Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70437 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 165 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

This Book Changed My Life...
One of the greatest books of the 20th century. Some time in the future, when humans finally turn off the TV and start asking themselves why the hell they're here in the firstplace, this book might be of great assistence. Best read annually.

An inspirational read
I actually came across this book when doing a search for a Freud book on Amazon, and was interested enough to buy this book instead book. With hindsight my interest was one of the biggest cases of understatement I know.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian Jew who spent much of the Second World War in several concentration camps including Auschwitz and Dachau. Man's Search for Meaning in part details some of the experiences Frankl suffered (from the perspective of everyday life during this time), how he used his mind to help him survive, which in subsequent years formed his theory of logotherapy.

Following WW2, Frankl returned to the University of Vienna Medical School where he further developed these theories into what is now known as logotherapy (the Third Viennese school of Psychotherapy, following Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology).

The book itself splits into two parts. Firstly, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp" details what Frankl describes as the three stages of the prisoner's mental reaction to camp: the period following admission; when entrenched in camp routine; and following release and liberation. In this Frankl describes his mental reaction throughout his ordeals and how his will to survive kept him alive. On several occasions he notes fellow-prisoners who die almost immediately after losing their will to survive.

The second part "Logotherapy in a Nutshell" is the formalisation of these experiences by Frankl into logotherapy, and perhaps on reflection is even more significant than the first part. In reading this section of the book, the reader is able to apply Frankl's teaching to their own life and how relevant it may be to their own perspective on what the future may hold and what the meaning of life may actually be.

I found this book hugely moving and quite inspirational from the perspective of Frankl's determination to survive and search for the meaning of life. I was interested to read on the back cover the words of one reviewer, Susan Jeffers who herself is world-renowned for self-psychoanalysis who says "The book changed by life and became a part of all that I live and that I teach".

A must-read!

A medical reviewer from Bristol
We used this excellent little book in a discussion group among friends at work.Very readable and moving account of a Holocaust survivor and his philosophy of life as to how he survived. Full of graphic but thought provoking stories from the Nazi extermination camps of the Second World War. Incredible testimony to how 'life will out', how even in the worst that man can do, somehow there can yet be hope, and meaning can be found. I wish I had met the author, he sounds a truly remarkable, gracious and humble man.