Man's Search For Meaning By Viktor E. Frankl

Shock, apathy, and disillusionment were three psychological stages that the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps experienced. Ironically, it took an event of such tragedy and destruction to enable us to learn more about how the human mind responds to certain situations. Frankl’s methods for remaining positive can be used by every human being to give them a meaning in their lives regardless of what predicament or mental state they are in – it is in many ways like a phoenix risen from the

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl tells the honest story of his own experiences as an inmate in a concentration camp during World War II. In his book, Frankl answers the question “How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?” (Frankl, 2006, p. 3) He describes the physical, emotional, and psychological torment that he endured as well as the effect that the camp had on those around him. He breaks down the psychological experience as a prisoner into three stages: the initial shock upon admission into the camp, apathy, and the mental reactions of the prisoner after liberation. He highlights certain emotions experienced throughout the time in the camp such as delusions of reprieve, hope, curiosity, surprise, and even humor.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is filled to the brim with rhetorical devices from all three sections of the text. Particularly in his section about logotherapy, Frankl’s practice to find an individual’s meaning of life, he explores the three main meanings of life: accomplishment, love, and suffering. This area uses a plethora of comparison, such as parallelism and metaphor. Recurring themes are used to draw back to Frankl’s three life meanings, like word repetition and alliteration. Frankl’s use of rhetorical devices allows his audience to focus on their individual possibilities and incorporate his ideology into society.

In his description on page six, Frankl reveals that after being moved from concentration camp to concentration camp, it had forced the best of people to become self-interested in a fight for their own survival. Scruples in this quote means that prisoners had forfeited their moral conscience and did not hesitate to commit acts that could cause harm to others. Frankl then went on to disclose, "They were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves" (Frankl, 6). This quote perfectly illustrates what life in concentration camps was like as even the best of people were forced to give up past values in order to save oneself. From his descriptions, life in

There was an opportunity given to Frankl to choose his own faith. He got too deiced whether he wanted to transfer to a new camp or stay. Despite the rumors about the new camp containing gas chambers and his fellow prison mates pleading with him not to go. Frankl transferred to the new camp to find it to be a rest camp. He talked about how you cannot run from faith.

From his book "Man's Search for Meaning", Victor Frankl has proven from overcoming one of the most daunting, horrendous human experiences that he is not only very intelligent, but has one of the strongest sets of a heart and mind this world has ever seen. What's most incredible to me is that he not only made it through the center of the deadliest world war and endured the highest form of human mental and physical suffering, he had the strength and will to write about it. What I really enjoyed the most about Frankl in his story was his unique, first person view of the world around him and his efforts to relay the realities of that world in the most objective way possible. It's as if he knew he would one day have to deliver his experience to the world so he made a choice to use his intellect and imagination from the start of his experiences. I can't even begin to imagine what he and other holocaust survivors endured, even more so choosing to re-live every second of those memories after the experience by writing a book about them. It seems, from his writings, he made the difficult decision to write the book because of his concluding that having an account to his experiences for the people of the world to look upon and learn from was more important than the intense mental strife the process of writing the book would have on him. For that I greatly respect this author and educator for if it weren't for his strength we would not have the great, positive and

Renowned Psychiatrist and author, Viktor E. Frankl, chronicles his imprisonment and survival in Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps throughout his memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl describes his life in captivity during the holocaust and how he overcame grotesque and egregious circumstances by surviving through spiritual composure. Frankl’s theory logotherapy, is the certitude that humans are compelled to seek meaning in one’s life over the drive for pleasure. His theory has contributed greatly to the study of leadership and influenced the lives of individuals by aiding them in the search for meaning and purpose.

Viktor Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Meaning, is a collection of his experiences in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Mausthausen. His book speaks a story upon survival and the thought process to survive. Viktor Emil Frankl was born on March 26, 1905 in Vienna, Austria. He received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Vienna where he studied psychiatry and neurology, while focusing on the areas of suicide and depression. In 1492, Frankl and his family were arrested and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Over the span of three years, Frankl was transported between four different camps.

The premise of Frankl’s book is that mankind’s desire for meaning is much stronger than its desire for power or pleasure and that if man can find meaning in life he can survive anything. Frankl introduces this idea [which he calls the theory of logotherapy] throughout his concentration camp experiences in the book’s first section and delves deeper into it in the second section. Referencing Nietzsche, Frankl tells us “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'” (p. 80). The most important thing to be learned from this statement is that no matter what your circumstances are, you can be happy, or at least survive, if you find a meaning or purpose in life. While in the concentration camp Frankl tells us that in order to maintain his desire to have a meaningful life he focused on three main things: suffering, work, and love. Of sacrifice

Frankl endured much suffering during his time in the concentration camp. All of his possessions were taken away, including his manuscript in which he recorded all of his life's work. He went through rough manual labor, marching through freezing temperatures, and little or no

In Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, a central idea to his story is that of taking control of what happens around you. For Frankl, he used what little control he had to make the best of a horrible situation. While many of my experiences in life cannot even stand near those of Frankl, this idea is universal, and almost necessary, to achieve happiness in your life.

Man as little more than a machine subject to his environment is a popular picture painted by many psychologists of today. Viktor E Frankl sets out to contend against that idea in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. He contends that life is not a quest for pleasure or power, but for meaning. Frankl was a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps during the holocaust. During this time, many of his family members, including his parents and his wife, suffered death in similar camps. Frankl himself suffered extreme conditions of cold, starvation, malnutrition, and slavery. He was also a psychoanalyst of sorts, and through all of his suffering, he makes incredible observations about the world that became his. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl chooses primarily two areas to focus on—His experience and observations in the Nazi concentration camps, and his own philosophy of psychology, which he calls Logotherapy. He also delves into what he calls “tragic optimism”, or to put meaning into suffering, as opposed to seeking hope for deliverance from suffering.

Dr. Viktor Frankl experienced an extreme traumatic event that most of us cannot even dream of happening. Dr. Frankl was a victim of the Nazi Concentration Camps for years and was continuously tortured mentally, physically, and emotionally. From having little to no food to having barely any clothes to wear during the wintertime, Dr. Frankl survived what the world witness as the most horrific genocide it had and has ever seen. One can understand how it would be so easy for someone to lose sight of what the meaning of life is to them and to give up on it completely. When surrounded by constant death and suffering, what meaning is left when a person is condemned to death?

Beginning in March of 1933, when the first concentration camp was established, over ten million people suffered and died due to the systematic and cruel atrocities inflicted upon them by the Nazi Party. Viktor Frankl was among the relative few to survive, and he responded, both during and after, by attempting to decipher, not only the meaning of his own life, but the importance of meaning in the lives of others. He named three stages to the process handling the experience of a concentration camp, which can be applied to many types of suffering. Strangely, all three of these stages, depersonalization, apathy, and the return to normalcy, all seem to incorporate an unexpected reaction, humour. As evidenced by Frankl’s account, it seems as though sufferers of a certain disposition can occasionally find humour and amusement even in the worst of times.

Man’s Search for Meaning, is a biography and the personal memoir of Victor Frankl’s experience in a Nazi Concentration Camp. The book was initially published in 1946 in German and was then published in 1959 in English, under the title From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Prior to World War II, Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist working in Vienna and then later was responsible for running the neurology department at a Jewish Hospital in Rothschild. In 1942 he and his family were arrested and deported. They were separated and sent to concentration