Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
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Book Reviews of Man's Search for Meaning
Book Review: Inspiring Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I originally bought this book knowing nothing about Frankl, his experiences, or psychological theories. I simply read the description and a few of the overwhelmingly positive reviews here on Amazon and decided that it sounded interesting. What a life-changing book. Merely reading it at any given time has a marked positive influence on my attitude towards life.
What's most interesting about it, as Frankl says himself, is that what he's propounding are not abstract ideas developed by some academic at a university or in some research laboratory. He uses his direct experience in one of the most adverse circumstances possible--a Nazi concentration camp--to relate the ideas of logotherapy (his own school of psychotherapy) to the reader.
In a nutshell, the three most important tenets of logotherapy are as follows: (1) Life has meaning under all circumstances--even the most miserable ones; (2) Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life; and (3) We have the freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering. These principles are put directly to the test, and Frankl demonstrates their validity in a way that no social scientist has conceived of (or been able to) ever before.
From the afterword:
"Frankl was once asked to express in one sentence the meaning of his own life. He wrote the response on paper and asked his students to guess what he had written. After some moments of quiet reflection, a student surprised Frankl by saying, 'The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.'
'That was it, exactly,' Frankl said. 'Those are the very words I had written.'"
Book Review: Intro to Logotherapy
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an important book if you are interested in human psychology, particularly in logotherapy. The book consists of three parts, the first is Dr. Frankls personal account of his survival at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. In the second part the author gives a concise summary of logotherapy (Def: It focuses on the meaning of the human existence and assists its patients to find meaning in their life.) and in the third and last chapter Frankl discusses "Tragic Optimism" and its usefulness.
I found Dr. Frankls account of his time in Auschwitz very interesting, yet not as emotionally moving as accounts by other authors. I believe that's because the author focused his writings on the psychological aspect of the whole experience, thus giving it a more clinical and detached feeling. This actually proved to be helpful to the reader in understanding the theories of logotherapy.
There were some really good insights in this book and I would like to quote the ones that I found to be most important:
"Don't aim at success- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication or a cause greater than oneself or as a by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it."
"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!"
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the meaning of life and how to live a meaningful life.
Book Review: Healing through reason
Summary: 4 Stars
In Man's search for meaning, Frankel details the account of his survival in a concentration camp and introduces the foundation of his idea on Logotherapy.
Many of you are familiar with the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps during the Second World War. One only needs to look at the terribly gaunt faces
staring from the pictures taken at some of the camps to shudder at the thought of the horrific experiences of these unfortunate people. For the lucky few who survived, only to discover their entire families were exterminated, existence most certainly
seemed meaningless.
By all accounts, Victor Frankel should have easily succumbed to a destructive behavior immediately after his liberation from a camp in Bohemia. Surviving some of the most
horrific encounters of those times, including overcoming a deadly case of typhoid fever, he was informed that his wife, his father, mother, and brother were all killed in various camps. Rather than commit suicide, he struggled to find meaning in his survival. It was this search for meaning that shaped the idea for a new brand in psychotherapy called
Logotherapy. Through this therapy, which literary means "healing through reason," he helped numerous patients focus on the challenges of their personal search for meaning in life. It would do justice to mention that he found a way to cope with his losses, marry, have a daughter, two grandchildren, and a great granddaughter. He taught at the University of Vienna until he was 85, wrote over 30 books, and was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
A very good read and highly recommended for those in search of life's meaning.
Book Review: Man's Search for Promoting His Psychological Theory
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm actually a little surprised this book has such a high rating. I enjoyed it, and it was a very powerful book but I would have liked to know that this book focused so much on the theory and origin of logotherapy.
This book was recommended to me by a family member who thought very highly of this book. Indeed, it was a very powerful book, yet (perhaps since it was written quite a time ago), it didn't connect or flow in the ways I was hoping it to. A book about the horrors of the holocaust- absolutely. A book about the foundations of the author's theory "logotherapy"?- yes. The meaning of life?- eh.
The author seems to spend an extended amount of time reflecting on his experiences in Nazi death camps, which were terrible and captivating, but became redundant. And although I had little interest in logotherapy to start with, I was open to learning more about it. I found the descriptions to be quite dense and forced, his attempt to describe logotherapy was sometimes a bit awkward and came off at times like a poorly written textbook. Specifically, the examples given about logotherapy I found sometimes to not be the best, sometimes the examples being more about other theories or not logotherapy at all.
Overall, not a bad book at all, I just found the title and descriptions to be misleading. This book has a lot to take in, and once you read it through it maybe worth going back to certain sections to fully be able to digest Frankl's material.op
Book Review: Finding Meaning in Life..."From Death Camp to Existentialism"
Summary: 5 Stars
Man's Search for Meaning was first recommended to me as an undergraduate majoring in psychology but I have read it several times over the years and with each reading I come away with added perspective, personally and professionally. I tend to only rate books as five-star when I come away feeling the experience has changed my life in a significant and positive way. Dr. Frankl's book is an inspiration, thought provoking, and life changing reminder that we always have choice and kindness and compassion always matter.
As a communicator, Dr. Frankl was extremely eloquent and I found that as I was being led through his life experiences, thoughts, and perception, I was able to process his message for myself. Within the pages of this thought-provoking book, about a psychologist who was a prisoner in concentration camps during WWII, Frankl proposes spiritual liberation is possible within any experience, "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."
This is one of those books that you keep on your shelf and reread from time to time. A very inspirational read, this short book is especially for those in search of life's meaning. The concepts flow logically and in a straightforward language. I recommend this book for everyone.