Seasons of Growth

The Four Seasons is a timeless piece of music composed by Antonio Vivaldi. It evokes life-like images and allegorical illustrations. The melody, the tempo, the timbre, the dynamics and the harmony paint a vivid picture inviting the audience to join in the full drama of being: to experience the rapturous joys of birth and creation, the quiet moments of reflection and contemplation, the silence of discernment and observation, the angst of longing, the hope of planning, the excitement of action and reflection, the mystery of death and re-birth, and many more such significant instances. What is the meaning of Vivaldi's Four Seasons for our contemporary way of living? Viktor E. Frankl, MD, PhD (1905-1997) is the founder of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, a humanistic-existentialist approach to health care, counselling and psychotherapy. Logotherapy is unique among other approaches as it offers a holistic view of the human person as a three-dimensional being with a body, mind, and spirit. Its main premise is that human beings are primarily motivated by the will to meaning. Existential Analysis offers an explication of human experience in relation to meaning. The authors employed a qualitative method to disseminate the many layers of meaning apparent in Vivaldi's engaging work. The Sonnets upon which Vivaldi wrote his music were examined in the light of the author's understanding of Frankl's Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. The findings of this inductive and deductive process are summarized in successive chapters. They present the emerging key concepts of Frankl's theory. They describe the "seasons of growth" as an evolving appreciation of the significance of finding meaning in life in all circumstances, even the most miserable. They illustrate the dynamics in the music which appear to dovetail the dynamics of meaning-seeking, finding meaning, and the actualization of meaning in the four seasons. Conscious and unconscious resources of the human spirit for finding meaning, and fostering the dynamics of meaning seeking through self-discovery, and increased capacity for self-awareness, self-distancing and self-transcendence are discussed. The paramount importance of finding meaning for optimal well-being is highlighted. The benefit of employing art therapy in addition to traditional talk therapy is that is aids the visual representation of conscious and unconscious phenomena. Meaning-oriented art therapy allows to tap into the conscious and unconscious resources of the human spirit, which offers an indispensable dimension for healing. Forty exercises were selected from review of literature and the authors' clinical experience. They were grouped based on face value into four categories for facilitating self-discovery, self-distancing and self-transcendence through the "four seasons," corresponding to the main theme of each season. Meaning-oriented artistic expressions are a natural way of utilizing the resources we possess for increasing well-being. They are instrumental in visualizing the dynamics and processes involved in our search for meaning.