“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.”
– Harrison Ford American actor
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
– Viktor Frankl neurologist, psychotherapist
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life’s meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories.
Logotherapy was promoted as the third school of Viennese Psychotherapy, after those established by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.
Frankl published 39 books. The autobiographical Man’s Search for Meaning, a best-selling book, is based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.
Man’s Search for Meaning While head of the Neurological Department at the general Polyclinic Hospital, Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning over a nine-day period…. Frankl saw this success as a symptom of the “mass neurosis of modern times,” since the title promised to deal with the question of life’s meaningfulness.
Wikipedia / Image by HannaH30 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Viktor and Elly Frankl (top left) Viktor Frankl with his daughter, Gabriele, in 1955 (top right)
Man’s Search for Meaning
Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is deeply rooted in the themes of suffering, resilience, and the transcendent power of finding purpose even in the darkest circumstances.
Frankl observed that among the fellow inmates in the concentration camp, those who survived were able to connect with a purpose in life to feel positive about and who then immersed themselves in imagining that purpose in their own way, such as conversing with an (imagined) loved one. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity.
Frankl also concludes that there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent. No society is free of either of them, and thus there were “decent” Nazi guards and “indecent” prisoners, most notably the kapo who would torture and abuse their fellow prisoners for personal gain. [ed. note: Frankl points out that there was nothing unique about German society; that any society could descend into the horrors of the Holocaust if evil people were allowed to gain power.]
Reception In a 1991 survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Man’s Search for Meaning was named one of the 10 most influential books in the US. At the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies and had been translated into 24 languages. As of 2022 the book has sold 16 million copies and been printed in 52 languages.
