Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl | 1946 | Pocket Books | Paperback $15

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful.

It is possible that this book is the example of a work that can be both horribly depressing and emotionally uplifting at the same time.

I put this title on my Classics Club list because it is a “classic” in both the field of psychiatry and in the study of the history of the Holocaust. Viktor E. Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist and socialist in Austria when it was taken over by the Nazis. Eventually, he and his family were sent to concentration camps. Though he survived the camps, his wife and most of his other family members were murdered.

This experience crystalized for the author his idea of logotherapy, the idea that psychological health depends on a person’s active search for meaning, or mindfully finding a reason for being. Though I did not know it had an official name at first, I have found this philosophy helpful during my own struggles.

To be clear, I am not comparing my struggles to those of a Holocaust survivor! I only mean that there is something comforting, even a little justifying, in learning that a person who went through all that trauma was able to continue on with his life by focusing on this idea — that life inherently has meaning, and the will to live is really a drive to search for one’s purpose.

That said, to me the most interesting parts of the book centered on the author’s own story rather than his ideas. I do love a good memoir. Some of the more detailed discussion of various psychotherapy philosophies seemed repetitive and rather pseudoscientific, verging on psychobabble, though it’s quite possible that some of it simply went over my head.

Links:

• Viktor E. Frankl’s obituary in the New York Times
• Viktor Frankl Institute of Vienna
• Viktor Frankl Institute of America

Publication information: Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s search for meaning. [United States]: Pocket Books, 1985. Paperback.
Source: Personal library.
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