Burns notes the catch-22 nature of depression: The worse we feel, the more distorted our thoughts become, and this thinking plunges us even lower int… - Tom Butler-Bowdon

While Freud wrote of the drive toward pleasure or sex, and Adler of a drive toward power, Frankl believed that the human will to meaning was at least as strong a force in making us into who we are.

In all these situations of conflict the ego is seeking to repudiate a part of its own id. Thus the institution which sets up the defence and the invading force which is warded off are always the same; the variable factors are the motives which impel the ego to resort to defensive measures. Ultimately all such measures are designed to secure the ego and to save it from experiencing ‘pain.

A desire for recognition emerges at the same time as a sense of inferiority.