Product Description

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #676 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is among the most influential works of psychiatric literature since Freud. The book begins with a lengthy, austere and deeply moving personal essay about Frankl's imprisonment in Auschwitz and other concentration camps for five years and his struggle during this time to find reasons to live. The second part of the book, called "Logotherapy in a Nutshell" describes the psychotherapeutic method that Frankl pioneered as a result of his experiences in the concentration camps. Freud believed that sexual instincts and urges were the driving force of humanity's life; Frankl, by contrast, believes that man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. Therefore, Frankl's logotherapy is much more compatible with western religions than Freudian psychotherapy. This is a fascinating, sophisticated and very human book. At times, Frankl's personal and professional discourses merge into a style of tremendous power. "Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is", Frankl writes. "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, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips." --Christine Buttery

Review
"This is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. It changed my life and became a part of all that I live and all that I teach. It truly is a must-read book. - Susan Jeffers, author of Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway and Embracing Uncertainty. A poignant testimony married to a profound confirmation. In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl declares that evil and ennui cannot finally extinguish us. This deeply sensitive book stands as one of the primary building blocks of human consciousness. It is a hymn to the phoenix rising in each of us who choose life before flight. - Brian Keenan, author of An Evil Cradling. Viktor Frankl, who turned his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz into the basis for a new school of psychotherapy, is one of the moral heroes of the 20th century. His insights into human freedom, dignity and the search for meaning are deeply humanising, and have the power to transform lives. His works are essential reading for those who seek to understand the human condition. - Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks. An enduring work of survival literature - New York Times. If you read but one book this year, Dr Frankl's book should be that one. - Los Angeles Times. Perhaps the most significant thinking since Freud and Adler. Unconditional faith in an unconditional meaning is Dr Frankl's message to the reader. - The American Journal of Psychiatry. Influential and eloquent - Jewish Chronicle"

Brian Keenan, author of An Evil Cradling
'A poignant testimony...a hymn to the phoenix rising in each of us who choose life before flight.'

Customer Reviews

Exceptionally deep.
What gives this book a very distinguished credibility and authenticity is the pertinent fact that the author formulated his ideas while as a Holocaust prisoner. Immediately the reader is taken out of the comfort zone as the captive and dehumanising realities of such a barbaric context are presented.

Frankl looks very very deeply at what provides human strength to get over the most forlorn, hopeless and torturing circumstances. Nietzche's dictum "What doesn't kill us only make us stronger?" planted itself in my mind throughout this book and just did not move.

It's very difficult to find any sort of fault with any story where humanity can triumph inhumanity, it really is. There's just such a sense of sadness and misery that the fact that someone can ruminate the meaning of life is relation to love is almost surreal. It's almost as if every veneer of life is stripped back such that all that is left is a naked conciousness which tries to assert itself like a immutable flame which must burn for some intrinsic, innate reason that can only be explained by a very penetrating and intense love.

It's not a scientific approach with a ground breaking theory. It's a remarkable human story containing a most precious and valid reflection from an intelligent man who was lucky and strong enough to make it through something our worst nightmares could not even come close to.

Throw out your self-help books!
This is an utterly remarkable book for so many reasons. The work as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. What I mean by this is the following: the book is not great psychology, nor great philosophy nor even great narrative. And yet, as a whole it is a truly great book.

Why? Because it makes a definitive impact. I cannot say that I walked away from this book unchanged. I suppose it is Viktor Frankl himself who makes all the difference -- in him you find a truly humane, humble and ultimately wise human being. I was truly impressed to hear him quoting Nietzsche while in a concentration camp; this at a time when Nietzsche's work had been distorted and used to promote anti-Semitism by the Nazis.

One warning though -- his existentialist philosophy is somewhat outdated and really needs to be complemented by a contemporary understanding of human nature. If this review had been written near the time that this book was first published I would have given it, without reservation, five stars.

The search for meaning through experience and psychology
I was shocked by the small size when I received this book from Amazon. I had heard so much about the book, and expected a great deal from it. Compared to most books in the self-help section, this book is tiny, but Frenkl conveys his story clearly and succinctly in 150 pages.

Assuming that his readers will have read or heard the more gruesome details of the concentration camp, Frenkl describes the daily reality of a prisoner's experience. With poignant moments scattered throughout the first (autobiographic) part of the book, he describes how people survived, supported others and died in that world. As a psychologist, he also tells the reader how and why he and others made some of their choices during that time. On its own this is a gripping read.

In the second part of the book, he relates this experience to his own form of psychology - logotherapy. This form of psychology focuses on man's search for the purpose and meaning in life. This part of the book becomes quite academic at times, but is well worth persevering with, to put the earlier part into current context.