Mental Health and Meaning in Life:

Older People and Logotherapy

Abstract

The article aims to reflect on the proposal of logotherapy and the impact on the mental health of the elderly, considering experiences related to the pandemic and post-pandemic period. For this reflection, the care provided by a teaching clinic during the years 2021 and 2022 was considered, a period that includes the beginning of the closure of the Public Health Emergency of National Importance (ESPIN) related to COVID-19. Thus, data were collected from the screening interviews and from the medical records of the assisted patients related to the search for psychological care. It is intended to discuss ways of care and meaning for the elderly, since, according to Viktor E. Frankl, life enables the understanding of meaning, even in the face of suffering. Pain, guilt and death, recurrent themes in the pandemic, can also be used as possibilities for reframing life. Therefore, the elderly, even having to deal with the limits of their own age and the suffering left by the pandemic, can guide and reframe their lives. Past, present and future tense take on new meanings for the elderly person when they have a meaning.