Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is one of the most impressive books I have ever read. The book is in two parts.

The first part is a memoir, relating its author’s experiences in Auschwitz and three other camps. What impressed me about the first part was Dr. Frankl’s most mature and civilized point of view of everything that happened to him and the people around him.

As it is impossible not to be moved to tears while reading any heartrending and emotional Holocaust experiences, Frankl’s account is a bit more than those, because it is poignant yet reasonable, realistic, and level-headed.

In Auschwitz, Frankl tried to help fellow prisoners and capos. A capo, who was strong and sometimes had sadistic tendencies, would be chosen by the Germans to rule over the other prisoners in a group. The torture, the fear of death, and the dread of waiting for death or torture to come at the most unexpected moments made all the prisoners anxious incessantly.

A quote from the first part: “I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”

This second part of the book is easy to understand, even though at times it harbors phrases and definitions of psychiatric terms while it introduces Logotherapy, Frankl’s form of psychiatric therapy, which is referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.” Logotherapy helps a person discover a meaning for his life, though not his entire life in one swoop but maybe in steps leading to larger discoveries to help him reach his full human potential.

This meaning can be found through creativity, self-expression, or in the arts; through interacting sincerely with other people and the environment; through changing the attitude or how one sees things when faced with a situation that one cannot change. For this last one, on suffering, Frankl coins the idea of tragic optimism, which is to find meaning through the suffering a person cannot avoid. This is because human spirit has defiant power. In other words, one does not need suffering to find meaning, but one can find meaning in spite of suffering.

Frankl’s form of therapy, unlike that of Freud which dug into a patient’s past, enables a person look forward to his future and set a goal for himself, which will benefit a cause or another person or group of persons, thus giving meaning to his existence.

A quote from the second part of the book:
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

Everything.

awed and amazed.

Viktor Emil Frankl, MD, PhD (1905 –1997) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. In addition to numerous articles in many journals, some of his other books are: The Unheard Cry for meaning, The Unconscious God, Psychotherapy and Existentialism

not only it is an excellent memoir, but also it has the potential to change one's life or one's way of looking at life.

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Created Jan 11, 2013 at 7:51pm • Submit your own review...