Man’s search For Meaning is a book written by Viktor Frankl. It is the inspirational story of Frankl’s experience as a prisoner in a Nazi death camps. Frankl who is a psychiatrist by profession, uses his ordeal to understand and document the psychology of survival. From his experiences, he developed a new school known as Logo therapy. He lost his parents, his pregnant wife, and brother in the same concentration camps. From 1942 to 1945, Frankl survived four death camps including Auschwitz. The story of Frankl provides a testament to his experiences as a survivor and the experiences of some of the people he treated. Extreme hunger, cold, and brutality were the order of each day. Most prisoners living in the Nazi camps as prisoners lost …show more content…
Despite his circumstance, Frankl achieved happiness through his optimistic attitude. Frankl optimistic attitude helps him achieve happiness by accepting his circumstances. He argues that if life has meaning there must be a corresponding meaning to suffering. A man acquires deeper meaning in his life after he accepts his fate. He provides a scenario where most people despise their lives when faced with tough situations. Frankl also argues that when a person’s destiny involves suffering, he must accept it as his only task in life. Such a person has to acknowledge that in suffering one is alone and opportunities will come depending on the way he weighs his burden.
Frankl comes up with a theory known as Logo therapy. It comes from the Greek word Logos that means “meaning.” He argues that the primary motivation in a human being is not from pleasure rather it is from discovery, pursuit, and fulfillment of a certain purpose unique to every human being. The purpose of logo therapy is to facilitate a person’s ability to find his life’s meaning. The author argues that logo therapy creates awareness regarding what a patient longs for in his life. According to Frankl, the satisfaction of drives and instincts does not guarantee happiness. Finding meaning in one’s life brings forth happiness. He gives the story of an American diplomat who sought his services while he had an office in Vienna. The diplomat had spent five years acquiring psychoanalytical
Viktor Frankl is a well known psychiatrist and neurologist. He is praised for his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, a story that depicts Frankl’s viewpoint during the Holocaust. The narrative illustrates Victor’s perspective and his coping techniques during this time. Frankl also mentions his theory of Logotherapy. A technique that he uses to help people find meaning with their life.
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.
Victor Emil Frankl is among the greatest minds and humanist thinkers to ever have lived. He was born in 1905 and died in 1995, and during his lifetime he was recognized as a Holocaust survivor, a neurologist as well as a renowned psychiatrist. Among his many theoretical works as a humanist thinker, The Pursuit of Happiness stands out among his best works (Viktor, 2016). Victor Emil stated that “What a man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” He goes deeper to state, the manner in which a man is supposed to have a source of discharging all his tension, all in the aim of ensuring that the man is able to reach his top and best level of productivity.
Frankl describes how suffering gives man opportunity to expand his spirituality beyond himself, and how inward strength may rise against outward fate. He states that if a person does not struggle to save their self-respect, they will lose the feeling of being an individual: a being with a mind, personal value, and inner freedom (page 50.) In a way, man is always free because everyone has the choice to maintain their dignity by choosing their attitude during difficult circumstances; each person is free to choose how he will respond to a situation (page 66.) Man has a choice of action and can preserve his independence of mind and spiritual freedom even in times of physical and mental stress because he is free to choose how he will respond to a situation (page 65.) On page 82, Frankl supports the belief that "what does not kill me, makes me
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl reveals how one should look externally to suffering and actively look towards the future to find meaning in life. Doing so in the face of suffering causes one to maintain a tolerant outlook on life and derive a rich and meaningful life. In the concentration camps, seemingly everything can be taken away from you: family, possessions, dignity, etc., but the one thing that Frankl highlights that you still have control over is your attitude towards life. For the prisoners who did not see a purpose in their suffering, they lost all meaning in life and eventually died. In not having a purpose to keep fighting for life, these men simply gave up and succumbed to death: “with his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became
Man’s Search for Meaning is an autobiography written by Viktor E. Frankl. Once a free man who had never been identified as a human, he was now seen as just a number. Facing many obstacles, fears around him shows that he’s a strong, encouraging man that cares about others, even if he’s not feeling the greatest. There’s days that he wants to give up, but the only hope he has left is his wife waiting for him. Frankl identifies three different stages in the camp life, now his life.
In “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” Emily Esfahani Smith writes about the conflict between Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Happiness” and the culture today, which focuses on happiness in life rather than meaning. She introduces Viktor Frankl as a star medical and psychology student who survived the Holocaust in 1942. While Frankl was kept hostage in his camp, he was forced to find the good in life in order to survive. After being liberated, Frankl recorded his experience and what he learned in nine days, creating a best-seller in the United States. Smith explains that even though it has been concluded that Americans’ happiness is at an all-time high, the Center for Disease Control says that almost fifty percent of Americans have not found a purpose in life. Smith tells that bad mental health, self-esteem, and depression are less likely to be found in those who have found a pleasurable meaning in life. Happiness is associated with being a “taker”, while having a meaning life is associated with being a “giver” according to Smith. The downside to having a purpose for one’s life is the fact that he or she is usually more unhappy due to stress and worry than those who only strive for happiness, Smith explains. A study in 2011 proved that if someone has a negative circumstance occur in his or her lifetime, that event will give him or her more of a drive to find meaning in life rather than happiness. Smith concluded by linking these other sources with Frankl’s
Essentially logotherapy is described to be, “a will to meaning” (99). He believed that, “striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” (99). His approach to this idea is based on three psychological and philosophical concepts: meaning of life, will to meaning and freedom of will. According to Frankl, "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: by creating a work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering" and that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances". Logotherapy can be very useful not just in my life, but any person’s. Isn’t this what most people want to figure out anyways? Their meaning in life, their place and contribution that will give everlasting peace of accomplishment once one grows old. Growing up I was told, “Everything happens for a reason”, that different actions contribute into a larger outcome that us as mere mortals do not understand. But as weak minded people, we break when we begin to suffer. We lose all hope and will to live. We disagree on the idea that life has meaning and begin to feel like that it just an everlasting void with no point at the
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
Through Frankl's view of suicide you can discover his view of human person. Suicide is wrong in all cases, and should not be even considered an option. He believes that all people can find some meaning in life which would prevent them from giving up all hope and ending their lives. Every human life has meaning, and therefore every human life has value. While in a concentration camp serving as a doctor to those who were ill with typhus or other diseases, he encountered two individuals who had given up hope on life. He asked them both to think of something worth living for. One answered that he had a son waiting for him at home, and the other said he was writing a book and wanted to finish it. Frankl helped them find meaning in their lives to hold on to some hope. Just as they did, anyone can find a meaning to live for, whether it be another person or a goal or achievement.
Frankl believes several things, and he shares these theories with his readers. First of all; the basic concept of Logotherapy is that if one finds a purpose or a meaning in their life they can endure anything. He supports this many times over with specific examples. He was forced to dig trenches in freezing cold weather without adequate clothing and shoes. The shoes might be too tight causing pain and blisters, he may have no socks, or the shoes might have holes in them, allowing the ice and snow to get against his skin. He states that he got through these long, painful days by thinking about the beauty of nature or thoughts of his wife. He focused on the unlikely fact that his wife might be alive, giving him the will to live. Other times, while at another camp where he worked as the only doctor caring for 52 sick and dying patients, he himself was on the brink of starvation and typhus and he did not give up. He felt that it was his duty to care for these people, keep them comfortable and give them the best that he could at the time with minimal resources. There might have
According to logotherapy we can discover the meaning of life in three different ways: by creating a work or doing a deed, by experiencing something or encountering someone, and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (Frankl 133). The meaning of love is a core factor in logotherapy. Every human posses the potential to achieve greatness and unless someone loves that person these potentials will not be fulfilled. By being or feeling loved, people become more aware of what they are capable of through the encouragement of the lover. No one can be fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him (Frankl 134). An additional way to find meaning in life is through irreversible suffering. When someone no longer has the power to change their situation, that person now has the opportunity to choose their attitudes about that
In this paper I will be analysing/ reflecting on Viktor Frankl’s Man 's Search for Meaning. In my reflection I will compare the main philosophical message of frankl 's experience and try to compare its meaning to my very own life experience. In order to do this I must give you some personal background while growing up I was born with some challenging complications due to a lack of oxygen at birth I was diagnosed with ataxic cerebral palsy. The thing about ataxic cerebral palsy is that it has affected my life in many ways some miniscule others immense. I can write an entire book on my childhood / adolescence and some of the many challenges I have faced but that 's neither here
It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.