Notes for Viktor Frankl oral report to class on September 22, 2005 Return to previous webpage
"Resources for Man's Search for Meaning"
- Neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl
- 1905-1997
- Born in Vienna March 26, 1905
- Educated University of Vienna, Austria. Medical degree 1930.
- Set-up cost free counseling centers for teenagers in 1928-29.
1933 in charge of suicidal women at Psychiatric Hospital, many
thousands of patients each year.
- Founded logotherapy -- emphasizes importance of meaning in patient's
life, especially gained through spiritual values. Logos Greek can
mean study, word, spirit, God or meaning.
- Finding meaning or purpose in your own existence is something
to discover rather than be given to you. Therapist helps you discover
your meaning or purpose in life.
- Man, says Frankl, "can only live by looking to the future."
(1963 , p. 115) "The prisoner who had lost faith in the future
-- his future -- was doomed
- "Underlining need of human existence is to find meaning
in life." (Encyclopedia Encarta)
- Man is saved through love and in love. "I understood how
a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss,
be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved."
(1963, p. 59)
- Even having nothing (as a concentration camp inmate), almost
no opportunity to create or enjoy, can hold onto like a life preserver,
high moral behavior. If he cannot control his external circumstances,
he can still illuminate his internal experiences by controlling
his attitude toward the misfortunes, pain around him.
- Third Viennese school of psychoanalysis
- First -- Freud's purpose to pleasure
- Second -- Adler's purpose to power
- Third -- Frankl purpose to meaning
- Most famous book Man's Search for Meaning
- First part story of years in concentration camp
- Second part explains logotherapy
- What distinguishes this book from others on the Holocaust is
that it emphasizes what characteristics enabled prisoners to survive
and even maintain a certain level of happiness in spite of their
terrible circumstances. (They saw meaning, purpose in their existence
and in the hardships they faced.)
- In concentration camp, reason to live to bring logotherapy to world
- Sept 1942 arrested in Vienna along with new bride, mother, father,
brother. Into concentration camp. Could have immigrated to US. Stayed
behind to help parents. Prisoner number 119,104
- Lost manuscript of his life time work The Doctor and
the Soul. Had sewn it into lining of coat. Lost on transfer
to Auschwitz. Re-wrote it on scraps of paper.
- Observed close up will to live "and dignity of suffering,
death, among terrible conditions."
- Frankl observed that those who survived in the concentration camps
(who were not murdered) concluded that what the philosopher Friedrich
Nietzche wrote: "He who has a why to live for can bear with
almost any how." Those camp inmates who had hopes of being
reunited with their loved ones, who felt they had jobs to complete,
or who had religious faith had better survival chances than those
who had given up all hope.
- Thought of wife, felt presence within him
- Thought of being reunited with wife and family kept him from losing
hope
- To survive needed vision of future
- Meaning in suffering. Bear it with dignity and courage.
- Helped despairing prisoners maintain their mental health instead
of giving into despair, indifference, surrendering to death.
- Three years in Auschwitz, Dachau, other concentration camps.
- 1945 liberated
- Had manuscript on Logotherapy published
- Discovered pregnant wife, mother, father, brother all died in
concentration camps.
- Wrote Man's Search for Meaning in nine days
- Married operating assistant Eleonore Schwindt, half his age.
1947.
- Returned to Vienna, became professor of neurology and psychiatry,
for thirty years until 1990 when he retired at age 90.
- Vigorous mountain climber and got his airplane pilot's license
at age 67
- Wrote thirty two books
- Best selling book Man's Search for Meaning: And Introduction
to Logotherapy (1962; translated into English 1970)
- Tells how he and other prisoners found meaning in their lives
- .By time of Frankl's death in 1997, sold more than 9 million
copies of Man's Search for Meaning, in 24 languages. Five million
copies in the U.S. alone
- Frankl published 31 other books on psychology.
- Frankl critical of modern psychology for not considering the spiritual
aspect of wellness. A person who lives without a purpose (meaning)
for his own existence is missing the very foundation of mental health
and happiness. In fact, a meaningless, purposeless view of life renders
if the body more susceptible to physical illness and premature death.
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