By Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor Frankl devoted his life to helping others find the meaning of theirs. In Man's Search For Meaning, (written in just nine days), Frankl recounts his experience of Nazi concentration camps and the lessons he learned from it, most notably: No matter what happens, people retain the freedom to choose how to respond -- not the least of these choices is how to respond to suffering.
Frankl believed this to his core. His personal credo: “An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being.” Frankly contended that there is always a residue of freedom, even in cases of neurosis and psychosis (a mental disorder characterized by a disconnection from reality.) 107
Read Viktor Frankl and you will see that personal responsibility reins. He writes, "It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence." Viktor Frankl, age 16. (126). Earlier in his book, he notes:
Man is ultimately self-determining. . . .In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.(107)
How did the author arrive at his conclusions? From astute observations of life inside one of the most hideous places on earth, the Nazi Concentration Camp. Frankl himself relied on a host of measures to survive the pain and misery of concentration camps which included Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering, And Turkheim. That which helped Frankly survive is that which undergirds all endurance: "Inborn optimism, humor, psychological detachment, brief moments of solitude, inner freedom and steely resolve not to give up or commit suicide," but most important
He realized that, no matter what happened, he retained the freedom to chose how to respond to his suffering.
There is so much to take away from Man’s Search For Meaning, here a few highlights for me:
1. Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensure. One must have a reason to “be happy.” 112
2. Three three phases/symptons of camp life: (1) Admission to camp/shock; (2) Entrenched in camp routine/apathy (3) Release & liberation/depersonalization to becoming fully human again. 7ff, 23ff
3. Humor is one of the soul’s weapons in its fight for self-preservation. 35,36
4. Suffering: Like an invisible gas, suffering fills up the soul and conscious mind whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the ‘size’ of human suffering is relative. 36
5. Tears in suffering: There was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bear witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. 64
6. Individual uniqueness: “When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude.” 64
7. Immunity: The close connection between the state of one’s mind (hope/meaning) and the state of one’s immunity. Giving up lowers the body’s immunity. 61 “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future — his future — was doomed.” 60 “A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts.” 58.
8. Nothingbutness — read his thoughts, 104f
My copy of Man’s Search For Meaning included a forward by the brilliant Martin Gilbert. The book itself included a timeline of Frankly’s life and was divided into three parts: (1) Frankl’s experiences in a Concentration Camp; (2) A brief overview of Logotherapy, the author’s contribution to psychological theory, and (2) a postscript, “The Case for a Tragic Optimism,” that contends life can “retain its potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects.” 111
Here are few of my favorite quotes:
1. Nietzsche: That which does not kill me makes me stronger. 66
2. Nietzsche: He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.
3. Frankl: “The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.” (A student summarizing Frankl’s life) 132
4. Frankl: “I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statute of Responsibilities on the West Coast.” 106, 128
I was curious as to why Frankl, himself Jewish and married to a Catholic, hinted at his faith (quoting passages from the Bible, but never giving the source) but never spoke of it. In his Afterword, William J. Winslade notes:
As a psychiatrist, Frankl avoided direct reference to his personal religious beliefs. He was fond of saying that the aim of psychiatry was the healing of the soul, leaving to religion the salvation of the soul.
Yes, I should have read this book years ago, but now I have and I am glad I did. As Frankl noted in 1992, “if hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of meaning to life, it must be a question that burns under their fingernails.” xix
I agree. You probably won’t agree with everything the author says. I certainly did not. That said, I waled away wiser for this encounter.