Frankl-Informed Coaching: Explore Meaning in Practice
Nour
Founder, Coachful
Frankl-informed coaching explores what matters in a particular situation and what response the client wants to make. It can be useful when a familiar role no longer supplies a convincing answer to “What is worth doing now?” The work does not require a polished life mission, a new venture or a positive explanation for everything that has happened.
Viktor Frankl developed logotherapy and existential analysis in a therapeutic and philosophical context. Drawing thoughtfully on his ideas in coaching requires both conceptual accuracy and a clear professional boundary. This guide develops the distinctions, then follows a complete fictional exploration through actual choices, an overrun, a missed commitment and a limited closing decision.
Understand what “meaning-making” means in this tradition
The phrase “meaning-making” is common in coaching, but it needs qualification when referring to Frankl. Alexander Batthyány’s account for the Viktor Frankl Institute Vienna describes meaning as something to be discovered in the world and realized in a specific situation. It is not simply whatever story a person invents to feel better. The account also distinguishes freedom within available possibilities from freedom without conditions.
This is a philosophical position associated with logotherapy, not an established fact that every coaching client must accept. A client can disagree with it. Introduce it as an optional perspective, then ask whether it helps them consider their situation more carefully.
The Institute’s account places the will to meaning at the center of Frankl’s approach and emphasizes that the practitioner does not supply the client with a specific meaning. That matters in practice: “You should mentor young people” is a prescription, even when the coach believes mentoring is admirable. The client’s circumstances, commitments and judgment still need room.
Keep this question distinct from a search for unlimited personal control. For that related topic, see Frankl, freedom and responsibility in coaching. Here the focus is identifying and examining a worthwhile response, including the possibility of declining a new commitment.
For a separate existential account of mortality, freedom, isolation and meaning, see Yalom’s four givens in leadership coaching. Keep the authors’ distinct accounts visible rather than presenting one combined theory.
Explore three avenues without turning them into targets
The Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy describes three avenues: creative, experiential and attitudinal. In plain language, these concern contributing or doing, receiving through experience or encounter, and taking a stance toward circumstances, particularly unavoidable suffering. They are not three boxes every client must fill each week.
Contribution: what you give or carry out
A contribution can be a work product, care, a helpful action or a commitment fulfilled. It does not have to be public, paid or impressive. The useful coaching distinction is between the action’s significance and the recognition it receives.
For example, explaining a difficult handover to one colleague may matter even if no one praises it. Conversely, a visible committee position may fit someone else’s ambitions rather than the client’s current responsibilities. Ask what the action serves, who is affected and what doing it actually requires. Do not assume that a person experiencing uncertainty needs more work.
Experience: what you encounter or receive
This avenue makes room for relationship, nature, art, learning or another valued encounter without demanding a productive output. A walk with a friend need not become a networking event, a fitness target or material for a personal brand.
Coaching can make the conditions concrete: whom does the client want to be present with, what would presence involve, and what arrangement would make that possible? The other person’s preferences remain real. A client cannot declare a shared experience meaningful for both people without listening to the other person.
Attitude: a response within an actual limit
Attitudinal meaning becomes particularly relevant where something cannot be reversed or changed. A past event cannot be undone, but the current consequences may include things that can be challenged, repaired or supported. Separating those conditions matters more than praising acceptance in general.
A closed project might remain closed while the client still negotiates their outstanding pay, obtains professional advice or chooses a future role. They do not have to endorse the closure. Their response could include accurately acknowledging work that mattered without pretending the ending was welcome. None of this establishes that they should endure avoidable harm.
Keep suffering, optimism and professional care in perspective
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl explicitly distinguishes finding meaning despite unavoidable suffering from treating suffering as necessary. Where its cause can be removed, he argues for removing it. His later account of tragic optimism concerns the possibility of meaning in the presence of pain, guilt and death; it also says optimism cannot be ordered.
Those ideas do not authorize a coach to demand gratitude for mistreatment, interpret a workplace loss as equivalent to Frankl’s Holocaust experience, or rank a client’s response against his. A client can reject a redemptive explanation and still make a responsible next choice.
Do not interpret dissatisfaction as a diagnosis of meaninglessness, or promise that purpose resolves depression. The NHS depression overview distinguishes persistent depression from a few unhappy days and advises seeking help from a GP if a person thinks they may be depressed. Meaning-oriented coaching should not replace appropriate healthcare or advise changes to treatment.
Frankl’s Ten Theses about the Person, available in the Institute Vienna’s English translation revised in August 2026, is also a reminder that his work rests on substantial philosophical commitments. It distinguishes logotherapy from taking a position within a revealed religion. That does not make all of its assumptions neutral or universally shared. A coach can discuss belief, nonbelief or uncertainty without deciding which worldview the client should adopt.
The ICF Code of Ethics requires clarity about roles, information exchange and competence. A reflective exercise does not qualify its author to provide logotherapy. This guide does not teach therapeutic techniques such as paradoxical intention or dereflection.
Worked case: contribution after a program closes
Start with the client’s actual question
This entire case is fictional. Tomas directed a local learning program whose funding ended and whose final activity took place on 30 October 2026. He has agreed paid handover work until 27 November. He engages coach Ada for three 50-minute sessions on 4 November, 18 November and 2 December. Their service contains those sessions and preparation he chooses to share, with no additional coaching between them and no sponsor report.
Tomas says, “People keep telling me this is a chance to find my real purpose. I cared about the program. I don’t want to call its ending a gift.” Ada accepts that statement without asking him to find a benefit in the closure.
He wants to decide how to spend a small amount of optional time while completing the handover. His existing household and caring arrangements are outside that optional budget and remain commitments, not spare capacity. He is not asking Ada to diagnose his sadness or decide his longer-term financial plan.
They agree a concrete inquiry: explore two bounded ways of using optional time, then review what happened before taking on anything larger. Tomas chooses a maximum of six hours for these optional activities across November, including preparation, follow-up and local travel. This is a real ceiling in the example, not a recommendation for other clients.
Examine contribution and experience without choosing for him
Ada invites Tomas to describe recent moments he considered worthwhile. He names helping former colleague Soren organize a presentation and walking with his friend Elin. He also describes feeling appreciated when someone suggested he chair a new voluntary committee, but admits he knows almost nothing about the work.
They distinguish those possibilities:
| Possibility | What Tomas values | What still needs checking |
|---|---|---|
| Two peer mentoring conversations | Helping another person clarify their own presentation or plan. | Recipient interest, limited purpose, dates and total work. |
| Two walks with Elin | Being with a friend without turning the time into another project. | Elin’s preference and a mutually usable arrangement. |
| Committee chair invitation | Recognition and a possible contribution. | Responsibilities, hours, authority and whether he wants the actual role. |
Ada does not label the first two authentic and the committee false. Tomas decides that he has enough information to ask about the conversations and walks, but not enough to accept the committee. He requests its role description by email on 5 November and explicitly says he has not accepted.
Obtain real agreement before counting an activity as arranged
On 6 November Soren accepts one 40-minute peer mentoring conversation on 11 November. The purpose is to organize his presentation’s main points, with Soren retaining ownership of the work. Tomas states that there is no continuing review or email advice included. Nadi, another former colleague, accepts the same bounded arrangement on 13 November for a conversation on 25 November about organizing a project introduction.
Tomas plans 15 minutes of preparation and five minutes for his own closing note per conversation. Each therefore occupies 60 minutes of his budget, not just the 40 minutes the other person attends.
Elin prefers two local walks and no work agenda. They agree on 8 and 22 November, with 90 minutes per outing including the local journeys to meet and return. Together the planned activities use 120 minutes for mentoring and 180 minutes for outings: 300 minutes, or five hours. The six-hour ceiling leaves 60 minutes unallocated. Neither person’s agreement establishes that the activities have already happened.
Record the first overrun rather than renaming it commitment
The 8 November outing takes its planned 90 minutes. Tomas says he enjoyed talking about ordinary matters without being introduced as the program director. That is his report of the experience, not evidence that the role loss has been resolved.
The 11 November mentoring conversation runs to 55 minutes. Tomas answers extra questions because ending feels unhelpful. With 15 minutes of preparation and five minutes for his note, it uses 75 minutes. The extra 15 minutes consume part of the reserve; they cannot be erased because the conversation felt worthwhile.
On 12 November Tomas emails Soren: “I let our agreed 40-minute conversation run to 55 minutes. I’m glad we clarified the presentation, but I cannot offer continuing review. The draft remains yours to develop. I won’t be reviewing another version by email.” Soren acknowledges this on 13 November and does not ask for another review. The boundary is repaired for that relationship, while the original overrun stays in Tomas’s record.
At the 18 November coaching session, Tomas initially calls this “proof that mentoring is my next purpose.” Ada asks what the evidence actually contains. He revises the statement: one conversation felt worthwhile, and he had difficulty ending it. That is enough to consider the second conversation, not enough to promise an ongoing service.
Make a response to the ending without approving the ending
Tomas cannot undo the program’s closure. He can still finish his agreed handover and decide how to describe the work. He chooses a short note to accompany it:
The program has ended. I remain disappointed about that decision. The handover records the sessions delivered, the materials that can be reused under their existing permissions and the outstanding questions for the organization. I value the work people contributed, and I want the record to be accurate without claiming that every intended result was achieved.
This is his chosen stance and a practical document, not a gratitude exercise. He checks factual entries with the existing handover owner and sends the final agreed record on 27 November. The owner acknowledges receipt that day. The coaching case does not claim that receipt resolves every organizational question or changes the funding decision.
Retain the missed experience and the limited closing decision
On 21 November Tomas cancels the next day’s walk to attend an optional work-related event. Elin says she is disappointed because they had agreed the time. He acknowledges that he changed the arrangement, rather than describing the cancellation as unavoidable. He attends the event on 22 November; it takes 120 minutes including local travel, which he includes in the same optional-time budget. They do not agree a replacement walk during this case.
On 25 November the second mentoring conversation ends at its agreed 40 minutes. Preparation and his closing note take 20 minutes together, so this activity uses 60 minutes. Nadi says the conversation helped her choose an order for the introduction; there is no claim about its eventual reception or project result.
At the 2 December review, their completed activity record reads:
| Activity | Planned minutes | Actual minutes | What the record supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| First mentoring round | 60 | 75 | Valued conversation; ending overran and required a boundary repair. |
| Second mentoring round | 60 | 60 | Bounded conversation completed; later work result unknown. |
| First outing | 90 | 90 | Shared time happened; Tomas valued it. |
| Second outing | 90 | 0 | Cancelled by Tomas; disappointment acknowledged, no replacement agreed. |
| Unplanned work-related event | 0 | 120 | Attended, including travel; displaced the agreed second outing. |
| November arrangements, inquiry, repair and cancellation messages | 0 | 20 | Actual communication omitted from the initial plan, separate from private closing notes. |
| Total | 300 | 365 | 6 hours 5 minutes used, exceeding 6 hours by 5 minutes; one valued commitment missed. |
Their review also includes 20 minutes of November communication: five for the committee inquiry, six for arranging the mentoring and outings, five for the repair email and four for the cancellation exchange. These minutes were omitted from the original plan; the five-minute closing notes were private notes, not that correspondence. The complete total is 365 minutes, or six hours five minutes: five above the ceiling and 65 above the original five-hour plan. The variance is 15 minutes of overrun plus the 120-minute event replacing a 90-minute outing, plus 20 minutes of communication. Tomas records the breach as well as the broken promise. No time saving is claimed.
The committee’s eventual role description requires regular availability Tomas does not want to promise. On 2 December he declines the chair role by email, without claiming the organization should change it. He chooses to consider at most one similarly bounded peer conversation in December, subject to the other person’s interest and a budget that includes the arrangement and follow-up messages. No December conversation or new arrangement with Elin is reported as completed.
His closing statement is modest: “I want contribution with a real end, and relationships that don’t always lose to work. I still miss the program.” The three-session engagement ends. That statement preserves an unfinished loss and a practical direction without manufacturing a final purpose.
Use a reflection worksheet that permits a mixed answer
Offer the following original prompts as optional coaching material. They are not Frankl’s published questionnaire, a diagnostic scale or a measure of psychological recovery. The client can write privately and share only what they choose.
- Describe the specific situation. What has changed, and what remains a present responsibility?
- Name what matters without making a slogan. Identify one action, relationship or experience, and why it matters to you here.
- Separate past fact from current possibility. What cannot be undone? What can still be challenged, supported, negotiated or changed?
- Identify the people affected. What do you know about their preferences, and what needs a real conversation?
- Bound the next inquiry. State the activity, whole time cost, permissions, stopping point and what remains undecided.
- Choose evidence for review. What happened, how did you experience it, what did others actually say, and what remains unknown?
- Decide whether to continue, revise, defer or stop. Include the cost of the choice and any commitment that needs repair.
Tomas’s filled summary would say: two mentoring conversations were worthwhile to him, the first overran, the second met the boundary, one outing happened and one was cancelled by him. Counting the actual communication also showed a five-minute breach of his six-hour ceiling. He chooses a limited possible repeat, declines a role and leaves a relationship repair unfinished. That is a more usable record than “found purpose through service.”
Do not turn every experience into a score. A person can value a conversation that was tiring, or enjoy an activity they do not want to repeat. Ask for distinctions in their account rather than treating one positive adjective as a commitment.
Contrasting case: meaning does not replace changing a condition
In another fictional case, department leader Beth values honesty and is asked to present a performance claim she believes is inaccurate. A coach asks whether an accepting attitude would help. Beth says the issue is the claim’s accuracy, not her willingness to tolerate discomfort. The coach acknowledges that the proposed focus was misplaced.
Beth identifies the specific figure, the source she checked and the discrepancy. She requests clarification from the report owner through the organization’s existing route. The owner confirms that a draft calculation was mistakenly carried into the final slide and supplies a corrected version. Beth checks that version against the approved source before presenting it.
The completed output is a corrected slide and a clarified review route. It is not a claim that a positive mindset transformed wrongdoing or that the coach provided legal assurance. If the issue had remained disputed, Beth would still have needed the appropriate organizational or professional advice.
Her values help explain why correction matters. They do not remove the need to establish facts. The important distinction from Tomas’s closed program is that this particular error could be changed.
Support reflection and chosen action in Coachful
Coachful is our #1 recommendation for keeping optional reflection, preparation and agreed practical actions organized around this work. Use it to support the service you have actually agreed, with the client’s chosen information boundaries. Explore Coachful’s coaching features for the relevant delivery and follow-up options.
- Create an original reflection worksheet. Use selected prompts above, with clear permission to omit material. Do not title it a validated meaning assessment or require a statement of ultimate purpose.
- Send the correct resource. The client’s Worksheets & resources section provides the resource and response route. Check that the intended person can access that resource; a private link alone does not establish a grant.
- Distinguish private writing from shared preparation. A client-private journal is not a worksheet submission for the coach to read. Explain the actual audience and agreed use before asking for sensitive personal material.
- Prepare for the next session. Invite a short, chosen summary such as the filled activity record. A worksheet task tick is not a submitted response or proof that an external activity occurred.
- Review sharing settings. Check the actual session recap and automatic delivery settings before discussing personal themes. Do not promise private handling while leaving a separate configured route unexamined.
The My Coaching demo illustrates preparation and next actions. It cannot demonstrate whether a person has found meaning or whether the fictional activities occurred.
The form builder can hold original, optional reflection prompts. If a client wants only a practical task recorded, accept that narrower record instead of making intimate disclosure an admission condition.
Troubleshoot common difficulties
The client wants the coach to name their purpose. Return to the particular situation and a choice they can examine. Offer questions and observations without turning the coach’s preferred way of living into the answer.
Everything valued becomes another duty. Check the full cost and the client’s permission to stop. Tomas’s 15-minute overrun matters precisely because worthwhile contribution can still exceed an agreed boundary.
Two meanings compete. Discuss the actual tradeoff, including the people affected. A purpose statement cannot make Tomas attend an event and keep the same walk. Acknowledge the choice and its consequence.
The client does not want to discuss meaning. Work on the practical question they do want to address, or reconsider whether the service fits. Refusing this lens is not evidence of avoidance or lack of maturity.
Distress exceeds the coaching role. Discuss appropriate support and changes to the engagement. Do not require the client to finish a meaning exercise before accessing care, or use their professional competence as proof that they do not need it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Frankl-informed coaching the same as logotherapy?
No. Logotherapy is a therapeutic approach with its own professional context. A coach can accurately attribute philosophical ideas and use suitable original reflection questions within their competence. That does not authorize clinical treatment or make an ordinary coaching worksheet a logotherapeutic intervention.
Does Frankl say we invent our own meaning?
His tradition emphasizes discovering and realizing meaning in a particular situation. “Meaning-making” therefore needs care as a label. Clients can discuss that position without accepting it as their own worldview, and a coach should not sell a more convenient story as Frankl’s exact claim.
Must suffering become a lesson?
No client should be required to produce that account in coaching. Frankl distinguishes unavoidable suffering from avoidable causes that should be changed. The client can seek care, protection or correction while declining to identify a benefit in what happened.
Can meaning come from an ordinary relationship?
The experiential avenue makes room for encounter and relationship without demanding an achievement. A shared activity still needs mutual agreement. Its value does not excuse repeatedly cancelling it or making another person responsible for repairing the client’s sense of purpose.
What counts as a useful result?
A clearer, client-owned and practically examined choice can be useful: a limited activity, an acknowledged conflict, a repaired commitment or a decision to stop. Keep that distinct from improved mental health, lasting fulfillment or a final answer to the meaning of life.
