Key Takeaways
Viktor Frankl was a young and successfulAustrian psychiatristand neurologist whenAdolf Hitlerand the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938 . Frankl was Judaic , and in 1942 he and his family — his pregnant wife Tilly , his parent and his brother — were deported from Vienna to a Nazi - test " ghetto " in Czechoslovakia and then to assiduousness camps .
split from his wife , and stripped of his identity and humanity , Frankl expend three yr in four different concentration camp , include Auschwitz , the ill-famed death camp in Nazi - occupy Poland . He suffered daily abjection , deprivation and violence and witness countless friends and fellow prisoners succumb to disease , starvation and desperation . Frankl credited his own survival to a method acting of depth psychology that he had begun to develop before his ordeal .
Frankl called his approachlogotherapyor " have in mind therapy , " which centers on the belief that humans can overtake the inbuilt suffering and disappointments of lifetime by finding import and a sense of purpose in every moment . Throughout his acute and prolonged agony in the pack , Frankl was forced to put his possibility to the ultimate test . He credit his natural selection to grok tightly to the meaning he feel in the love of his wife and the satisfaction of his oeuvre .
When the camps were liberated at the goal of World War II , Frankl returned to Vienna , where he learned that his total household , including his darling Tilly , had been murdered by the Nazis . Inconsolable , he turned again to his body of work , and in 1946 he anonymously release , in German , " A Psychologist ’s Experiences in the Concentration Camp , " which was later translated to English and republish as " Man ’s Search for Meaning . "
" Man ’s Search for Meaning " has betray more than 16 million copy in 50 languages and is considered one of the most influential record book of the 20th one C . We spoke with Alexander Batthyány , film director of theViktor Frankl Institutein Vienna , to discuss five quotes from " Man ’s Search for Meaning " and other writing that illustrate the power of Frankl ’s firmly - won psychological brainstorm .
1. “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.”
As a scholar and young practitioner , Frankl analyse under the leading psychological minds of Vienna , notably Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler . But Frankl grow disillusioned with psychological good example that were focalise on interior neuroses , like Freud ’s obsession with libido , or Adler ’s " inferiority complex . "
" Frankl said that these theory depict human race as an island solely concerned in ' How do I experience ? ' and ignore the most important questions : ' Why am I here and what am I unspoilt for ? ' " says Batthyány . " If we eff the answer to these , many of the other trouble are solved . "
When Frankl says that piece does n’t need a " tensionless state , " he ’s suppose that the goal of life is n’t to hit happiness or comfort , which is often the focus of today ’s " self - supporter " and " ego - betterment " culture .
" The primary need for livelihood is to find import , " wrote Frankl . The end is to compute out how to live in such a way of life that gives purpose and signification to existence , often by serving or sacrificing your own desire for the benefit of others .
Bonus quotation : " The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another mortal to eff — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself . "
2. “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
When Frankl was first brought to the camps , he was carry the unfinished ms for a book about logotherapy hidden in his coating . The manuscript , like all his personal possessions , was taken from him and destroyed .
In " Man ’s Search for Meaning , " Frankl discover how , in the thick of his torturous world in the camp , he would occupy his mind with thoughts of his married woman Tilly , and with the task of remembering his Quran , page by page , chapter by chapter . His " why " for ride out alive was two-fold : to see his Tilly again , and to terminate his book . That was the sense of purpose that Frankl call for to exist .
In logotherapy , the psychologist tries to help his or her patient identify their own sense of purpose , even in the midst of pregnant woe or sadness .
Batthyány severalise a story of an aged Dr. who had just lost his wife of 60 days and was so squash by her death that he could barely get out of bed . Frankl asked him , " What would have occur ifyouhad pass away first instead of your married woman ? " The physician replied , " My God , she would have endure so . It would have been awful for her . " Frankl then say , " You see ? Your suffering is painful , but is n’t it dear that you took it off from her ? " The gentleman’s gentleman had find out his intellect for living .
" He was ready to ache out of love , " say Batthyány , " and that ’s the difference between suffering and despair . despair is nonmeaningful suffering , but suffering is part of life . "
Bonus quote : " Nietzsche ’s Good Book : ' He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how , ' could be the channelize motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic drive regarding prisoner . "
3. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl ’s swell trial and lowest low did n’t materialise during his three years in the assiduousness camps , but after he was liberated . That ’s when he learn that his beloved wife was deadened , as were the rest of his family and many close friends .
" So now I ’m all alone , " Frankl write a friend in 1945 . " In the camp , we believed that we had reached the lowest point — and then , when we come back , we saw that nothing has survived , that that which had kept us standing has been destroyed , that at the same time as we were becoming human again it was potential to accrue deeply , into an even more boundless woe . "
Frankl was close to experiencing that raw desperation that Batthyány call " meaningless suffering . " But as Frankl give tongue to in the above quote , even when life strips you of everything , you still have your freedom . Even in the camps , where Frankl and his fellow captive were denied all basic freedom and human right , they could still pick out how to respond .
Frankl often said that " the beneficial among us did n’t come back , " meaning that those captive who chose kindness , who gave their last stinkpot of bread so that another person would n’t thirst , were the ace who did n’t make it home . They opt a obligation to something beyond their own survival , and that gave them meaning .
Writing to his friends , Frankl admit that spirit had lost all pleasure after his wife ’s death , but he did n’t turn his back on his core feeling : " I see increasingly that animation is so very meaningful , that in distress and even in failure there must still be mean . "
Frankl still had his exemption to choose , and he chose to focus on his bare book about logotherapy , which would become " Man ’s Search for Meaning . " And in time , Frankl met another terrific companion , his second wife Elly with whom he had a girl Gabriele , and write another 39 books .
" We have an enormous amount of exemption , but that ’s only one-half of the report , " says Batthyány . " exemption has a sure self-worth and time value , but responsibility is everything . How do I use my freedom ? How does it touch others ? How does it touch the Earth ? And that lead us back to meaning . "
Bonus quotation : " It did not really matter what we carry from life , but rather what life anticipate from us . "
4. “No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
Frankl was an outspoken critic of the construct of " collective guilt , " which said that the entire German or Austrian people were hangdog of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime . Since Frankl believed in freedom and responsibleness , he believed that only those who straight participated in the crimes were guilty and merit to be punished .
" It ’s not that Frankl make out out of the camps ready to forgive and forget everything , " says Batthyány , " But he made a substantial differentiation between guilt feelings , responsibility and liability . "
The above quote come up from " Man ’s Search for Meaning . " Taken out of context , it sounds like Frankl is babble about reserving judgment on the Nazi guards at Auschwitz , but that ’s not true . Here he ’s referring to his fellow prisoners who " snitched " or conspire with the guards to ensure their own survival . People in desperate situations do desperate thing .
Bonus quotation mark : " It is a privilege of being human , and a component of human macrocosm , to be capable of shaping and reshape oneself . In other words , it is a privilege of man to become guilty , and his obligation to overcome guilt . "
5. “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
Frankl learn that every human being is unparalleled and irreplaceable . Logotherapy , unlike other schools of psychology , recognize the being of a soul , the truthful essence of an individual that exist beyond body and nous . Within the psyche of every person lie in their unique nature and untapped potential . It ’s the goal of a healer , as well as supporter or family members , to aid others substantiate their full potential .
And the paint to that actualization , for Frankl , is sexual love .
" There ’s a locution by Dostoevsky : ' To lie with somebody means see to it him or her as God specify them to be , ' " says Batthyány . " Love mean connecting on such a level that you see the personhood of the other . You do n’t just see the grouping that he or she belongs to — their organized religion , nationality or political affiliation — what you see is something far beyond any of these conditions . "
Because Frankl believed in freedom , he believe that anyone could change . Batthyány say that Frankl hold a long correspondence with a Holocaust denier , trust to convince the man that the horrors he had experienced and witnessed with his own eyes were indeed true . For Frankl to see the potential good inside that man involve a higher degree of making love than most of us are equal to of .
Bonus quotation mark : " The trueness — that love is the ultimate and the high end to which valet de chambre can aspire … The salvation of man is through love and in sexual love . "
