Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
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Book Summary Information
Author: Viktor E. FranklEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07
ISBN: 0738203548
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Book Reviews of Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
Book Review: Away with the existential vacuum!
Summary: 4 Stars
"We psychiatrists are neither teachers nor preachers but have to learn from the man in the street, from his ... self-understanding, what being human is all about". Of all those who applied existentialism to psychotherapy and to the efforts of human beings to help themselves, perhaps none has done so with as much wisdom as Viktor Frankl.
Although I didn't connect with the first 50 or so pages of this book, after that I was challenged and inspired by Frankl. His concerns, the "existential vacuum", the depressing impact of an "indoctrination into reductionism", the irreducibility of our experience, "responsibility as the essence of existence", these are well worth being reminded of.
That a "machine model" or "rat model" is not the best way to view human beings, does it seem such a revelation? Frankl observed how some young people had begun to view their ideals and altruism as hangups, how they had been engaging in fruitless "hidden motive" games. He wondered if behavioral scientific therapeutic programs didn't fail to take into account the specialness of people to find meaning, to transcend and to detach themselves from their situations. He called for responsibility and a recognition that we all proceed into the unknowable.
Frankl's approach is quite different from that of Freud, Jung, Skinner or even Rogers (Frankl at least credits in this book Rogers with "de-ideologizing psychotherapy"). His work still lives on, as for example in the United States through the Franklian Psychology (Logotherapy/Existential Analysis)doctoral program offered through Graduate Theological Foundation. Frankl himself, as he makes clear in this book, suggested a concept of spirituality and religion that "goes far beyond the narrow concepts of God as they are promulgated by some representatives of denominational religion", one that encompassed even atheism.
It would seem unfortunate if Frankl and his existential analysis that assumed a "will to meaning" were forgotten. Existentialism remains one of the great reponses of Western civilization to the challenges of life and Viktor Frankl one of its best practical advocates. I realize I need to read more about Frankl, logotherapy and existential analysis in general. It may be the best expression of a sacred view of being human we have in the West.
Summary of Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
Viktor Frankl is known to millions of readers as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometime unconscious human desire for inspiration or revelation, and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.
Viktor Frankl, author of the smash bestseller Man's Search for Meaning, offers a more straightforward alternative to traditional Freudian psychoanalysis: one's problems may be rooted in a failure to find a meaning in life beyond one's interior world. The basis for his interpretation, however, is not so straightforward. It lies in Frankl's existential analysis, plumbing for the reasons that people have repressed their consciences, their love, their creativity. By legitimizing a spiritual aspect of the human mind, Frankl has separated us definitively from the animal kingdom, but it is still up to each of us to rise to our human potential.
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