Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning

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about how we mistakenly use money and sex to replicate meaning) "Moreover, there are various masks and guises under which the existential vacuum appears. Sometimes the frustrated will to meaning is vicariously compensated for by a will to power, including the most primitive form of the will to power, the will to money. In other cases, the place of frustrated will is meaning is taken by the will to pleasure. That is why existential frustration often eventuates in sexual compensation. We can observe in such cases that the sexual libido becomes rampant in the existential vacuum." According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity. The book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part Two introduces his ideas of meaning and his theory called logotherapy. Let’s understand a little more about what the book teaches the reader. It is critical for us to determine whether the book is a good read or not.

Masele au fost educate să ia de bun orice argument al autorității, astfel că prea puține voci se ridică împotriva secului dumnezeu neștiut al lui Frankl. Poate și pentru că logoterapia suscită prea puțin interes. Ceea ce de data asta nu doar insinuează, ci spune de-a dreptul Frankl de-a lungul acestui volum este că și noi, cei nereligioși, suntem totuși religioși. Frankl susține totodată că religiozitatea și logoterapia trebuie separate, însă granițele dintre cele două sunt sever estompate atunci când se raportează teleologic la sensul ultim al vieții. Ceea ce pot însă concede este că religiozitatea poate juca un rol important în viața multor persoane aflate într-o situație de criză și astfel în menținerea integrității psihice (și chiar a celei fizice (Zimmer et al., 2019). Mai puțin clar, după lecturarea acestui set de conferințe, este în ce fel religiozitatea ar trebui abordată în logoterapie de către un terapeut care nu are nevoie să apeleze la astfel de cârje spirituale și cum se poate raporta acesta cel Dr. Frankl clearly shows us, our choice of attitude in any given situation, even in the most horrific places, is our freedom that cannot ever be taken away no matter where we are or what we may be going through.Overall, I would recommend this book to those interested in psychology, or those who want to read an inspiring tale by someone who survived the Nazi death camps and used his experience to transcend himself. Frankl veers into the spiritual side in the second portion of the book, which might perturb a few people, but for the most part he keeps his ideas open to everyone. For the rest of the review I'm just going to write down all of the book because it was so good a few of the quotes about logotherapy that stood out to me, so I can reference them later on. Feel free to read or skip. Noi, cei care am trăit în lagărele de concentrare, ne amintim de aceia care treceau din baracă în baracă, mîng��indu-i pe ceilalţi, dăruindu-le ultima lor îmbucătură de pîine. Vor fi fost puţini la număr, dar ei ne dau îndeajuns de multe dovezi că omului i se poate lua totul, mai puţin un lucru: ultima dintre libertăţile umane - respectiv aceea de a-și alege propria atitudine într-un anumit set de împrejurări date, de a-și alege propriul mod de a fi... La o ultimă analiză, ne devine limpede că genul de persoană care ajungea să devină deţinutul era rezultatul unei decizii lăuntrice, nu doar rezultatul influenţelor lagărului asupra sa” (p.79). Here, Frankl brings us directly and inevitably against the question of how. How does one give meaning to one’s suffering when one’s subject, in their everyday life, to larger systemic forces that feel impossible to overcome? Frankl’s theory of Logotherapy does not deny that there are circumstances beyond our control, but it insists that there is one thing that we are able to control, which is “the way(s) in which we respond to (them).” What is available in the search for meaning, in other words, is the deepest kind of freedom. “It is not freedom from conditions,” to borrow Frankl’s words, “but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.” The freedom one is born with, which is as inextricable from one’s self as a strand of DNA. The freedom to imagine an elsewhere and an otherwise, or as Frankl puts it, to imagine a present that is both past and future: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” The principle of responsibleness is therefore integral to Frankl’s vision of freedom: the pursuit of meaning has the immense power to heal the fissures that suffering makes on the imagination—but only if we can first extend our imagination to articulate what we are responsible for. This begins the second stage, in which there is a danger of deformation. As the intense pressure on the mind is released, mental health can be endangered. Frankl uses the analogy of a diver suddenly released from his pressure chamber. He recounts the story of a friend who became immediately obsessed with dispensing the same violence in judgment of his abusers that they had inflicted on him. Ca persoană care a suferit de depresie clinică și a urmat un tratament cu antidepresive, nu vreau să omit nici faptul că Frankl îți bagă sensul pe gât, vrei nu vrei, astfel nici măcar bieții sinucigași nu au voie să trăiască un vid existențial autentic pentru că, ei bine, dacă „nu ar mai crede cu adevărat în sens, n-ar mai fi capabili să miște nici măcar un deget și, de aceea, nu ar avea nici determinarea să se sinucidă.(pp. 99)” Să nu uităm un alt episod al istoriei care s-a întins pe o perioadă suficient de lungă astfel încât memoria lui să fie încă vie și astăzi, când persoanelor cu dizabilități intelectuale le era luat dreptul de a se autoguverna - non compos mentis, sicut quidam sunt per lucida intervalla, întocmai precum Frankl neagă faptul că anumite persoane și-ar putea trăi (culmea!) propria realitate. Ce poate fi mai egoist decât să îi refuzi unei persoane dreptul la propriul destin și corp? Iată motivul pentru care atât de multe persoane cu boli în stadiu terminal mor în condiții în care nicio persoană zdravănă la cap nu ar lăsa să sfârșească un câine.

The arguments in favor of Frankl's own ideas--though I like many of the ideas--are not wholly convincing either. Take the beginning of the chapter "The Transcendent Quality of Conscience": Victor Frankl takes us by the hand and walks us through some of the most devastating inhumane conditions imaginable. Be warned, this is not an easy read by any means. The scenes and stories told will reach your core and make you wonder why humans beings were ever created if they could do such terrible things to one another as described in the concentration camps. This is not a story of survival or a description of how the author suffered during those days. Of course, suffering was there. And oh, how the author described suffering in a new light attached to the meaning of life! It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ... In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.Frankl explayando su logoterapia dirá que el inconsciente no es algo impulsivo, sino que ve en él elementos espirituales. Lo cataloga sí, de impulsivo pero a su vez es espiritual. Dicha dimensión ayuda a una rehabilitación del inconsciente, que para eso existe lo espiritual; No es una idea nueva, de hecho es una división de frontera muy nítida pero vital. In addition, he says that we should return to these more traditional values ​​and seek the importance of religion in our lives, as they make modern man able to find meaning in his life.

Frankl here concerns himself with that murky line between psychological analysis and religious exploration that both intertwine with self-development. His religious discussion is decidedly open and mystical when he writes that religion goes beyond the "concept of God promulgated by many representatives of denominational and institutional religion". Later German editions prefixed the title with Trotzdem Ja zum Leben Sagen ("Nevertheless Say Yes to Life"), taken from a line in Das Buchenwaldlied, a song written by Friedrich Löhner-Beda while an inmate at Buchenwald. [4] The central idea behind Man's Search to Meaning, as described throughout Part I of the book and extending to an academic discussion in Part II, titled "Logotherapy" is the idea of "Man's Will to Meaning" being the central and overarching goal of each person's life. Man’s Search for Meaning weaves together compelling personal narrative and profound scientific inquiry into a short volume that is luminous, insightful, and deeply empowering. Frankl provides us with an extraordinary investigation into his doctrine of Logotherapy, a branch of therapy that believes that “the primary motivational force” of a human being is the striving to find a meaning in his life. There are many points that justify reading the book, and I will focus here on those that I find most appealing.In addition, he goes through all the main fundamentals of the psychological school created by Viktor Frankl, albeit superficially. However, sometimes something more substantial is needed. As Frankl points out, having some visible goal could mean the world to him and his fellow prisoners. It allowed them to remain humans in dehumanizing circumstances when people turned on people without mercy. And of course, if you haven’t read other Viktor Frankl books, this book will be fantastic – and I think it’s a great introduction to the author. Read a summary about Psychotherapy and Existentialism here. Positive Points of Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning There's so much more to this book regarding the camp inmates; discussion on the psychology of prisoners; it not only handles about life issues on just all the issues mentioned before but also about life in general - family and various human needs and emotions. Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. In a group therapy session during a mass fast inflicted on the camp's inmates trying to protect an anonymous fellow inmate from fatal retribution by authorities, Frankl offered the thought that for everyone in a dire condition there is someone looking down, a friend, family member, or even God, who would expect not to be disappointed. Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering. The inner hold a prisoner has on his spiritual self relies on having a hope in the future, and that once a prisoner loses that hope, he is doomed.