Elisabeth Lukas

Univ.-Prof.h.c. Dr. phil.habil. Elisabeth Lukas was born in Vienna in 1942 and studied psychology. There she encountered Viktor E. Frankl, the founding father of logotherapy and existential analysis, and was immediately fascinated by him. So she began by completing her doctorate in logotherapy, supervised by Giselher Guttman. As a doctoral student she developed the “logo-test”, a psychological test that was translated into 14 languages and made use of in much research work.

With her husband and son she moved to Germany and began work in 1973 as a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. On the 1st of February 1986 in Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich she and her husband founded the South German Institute for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis.

She developed a four semester educational curriculum by means of which students could be systematically instructed in the thought systems of logotherapy. Today her groundbreaking work forms the basis for the training at many institutes worldwide.

What is completely new is that she has set out this opus magnum in writing for the first time and — because of the expansion of the material — extended it to five semesters. People studying logotherapy can obtain a copy from the Archive (see the link “Logotherapy Curriculum”).

Dr. Elisabeth Lukas directed the Institute for 17 years and wrote many books. She is active as a consultant, a supervisor for the Association of German Professional Psychologists, and a teacher of therapy, and obtained her “Habilitation” in 2000.

A busy schedule of invited lectures has taken her to more than 50 universities worldwide. She has given many guest lectures at the Universities of Munich, Innsbruck and Vienna.

In 1991 she was awarded the medal of honour for “Outstanding contributions in counseling psychology to the world community” by Santa Clara University in California. In 2002 she received the Grand Prize of the Viktor Frankl Fund from the City of Vienna for the promotion of meaning-oriented and humanistic psychotherapy. On 18 May 2014 she was awarded an honorary professorship by Moscow University.

In 2003 she returned with her husband to her old homeland of Austria, where until 2011 she was active as a teacher of therapy at the Training Institute for Logotherapy (ABILE).

Now she enjoys her well-earned retirement with hiking in the mountains and playing the piano.