Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #365 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• 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

Susan Jeffers, author of Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway and Embracing Uncertainty
'Remarkable...It changed my life and became a part of all that I live and all that I teach.'

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

"Man is ultimately self-determining",
Viktor Frankl was a distinguished neurologist and psychiatrist and the founder of logotherapy. He was also the 32 books which were published in 32 languages-

After three horrific years at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps , Dr Frankl gained his freedom only to learn that his entire family had been murdered. But during , the terrible suffering and degradation of those grim years , he developed his theory of logotherapy.
The first half of the book delves into his experiences in the concentration camps.

The author analyses the character of the Capo-prisoners chosen to be trustees and guards of the other inmates- usually because of their brutality and meanness.
Frankl observes that 'the best of us did not return'from the concentration camps.
He examines three phases of the inmates mental reaction to concentration camp life-the period following his admission ; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation".

Ultimately in recounting the horrors and dehuminization of concentration camp existance , of being continually stalked by death , , Frankl explains how he survived , and kept his humanity at the same time. The author explains how every moment in the camps offered the opportunity to make decisions about whether or not to submit to the powers which "threatened to rob you of your inner self , your inner freedom."
The point made was that ultimately the type of person the prisoner would become , was the result of an inner decision , and not of camp influences alone.

Frankl refers to the martyrs whose behaviour in the camp , whose suffering and death , demonstrated the fact that their last inner freedom could not be lost.
"It can be said that they where worthy of their suffering ; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievment. It is this spiritual freedom which cannot be taken away- that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

Frabkl speaks of the dream which kept him alive in the camp , of lecturing and practising psychiatry- that is essentially G-D's commission to Frankl. The prisoner who lost faith in his future was doomed.

The prisoners said to each other that no earthly happyness could alleviate the suffering they had experienced in the camps , but Frankl writes that "The crowning experience of all , for the homecoming man is the wonderful feeling that , afetr all he has suffered , there is nothing he need fear anymore-except for G-D".

The second part of the book explains Frankl's theory of psychology known as logotherapy.
"According to logotherapy , the striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man".

Frankl deals with the universality of values. He notes that in the Nazi concentration camps those who knew that their was a task waiting for them to be fulfilled where more likely to survive".
On the meaning of life one cannot live for some general goal alone. That goal must be meaningfully present in every moment to make the moment alive in terms of it's destination and future.

The meaning of life is that G-d asks every person to answer for his or her life i.e "What will you make of your life , my child".
Only personal choices are authentic choices . Life in it's ultimate meaning confronts us with other people whose lives we influence by the way we are towards them.

"A human being is not one thing among others , things determine each other , but man is ultimately self-determining".

Lesson from Nazi death camps for everyday life
I'm not a scientist by training and have often bought psychology books in the past only to be disappointed.

However Mr Frankls' book is amazing. It is effectively in two parts the first being about his experiences in a WWII concentration camp and the second being about his revolutionary theory of logotherapy. This theory which, very basically says that we should all strive to find meaning in our lives (meaning coming from within not imposed from without), is very convincing and has even assisted me in my daily life.

Would definitely recommend this book as although the context is WWII concentration camps there are lessons here for the twenty-first century Westerner.

The only reason I have given it 4 stars is because some of the psychological reasoning in the latter part of the book is at times difficult to follow.

The triumph of hope over experience
This book should probably be considered as three extended essays which are tied together by the common theme of Logotherapy. Logotherapy is the psychotherapeutic discipline which was produced by Viktor Frankl and which developed in the light of his experiences in concentration camps. This popular account could be considered as him 'setting out his stall' for what this approach has to offer. For those with a interest in psychotherapy generally or Logotherapy in particular, then this is going to be an important book.

The first half of the book describes his experiences in a concentration camp. He acknowledges his debt to Nietzsche, "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." This quotation crops up again and again in reviews of this book and it is central to understanding Frankl's perspective.

This is not a search for a single meaning, however. Frankl is more sophisticated than this. He sees the possibility of various meanings and purposes to life - which can change at different stages of life and can run concurrently too. The sense of meaning and purpose can redeem even the most abject suffering. For him, this is not idle speculation or vague theorising but is rooted in his own experience.

The second half of the book turns increasingly towards a description of Logotherapy. This is where I must express my reservations about this book. If your interest is in a first-hand description of life in a concentration camp, then I would recommend that you try Primo Levi's 'If This Is a Man' in preference to this book. If your interest is in the psychology of genocide then Robert Jay Lifton's 'The Nazi Doctors' is highly recommended.