Man's Search for Meaning

A fine book that draws on the author's time in Auschwitz to lay out a compelling case for finding meaning in life even in the midst of the most abject suffering. It is deceptively simple to read, but its ideas are challenging: it is hard to take on such burdens and try to make the best of them, when your mind is more naturally drawn in such circumstances to thoughts of injustice, revenge or depression. Frankl contends that "it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp" (pg. 55) and weaves his psychological observations in with his personal Holocaust experiences in a way that is almost literary. For example:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting show more others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." (pg. 75)

Frankl's logotherapy doctrine and his view of the world has been criticised almost since its conception as 'problematic' (that hateful word…); that it somehow legitimises 'Arbeit Macht Frei', for example, or that it suggests that those who died in the camps were somehow responsible for their own deaths. This is absurd, of course, but the arguments are made, and they are of the kind of wilful misrepresentation that has in recent years been refined into an art form by the pseuds and the utopians and the 'self-esteem' folk. Instead, one only has to listen to contemporary Frankl adherents like Jordan Peterson to see the worth of the logotherapy approach, and its development into a robust philosophy of living. Frankl's book is perhaps the most approachable introduction to this profound terrain. show less

My only regret is that I didn't read this book earlier in life. The seemingly clinical detachment with which Frankl writes clears the way for the meaning of his words. it is the lessons he draws from his experiences that are so valuable, not the recollections of the experiences themselves. He recounts harrowing and heartbreaking stories from his personal experience during the Holocaust, but to hold it up as an example of suffering that everyone at least intellectually understands, if not viscerally. The concept of "unconditional meaningfulness" and it's connection to Frankl's Logotherapy is a powerful one. William Winslade's afterword in this edition is a wonderfully concise and informative biography of Frankl, and helps to summarize show more some of ideas espoused in the first part of the book. Frankl's search for a "tragic optimism" underscores the journeys of so many, and I do think that this is one of the most important books of the twentieth century, and likely beyond, as I think the search for meaning will always be part of what it is to be human. show less

In the first section of Man's Search for Meaning, Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) remembers his incarcerations at four WWII-era concentration camps, including Auschwitz. In Frankl’s estimation, his own survival under horrific conditions affirms the tenets of logotherapy, the psychological framework he developed before his internment. The goal of logotherapy is the individual's discovery of meaning in life. This meaning may change daily or even "hour by hour," but, as Frankl, quoting Nietzsche, likes to say, "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How” (why Frankl would quote with approval the Nazis’ favorite philosopher is an open question).

In the second section of this book, Frankl explains how show more therapists can apply the principles of logotherapy in their practices. This section is dated, especially in its descriptions of treatments for phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

This book has been hugely influential, but there is something about Frankl's dispassionate concentration camp memoir that doesn’t sit well with me. For example, after recapitulating a pep talk he delivered to his starving, freezing, demoralized fellow prisoners (he calls this interaction "collective psychotherapy"), Frankl writes, "But I have to confess here that only too rarely had I the inner strength to make contact with my companions in suffering and that I must have missed many opportunities to do so" (84). I am surprised by this admission and am not quite sure what to make of it. It seems that Frankl was, in fact, rather detached from the experiences of others, especially their suffering. I would think that under the principles of logotherapy, engagement rather than detachment would be the goal. Moreover, on the first page of the narrative, Frankl states that his purpose is to demonstrate “how everyday life in a concentration camp [was] reflected in the mind of the average prisoner” (3), but I think that the author forgot about his thesis sentence along the way. Frankl would never have considered himself an “average prisoner,” and how would he know what average prisoners thought if he didn't typically engage with them?

Frankl acknowledges only in passing the incredible luck that allowed him to survive while others perished. Instead, Frankl attributes his survival to his sensitivity to beauty and his belief (in vain, it turns out) that someday he will see his beloved wife again. Implied in this attribution is the idea that the millions who did not survive the camps (especially those who chose suicide over continued degradation) failed because they did not appreciate beauty or love someone deeply. This is utter nonsense. Frankl writes, “The best of us did not return” (6), but I am not convinced he really believes it.

This thought-provoking book is well worth reading and discussing. show less

I guess this book is simply not for me. Of course, the account of the atrocities that Frankl went through and witnessed is powerful and moving. The way he processes it, just looking from the human perspective, is, obviously, valid, and I take that at face value. But the general advice? I'm not sure. There are some common-sense truths that people of any time should be reminded of - like that depression and anxiety can be valid responses to a terrible reality, and that the value of a human doesn't depend on their productivity or the opportunities they still have ahead. Yet, he frequently contradicts himself; the productivity bit is somewhat undermined by his wondering if diminishing workload will lead to an existential void. Maybe because show more of the major hype that still exists for this book, I expected too much, but the advice to gaslight myself to survive difficult experiences wasn't exactly what I expected. show less

Part 1 on Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz is both shocking and riveting. The reader will grimace at some descriptions of Frankl’s three years in four different concentration camps. Yet there is an allure about reading his life’s experiences. There are not many books written on such a weighty topic with Frankl’s unique style. Plus, he survived the Nazi’s diabolical schemes, partly by sheer chance and partly by a dogged refusal to “run against the wire” and end his own life.

Part 2 dives into Frankl’s logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy he further developed in the years after his time at Auschwitz. Though much less popular in America and never coming to rival the systems Freud and Adler built, it is still practiced in show more Europe and other places. It remains a viable counseling system to the present day. Frankl didn’t hammer it out into specific practices or dogmas, preferring rather to let those after him develop it into what they will.

The term itself comes from the Greek, “logos” which is to “find meaning.” Frankl’s use differs from Scripture’s on this level. He sought to get people looking to the future to find meaning, for this is man’s primary motivation for living. Contra Freud, who looked into the past and sold various interpretations to the client, Frankl aimed at offering reasons for why a person may find meaning to live by. For him, recollections of his wife and aspirations of developing logotherapy were the things that gave him meaning during the harshest moments of concentration camp life. Frankl often quotes Nietzsche’s famous line: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” This is the substance of logotherapy. “You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you,” Frankl says (X).

The descriptions in part 1 were very good. Once he dove into logotherapy, the work became less interesting. There are glaring conflicts with logotherapy and the Bible’s outlook on suffering, meaning, and counseling. Little can be mined from Frankl’s logotherapy, being devoid of God and eternity. Man is not a truly free and self determined being who is content to find meaning through overcoming suffering or living for others. Man, rather, must look to a cause beyond himself to an eternal Creator. The real logos, the one who became flesh and blood and entered into space and time as the only Son from the Father can bring meaning. Nothing else and no one else will do. show less

Half holocaust memoir, half introduction to logotherapy.
As a holocaust memoir it doesn't have the excruciating detail of death camps many other famous ones have. Frankl was at Auschwitz for a time, but gets shipped around between camps. He's also a lot more philosophical about man's cruelty to man, and more relativistic about culpability - stressing at one point that a certain camp had an SS officer who bought people medicines out of pocket while the capos (fellow jews) were needlessly sadistic. He spends a lot of time meditating on multiple examples of the title's thesis; that man is always searching for and in need of meaning in life. This later becomes one of the ways he separates his version of psychology from the bigger names of show more his time in the logotherapy section.
I see some parallels with Arendt's banality of evil and Zimbardo's prison experiment in this, which is notably different than some other memoirs.

It's strange that logotherapy seems all but forgotten now, considering that its existentialist principles seem more relevant to a currently faltering psychology profession, criticised exactly for missing the search for meaning in life (as compared to treating various symptoms of the malaise of suffering from purposelessness). show less

Much more than a simple Holocaust memoir, Frankl uses his experience in the camps to explore the psychology of the prisoner and to illuminate his discipline of logotherapy. This thought places emphasis on a will to meaning rather than a Freudian will to pleasure, urging people to find purpose through creative acts or meaningful deeds or even suffering if necessary. Such a dictum doesn't prevail in American psychotherapy, since people having to take responsibility isn't as easy as blaming your father and mother for unalterable neuroses. Personally, Frankl's approach and his story strongly resonated with me. This is just as important as anything by Freud or Jung.