episode, B. and I take a deep dive into the program, what it will look like, what the different c...

For the past 10-15 years, every year that I have been in private practice; I have written or recorded a "Holiday Gift Guide" on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Back when I started, I don't even think it was called "Cyber Monday" yet. In the beginning, it was a few ideas of what I thought people would find helpful in their lives, or maybe what I had been reading. Then, as Amazon began to take over t...

This was definitely not a topic I ever intended to cover. However, when a good friend calls and says he needs your opinion for a paper he is writing - well, I decided to hit the record button to see where it went. And, in my opinion, it went pretty well. In this podcast, my good friend, Retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Joseph O. Paul and I discuss the mental health industry's responsibility in gun...

The 12-Step industry says FEAR is "False Emotion Appearing Real". However, for many of us FEAR, and the related emotion ANXIETY, can feel VERY REAL. Sometimes, they can be debilitating. In this episode of the podacst, Dr. B. and I discuss the modern manifestion of fear and anxiety, and what you can do to turn them into motivating emotions. To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com or email me...

It's that time of the year again! The time when many of us clinicians get early morning calls to reschedule or cancel appointments due to "cold", "flu", or "feeling terrible", and we graciously accept so that we may keep those particular ailments out of our offices. Although, I feel like the steady flow of a variety of viral infections has helped to innoculate me over the years, that's a story for...

With everything growing so quickly at The Meaning Academy, Dr. B. & Dr. D. crossed paths and calendars this week, and somehow missed each other's schedule. So, after many weeks, I return to share a solo podcast!! I thought some recent research into Frank's "The Will to Meaning" really related to what I was seeing in my clinical office, and perhaps to what you might be going through lately. In...

We say it at the end of the Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy podcast every week, "now go live your life with Meaning, Purpose, & Resilience." But how do you do that? We've probably discussed it different ways at different times, in brief. So, in this episode, we decided to tackle all three together. And, I've got to tell you, B. came up with a beautiful metaphor for the combination! Enjoy! To con...

In 'Man's Search for Meaning', Dr. Frankl writes; “There are two races of men in this world, but only these two -- the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people.” Our world has seen much indecency; it has seen the face of evil recently. Evil that has had...

What does it mean to "be a good human"? I had the opportunity to take a good friend and business owner out to dinner recently. The hope, other than some good chicken wings, was in to pick his brain about his business success for a new project I am working on helping family businesses. The main point of our discussion - he has build a successful family business in under a decade on a very simple pr...

Life is full of transitions - and many of us struggle through them. Whether it is the struggle from one season to the next, from summer to fall to winter; or it is the struggle from youth to middle age, we all have our hiccups along the path of life. Psychologist Carl Jung writes about "the transition from the morning of life to the afternoon of life", and how, often, we are not prepared for the t...

Go to your local bookstore - if you still have one within a hundred miles - or run a quick online search on the topic, and you can find endless information on parenting. How to raise the perfect child, or even simpler, how not to 'break' your child in the first 18 years, are topics many of us have looked up in our parenting journey It seems "Coach Prime" - Deion Sanders - formerlly of NFL fame, no...

How do men grow from "Prince" to "King"? (And hopefully bypass "Toad") At one time, we lived in a culture full of male initiation rites. But that has changed in the past few decades. So how can men grow from adolescent to adult in a healthy and positive way? What does it look like to be a "King"? In this episode, my good friend, Dr. Baruch "B" HaLevi and I discuss that more, from a variety of pers...

Take three Logotherapists and put them together in a room to discuss the importance and impact of logotherapy in modern times. That's what this podcast is all about - I welcome my peers from the Meaning Academy, Dr. Baruch "B" HaLevi and Dr. Alise Cortez to discuss our combined work and our hopes for it's impact. Enjoy! To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com or email me directly at DrDan@D...

You may have noticed there was no Meaning Project Podcast or Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy podcast last week. That's my fault - well, sort of. Life got a little crazy - yes, life goes awry even for a logotherapist. I talk about all the bits and pieces of it in the podcast. Interestingly, I hear these stories fairly often. Life can seem to pile up on us and cause us to take our eye off the ball - o...

What does it mean "to be worthy of our suffering"? Dr. Viktor Frankl writes in 'Man's Search for Meaning': “Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lo...

You may have heard or read about the latest project I've been working on - The Meaning Academy. Our goal is to continue to share the ideas and applications of Dr. Frankl, logotherapy, and all the work that has gone into this field in the past 50+ years. So we have banded together as logotherapists and fans of Frankl to grow a tribe of "Meaning Seekers". One of the ways we have been doing this for...

What is meaningful about taking a vacation? Why is it important that we "vacate" our day-to-day lives on occasion to experience new things? How can we take what we learn on vacation, and incorporate it into everyday life? In this episode, B. and I discuss these ideas from a logotherapeutic and psychological perspective. To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com or email me directly at DrDan@D...

It's that time again - time for The Meaning Project to take a little break. But before I go, I wanted to share some of my favorite ideas in logotherapy, how I live them, and what you might be able to do to bring them into your life. Enjoy! To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com or email me directly at DrDan@DanielAFranz.com To find out more about what we have going on over at The Meaning A...

Dr. Sarah Musavi befriended both B. and I at different times over the past few years. She is a dynamic helper, working to guide parents in Canada through difficult modern times raises teens and young adults. If you remember, I was on her show back in the fall of '22 - and now in this episode, Rabbi B. and I get to talk about Resilience from a Logo-philosophical perspective. Enjoy! To contact Dr. D...

I've always had a reaction to the word "reductionism" since I first read it during my early studies of Dr. Frankl's work. The idea that we reduce each other to a single word, or thought, or label - it still makes me cringe. I am reminded of how each prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps was stripped of their humanity and reduced to a number - Dr. Viktor Frankl, neurologist, psychologist, husban...

There is an idea in psychology that "Radical Honesty" with one's self and those around you is an important key to health and happiness. Not just an idea, but a book and series of workshops on the idea, if you are interested. Serendipitously, Rabbi B. found this idea during a week where several of the clients I work with struggled with "honesty" in critical ways - and not just "lying", the lack of...

Michael Laidler was born and raised in Miami, Florida, by a single mother and his grandmother. With no father around, he had to learn how to lead himself before he learned how to lead others. He had to learn how to survive his surroundings, moving every year just to stay above water. At the age of 19 years old, he entered the law enforcement industry as a police officer in Tallahassee, Florida. Du...

A short episode today - with everything going on over at The Meaning Academy, graduations coming up, maybe a vacation to go hang out with Rabbi B... I thought, "why not share a little bit of meaningful summer reading for everyone?" So that's what you have here - my meaingful summer reading list. To find out more about any of these books, head on over to the blog post at: https://danielafranz.com/m...

Artificial Intelligence - AI - was once just a thing of movies and fiction. But, even then, I think we knew it was coming, and now it is here in a variety of forms. In this episode, Rabbi B. and Dr. D. from The Meaning Academy discuss the meaning potential of AI, while also trying to assess it's positive and negative consequences. To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com To find out more abo...

Once again, this week, The Meaning Project Podcast is being taken over by The Meaning Academy Podcast. In this episode, Rabbi B. and I discuss the intricacies of Your Search for Meaning, and what you can do to live a meaningful, purposeful, and resilient life. To contact Dr. Dan go to www. DanielAFranz.com To find out more about what we have going on over at The Meaning Academy, go to: https://www...