Man's Search for Meaning

Laurel

Rating: really liked it
I read this book for the first time during my senior year in high school. The year prior, I had gone to Germany for spring break with some fellow classmates. During the trip, we spent a day visiting a former WWII concentration camp in Dachau. As one might expect, this visit had a profound effect on me. I had of course read and knew about the atrocities that occurred under the Nazi regime, but to actually see a camp in person is a deeply haunting and disturbing experience. Perhaps for this reason, Frankl's book affected me even more deeply than it otherwise might have.

The book is divided into two parts. The first section recounts in vivid detail Frankl's horrifying experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Frankl, a former psychiatrist, also describes his observations of other prisoners and what he felt to be the main way in which people tried to cope with the insurmountable obstacles they faced. He found that those who could find meaning or purpose in their suffering were the ones who also seemed better able to find the strength to go on. As I recall, Frankl personally found his purpose in the hope of someday being able to see his wife again - a hope that was strong enough to get him through the daily horrors he faced.

The second half of this book is devoted to the therapy he developed based on the search for meaning, which he calls logotherapy. The basic premise is that those who can find meaning in their suffering are better able to cope with what would otherwise be a struggle too hard to bear. As one who majored in psychology, I found this section as fascinating as the first.

I have read this book at least three times now, and it is one of the few books I can say truly changed my life. I am ever grateful that I have the wisdom of this book to fall back upon when needed.

Several years ago, at a very young age (in my 20s), I became ill with a disease that left me bedridden and barely able to speak above a whisper. Now 36, I am still bedridden and fighting the same battle. It is Frankl's reminder to find meaning and purpose in suffering (which I found in the love of my fiancé and my hope of recovery) that has helped me to get through each difficult day. As Frankl tells us, "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, to choose one's own way."

I highly recommend this book!!

Frank

Rating: really liked it
After I read this book, which I finished many, many years ago, I had become self-critical of any future endeavours which would take up a lot of my time. I would ask myself "is this or will this be meaningful to me?", and if the answer was "no", I wouldn't do it. It was this book that influenced me to consciously live as meaningful a life as possible, to place a great value on the journey and not just the destination, while knowing that "meaningful" doesn't always mean "enjoyable". "Meaningful" should be equated with "fulfilling".

So I studied Physics instead of Engineering. I went to York U instead of U of T. I went to Europe instead of immediately entering the workforce after graduation.

I want to recommend this book to all of my grade 12 students.

Petra X 95% hiatus, no time for play just work

Rating: really liked it
How is it possible to write dispassionately of life in a concentration camp in such a way as to engender great feeling in the reader? This is how Frankl dealt with his experience of those terrible years. The dispassionate writing makes the horrors of the camp extremely distressing, more so than writing that is more emotionally involved. It is almost reportage. The first half of the book is equal in its telling to The Diary of a Young Girl in furthering our understanding of those dreadful times.

There are occasional glimmers of humanity from the Germans. These are so small that rather than illuminate any basic goodness, they cast further into the shadows the terror of living in a place and time where death might be a beating or a shot to the head at any moment. There are also stories of the depths that some of the Jewish victims would sink to in what they would do to stay alive themselves. It made me think that rather than condemn these people for becoming tools of the Nazis, what would I do faced with death or the chance to stay alive a little longer and maybe save family or friends.

7 stars, golden stars for this half of the book.

The second half is about Frankl's psychotherapeutic methods and lost me in boredom. I did read this in its entirety but it wouldn't have spoiled the book, or my appreciation of the genius retelling and brilliant writing of the first half, if I hadn't.

Riku Sayuj

Rating: really liked it
For most of the book, I felt as dumbfounded as I would have been if I were browsing through a psychiatric journal. Filled with references and technical terms and statistics, it was mostly a book-long affirmation of the then innovative technique called 'logo-therapy'. I do not understand how this book is still relevant and found in most popular book stores. It might have been that the book was popular in the sixties and seventies as it offered a powerful and logical argument against the reductionist approach that leads inevitably to existential nihilism, but is that still relevant today? It also attempts to free psychiatry from the belief that 'eros' was the cause of all neurosis and turns the flashlight on repressed 'logos' - which forms the premise of the book and the title.

But, while the basic premises are powerful and moving, the breadth and scale of repetition of the same ideas and the technical jargon and the constant Freud-bashing ensured that I did not enjoy the book as much as I had hoped. Furthermore, the whole chapter dedicated to the theory that ultimately our basic necessity of 'search for logos' can also be explained as a 'repressed religious drive' and his exhortation to religious people to not look down on irreligious ones (read atheists and agnostics) just because they have achieved a stage that the atheists/agnostics are still aspiring (unconsciously of course) towards rang patently false and too much in line with his argument of psychiatry being a sister to theology.

I wish Frankl had stuck to his original title of 'The Unconscious God' - it would have been more representative of the book as his 'logos' argument directly derives from his postulation of a transcendent unconscious super-ego that trumps Freud's 'Super Ego' and a spiritual cum instinctual subconscious that trumps Freud's 'id'.

Unless you are looking for a historical perspective on the technical aspects of psychiatry and about the origins of 'logo-therapy', I would not recommend this book, especially for general reading. If you pick up this book, like I did, in the hope that it is about Frankl's personal quest for meaning amidst the horrors of Auschwitz with a strong scientific perspective, you will be disappointed to find that you have picked up a medical journal that is pedantic and repetitive, with hardly any reference to Frankl's personal journey or about how he evolved his theory and practices (that did transform many lives) based on his experiences.

Always Pouting

Rating: really liked it
The original part one was the strongest I think because the rest started to go into the typical psychobabble inherent to books trying to contribute to the academic side of psychology or psychiatry but the first part really grounded the idea of giving meaning to one existence into personal experience and I found it very poignant about the mental state of people in very stressful and hopeless situations. It's a very empowering and important idea that no matter the situation a person can control their behavior and influence their own feelings of the situation. This idea of a person having so much control over their own selves and survival is one I whole heartedly agree with. Anyone having trouble figuring out life or what the point is could benefit from reading this I think.

Dr. Appu Sasidharan (On Hiatus)

Rating: really liked it

If someone asks me to recommend the best three books related to the Second World War and the horrors of the holocaust, this book will be one among them. Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian Neurologist and Psychiatrist. He was also a Holocaust survivor. This book describes his experiences in concentration camps in the first section and the logotherapy he developed for finding meaning in all forms of existence during the suffering in the second section.

My favorite three lines from this book.

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

"But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer."

“I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

The way the author recalls all the events is simply brilliant. The hardships he faced in the concentration camp will indubitably shock you. I always wondered how he was able to survive three years in four concentration camps when I can't even think about living there for a single day.

This is one of the most challenging books I read in my life so far. But I reread this book once in a while to remind me of the importance of hope and how it can help a human being to overcome one of the most harrowing experiences that humankind has ever witnessed on this planet. This is one of those books that everyone in this world should read at least once in their lifetime.

Ahmad Sharabiani

Rating: really liked it
Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager = Man's Search for Meaning; an introduction to logotherapy, Viktor E. Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome.

According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity. The book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory called logotherapy.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «انسان در جستجوی معنی»؛ «انسان در جستجوی معنی غایی»؛ «درون خود را جستجو کنید خودشناسی و خودباوری آشنایی با معنی درمانی»؛ «انسان در جستجوی معنا»؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه می سال 1975میلادی

عنوان: انسان در جستجوی معنی؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجمها: نهضت صالحیان؛ مهین میلانی؛ چاپ نخست تهران، دانشگاه تهران، 1354؛ چاپ دوم تهران، آذر، 1363؛ در 260ص؛ کتابنامه از ص 236، تا ص 259؛ چاپ چهارم: 1368؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نهضت صالحیان و مهین میلانی، 1370؛ چاپ بعدی 1371؛ چاپ هشتم تهران، درسا، 1374؛ چاپ دوازدهم 1381؛ موضوع اردوگاه اسیران آلمان، روانشناسی، زندانیان، از نویسندگان اتریش - سده 20م

عنوان: انسان در جستجوی معنی غایی؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجمها: احمد صبوری؛ عباس شمیم؛ چاپ نخست تهران، صداقصیده، 1381؛ در207ص؛ شابک ایکس - 964641172؛ کتابنامه از ص 165، تا ص 186؛

عنوان: انسان در جستجوی معنی؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجم: اکبر معارفی؛ تهران، موسسه انتشارات دانشگاه تهران، 1378؛ در 106ص؛ شابک 9640337854؛ کتابنامه از ص 105، تا ص 106؛ چاپ نهم 1388، شابک 9789640337851؛ چاپ یازدهم 1393؛

عنوان: درون خود را جستجو کنید خودشناسی و خودباوری آشنایی با معنی درمانی؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجم: الهام مبارکی زاده؛ تهران، پل، 1388؛ در 240ص؛ شابک 9789642330058؛

عنوان: انسان در جستجوی معنا؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجم: مهدی گنجی؛ ویراستار حمزه گنجی؛ تهران، ساوالان، 1392؛ در 243ص؛ شابک 9789647609890؛

عنوان: انسان در جستجوی معنا؛ نویسنده: ویکتور امیل فرانکل؛ مترجم: امیر لاهوتی؛ تهران، جامی، 1394؛ در 184ص؛ شابک9786001761157؛

کتاب «انسان در جستجوی معنا»، اثر: «ویکتور فرانکل»، روان‌پزشک، عصب‌ شناس، و پدیدآورنده ی لوگوتراپی «اتریشی» است، که نخستین بار در سال 1946میلادی منتشر شد؛ این کتاب، دربردارنده ی یادمانهای «فرانکل»، از وضعیت خود، و سایر قربانیان اردوگاه‌های کار اجباری «آلمان»، در خلال جنگ دوم جهانی است؛ «فرانکل» در این کتاب، به عنوان یک روان‌شناس اگزیستانسیالیت، به اهمیت جستجوی معنا برای زندگی، در سخت‌ترین شرایط زندگی می‌پردازند، و ضمن روایت یادمانهای خویش، از اردوگاه‌های کار اجباری، تلاش می‌کنند، نگرش تازه ی خویش را در روان‌شناسی (لوگوتراپی) تبیین کنند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 21/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽

Rating: really liked it


This is a short but extremely intense book, first published in 1946. It begins with the author's experiences in four (!!) different German concentration camps in WWII, including Auschwitz, and how he coped with those experiences -- and saw others cope with them, or not. He continues in the second half of this book with a discussion of his approach to psychiatry, called logotherapy, based on the belief that each person needs to find something in his or her life, something particular and personal to them, to give their life meaning. We need to look outside ourselves.

There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

The first half of the book is completely absorbing, fascinating reading. When I tried to read the second, more academic part of it years ago, I floundered (I don't think I ever got through to the end). But I stuck with it this time and found it truly rewarding.

The second part did sometimes challenge my brain cells with concepts like this:

I never tire of saying that the only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything is irrevocably stored.

I had to read that one two or three times before I felt like I really grasped what Frankl was saying. And this one:

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!

I assume it's to help give us motivation to avoid making a wrong choice, by thinking through the likely consequences of what we are about to do. But there are so many nuggets of wisdom in this short volume. A few things that really impacted me:

We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.

It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ... In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

Inspiring words; inspiring life.

Bonus material: Here is an interview with Viktor Frankl when he was 90 years old. He died just a couple of years later.

Francisco

Rating: really liked it
This book stands out as one of the most helpful tools I've found in my life-long search for the way to live and be useful to others despite depression. As opposed to Freud, who believed that the primary drive in man, the most urgent motivation, was pleasure, Frankl believes that it is meaning. Now meaning for Frankl is not something abstract and airy and noble but rather something very concrete and specific to your life - what is the task that life asks of you that only you can do? Look at the circumstances of your life, look at your talents and the people that surround you. Where is the need that is calling for you to respond? For Frankl, the hope that kept him trudging on day by day in the concentration camps was the need to re-write the manuscript (taken away when first imprisoned) where he could present to the world his theory of Logotherapy. Why I found this book so helpful in my struggles with depression is because one of the rock-bottom places where depression can take you is despair. Despair is the absence of hope. The search for meaning, for a response to something life is asking of you, is the place where hope is born. Frankl states that hope, like genuine laughter or like faith or love is not something that we can will into being. We cannot make hope appear willy nilly in our lives because hope is more than a nice thought, it is, like true love something that involves your whole being. I find this to be true but there are things that we can do to prepare the way for hope's arrival and hope will come, it will always come. We can search for meaning because searching and looking and asking and expecting are acts and attitudes that we can will. Meaning, according to Frankl is found in three different forms. Meaning is found in creating or doing. Meaning is found in experiencing something greater than ourselves and in encountering another being through love. And finally, meaning can be found in the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The important thing here is that in all of these instances the value of the thing that gives meaning is subjective. There is no scale out there that says that writing a novel gives more meaning than helping your spouse with the dishes. When it comes to meaning, the small, the hidden, the unsaid is as important as the great acts of genius and you alone are the judge. Orienting yourself to responding in some way to what life is asking of you may not be the sole cure to depression but it is for me a necessary part of any healing process, of learning to live and be useful, despite the illness.

Maxwell

Rating: really liked it
I have to separate the emotional impact of the first half of the book from my overall impression on how effective the book was as a whole. It's really difficult not to find stories of the holocaust incredibly gripping, and the way in which Frankl speaks of his experience is inspiring and yet still maintains that gravity you'd expect from such a narrative.
However, the latter half of the book delves much more into a psychological, and less personal, examination of 'logotherapy' (that is, the author's personal psychological theory). Once it became more of a text book with small sections reflecting on specific terms and theories, it was difficult to stay engaged. I also felt it lacked the cohesiveness that the first part of the book had with a more linear narrative structure.
Nonetheless, the nuggets of wisdom I gleaned from this book were worth the reading. And I can only commend Frankl on his 'tragic optimism' in such a horrific environment as a Nazi concentration camp.

Swrp

Rating: really liked it
"He who has a Why to live for can bear any How." ~ Nietzsche

"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth” that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. "

This is an apt example of a book appearing when the reader truly needs it. Professor Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning has been on my 'to-read' shelf for quite sometime now. This book came to the top of the list at a time when life's in shambles and everything around seems to be crumbling. This wonderful book has provided something to hold on to, and an understanding of the power of the true love for the beloved one.

Man's Search For Meaning is for everyone who would want to live a meaningful life. This book is also for all those who have a goal in life to help others find a meaning for their life.

Professor Frankl indicates three sources for meaning in life: doing significant work, selfless love for your beloved, and showing courage during difficult and trying times.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.

After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright."

"For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. So, let us be alert; alert in a twofold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

Reading_ Tamishly

Rating: really liked it
I never thought the book would actually deal with psychiatry, neuroses and some basic mental health issues.


The book just ended.

Did it just end? Like end?!

I was so enjoying the concepts and the writing.

Loved the later half of the book more. Actually O should not compare as it is almost like the author is trying to present those days at concentration camps in the first part and in the second part, how his concept of logotherapy/various mental disorders/physiological health issues should be dealt with.


This book is so informative and insightful from a very practical point of view, historically relevant and quite helpful from a medical point of view.

It helps that the author is from the said field and he just wrote everything important in such a concise manner that you just cannot afford to skip a word.

I have less information about concentration camps or the history behind it. But yes, this book is like 80 percent more than that.

This is not a story of survival or a description of how the author suffered during those days. Of course, suffering was there. And oh, how the author described suffering in a new light attached to the meaning of life!

I really loved the writing.

This book is going to help me in both my personal as well as my profession.

This book will remain next to me.


If I were to annotate this book, I would have to just highlight each and every sentence of part two of the book.


I will definitely reread this book. Because life's meaning isn't constant. And yes, I need that motivation and life's understanding as discussed in this short book.

Amazing!

*There's so much more to this book regarding the camp inmates; discussion on the psychology of prisoners; it not only handles about life issues on just all the issues mentioned before but also about life in general - family and various human needs and emotions.

*Love the parts where he talked about his wife. Loved it so much!

Thanks to my Instagram buddies who recommended this book at one of my recent posts.

Definitely loving taking recommendations ❤️

Tharindu Dissanayake

Rating: really liked it
"no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them."

"Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning."

Man's Search for Meaning provides an unbiased narration of the experiences faced by a prisoner in a concentration camp, and the effects of it on one's most inner self. This is not a book on the specifics of torture, or other such inhumane things, but a prisoner's psychological impacts caused from numerous hardships.

"No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same."

Dr. Frankl incorporates his own experiences while trying to find common ground among the prisoners and how one must survive when all else is lost. The first autobiographical section is followed by an evaluation of the adapted methodology, in which the author clearly describes the fundamentals of the basics and specifics on this school of thought. This is a very unique interpretation as to how a man should live, while allowing reader to relate his own experiences and to see life in a different perspective.

"at any time each of the moments of which life consists is dying, and that moment will never recur. And yet is not this transitoriness a reminder that challenges us to make the best possible use of each moment of our lives?"

Emily

Rating: really liked it
After the Book of Mormon, this would be my second recommendation to anyone looking for purpose in life.

Here's a poignant excerpt from one of my favorite parts of the book when Frankl has been in Auschwitz and other camps for several years and doesn't know the war is only weeks away from ending. He had decided to escape his camp near Dachau with a friend and was visiting some of his patients for the last time.

"I came to my only countryman, who was almost dying, and whose life it had been my ambition to save in spite of myself, but my comrade seemed to guess that something was wrong (perhaps I showed a little nervousness). In a tired voice he asked me, 'You too, are getting out?' I denied it, but I found it difficult to avoid his sad look. After my round I returned to him. Again a hopeless look greeted me and somehow I felt it to be an accusation. The unpleasant feeling that had gripped me as soon as I had told my friend I would escape with him became more intense.

Suddenly I decided to take fate into my own hands for once. I ran out of the hut and told my friend that I could not go with him. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned to the hut, sat down on the boards at my countryman's feet and tried to comfort him..."

I found such strength and wisdom in this book--strength and advice for me as a mother of six young children. While potty training, bending over to clean up a handful of toys for the the thousandth time that day, scraping Play Dough off of a filthy kitchen floor on hands and knees, and preparing the fifth snack of the day for several hungry mouths (directly after doing the dishes from the previous snack) I find the text of this book to give profound meaning to small and simple acts of selflessness, patience, and service. What a profound reminder that "The immediate influence of behavior is always more effective than that of words." I desperately needed to read this book, if only to remember to be calm and kind to my little ones so that they will pass on the favor to their own next generation.

Bravo to Viktor Frankl for bringing human frailty and greatness into perspective.

"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, to choose one's own way." -Frankl

Susan's Reviews

Rating: really liked it


One of the first of Viktor Frankl's books that transformed my thinking and my world view. Man cannot survive without hope, and hope cannot survive feelings of futility or meaninglessness. We must therefore move away from despair and negativity and look for meaning in our suffering, or grow from it and find a different path. Everyone should read this book.



Lately, I have been evaluating Frankl's messages about Love, that: "Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire" and "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".
As Eleanor Roosevelt pointed out, many of us are afraid to fully "love" - we fear being being exposed to hurt. If, as I have come to conclude, there is Yin and Yang in all things, then there is joy and suffering even in the state of love. To open ourselves to love, therefore, requires courage and acceptance of both states. So perhaps we should be taught to be courageous first, to be more fearless. Maybe then we would be more open to the inevitable pain as well as joys of love?