mans search for meaning analysis

Dr. Frankl also explains his theory on neurosis and how it is tied to the meaning of life. Frankl differs from the ideas of Freud. Freud believed that the basis of neurosis is in unconscious motives. Frankl believes that the basis for neurosis is man's search for his own meaning. Furthermore he explains that ones own meaning is constantly changing; therefor, the means for our suffering is constantly changing. Frankl explains, "What matters, therefor, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." Frankl describes we discover our specific meaning at a given moment. "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by

We are meant to become our truest selves by finding meaning in our lives, which, according to Frankl, can come from three places: work, love, and our attitude in the face of horrific suffering or difficulty. And at the center of this meaning is our responsibility and human right to choose. In Frankl’s theory, we all strive to fulfill a self-chosen goal, from which meaning has the potential to be found. And if no meaning is found, there is meaning yet to be found, or meaning to be drawn from the apparent lack of meaning. Whatever the case, Frankl viewed man’s lack of meaning as the greatest existential crisis, the stress of this meaninglessness giving life and shape to all of our neuroses.

Shock, apathy, and disillusionment were three psychological stages that the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps experienced. Ironically, it took an event of such tragedy and destruction to enable us to learn more about how the human mind responds to certain situations. Frankl’s methods for remaining positive can be used by every human being to give them a meaning in their lives regardless of what predicament or mental state they are in – it is in many ways like a phoenix risen from the

Through Frankl's view of suicide you can discover his view of human person. Suicide is wrong in all cases, and should not be even considered an option. He believes that all people can find some meaning in life which would prevent them from giving up all hope and ending their lives. Every human life has meaning, and therefore every human life has value. While in a concentration camp serving as a doctor to those who were ill with typhus or other diseases, he encountered two individuals who had given up hope on life. He asked them both to think of something worth living for. One answered that he had a son waiting for him at home, and the other said he was writing a book and wanted to finish it. Frankl helped them find meaning in their lives to hold on to some hope. Just as they did, anyone can find a meaning to live for, whether it be another person or a goal or achievement.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl tells the honest story of his own experiences as an inmate in a concentration camp during World War II. In his book, Frankl answers the question “How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?” (Frankl, 2006, p. 3) He describes the physical, emotional, and psychological torment that he endured as well as the effect that the camp had on those around him. He breaks down the psychological experience as a prisoner into three stages: the initial shock upon admission into the camp, apathy, and the mental reactions of the prisoner after liberation. He highlights certain emotions experienced throughout the time in the camp such as delusions of reprieve, hope, curiosity, surprise, and even humor.

In the text, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl states, “We who lived… remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread,” and the reader comes to find that these men in question were specifically driven by hope to continue fighting. They were already in poor conditions; Frankl himself states that the pieces of bread given away were the last ones belonging to the men. How then, are they relying on hope in this instance, if instead it just looks as if they’re making a benevolent final act? It is because those men have hope in those they aid to continue the fight; for, as each individual had their own, personal conflict, those men are continuing their individual fights by, to put it in crude terms, giving the Nazis the finger and embracing an apprentice on their deathbed like in every fantasy game ever. It is therefore that hope can provide the self what it may need as fuel provides fire with what it

During the ghettoization process of the Holocaust, the constant mistreatment received from authoritarian figures wore down the spirit of the Jews. After having their citizenship revoked as a result of the Nuremberg laws, the Jews were susceptible to physical, emotional, and psychological harassment and abuse. In Elie Wiesel’s case, a majority of the pain inflicted on him and his community was conducted by the Hungarian police. By being segregated into ghettos -- and at the end of constant abuse -- the Jew’s spirits were defeated and they had their hope whittled down to nothingness. In his book, “Night”, towards the end of living in the ghetto, Wiesel details how “weariness had settled into our veins, our limbs, our brains, like molten lead” (Wiesel 16).

Man’s Search For Meaning details Viktor Frankl’s horrifying experiences in Nazi concentration camps during the holocaust, and during that time he found meaning in his life. And he describes three things that were the most important factors that contributed to his and some prisoners survival: love, work, and suffering. It was because of those three things that they were able to survive. Many found hope in the thought that a love one was waiting , others were so preoccupied with work they were un able to think, and most effective was

The Holocaust is regarded as one of the worst events in human history. In fact, the vast majority of those who were sent to a concentration camp perished there. When prisoners view the despair all around them, they find it hard to see meaning behind all the suffering. Life is no longer worth living, so many prisoners see suicide as the only option to escape the pain. As a psychiatrist who was sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp notorious for its crematoriums, Viktor Frankl has a special perspective on the loss of the will to live that those imprisoned exhibit. In his own words, “Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths”(Frankl 94). Frankl discovers in himself not only the shock and apathy he displays, but also the strange hope that comes with imagining his freedom. The brutality of the Holocaust changes Frankl and brings out his true self while teaching him that he and others can survive the worst of terrors by setting a purpose in life, which only they can individually determine.

Beginning in March of 1933, when the first concentration camp was established, over ten million people suffered and died due to the systematic and cruel atrocities inflicted upon them by the Nazi Party. Viktor Frankl was among the relative few to survive, and he responded, both during and after, by attempting to decipher, not only the meaning of his own life, but the importance of meaning in the lives of others. He named three stages to the process handling the experience of a concentration camp, which can be applied to many types of suffering. Strangely, all three of these stages, depersonalization, apathy, and the return to normalcy, all seem to incorporate an unexpected reaction, humour. As evidenced by Frankl’s account, it seems as though sufferers of a certain disposition can occasionally find humour and amusement even in the worst of times.

Man’s Search for Meaning, is a biography and the personal memoir of Victor Frankl’s experience in a Nazi Concentration Camp. The book was initially published in 1946 in German and was then published in 1959 in English, under the title From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Prior to World War II, Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist working in Vienna and then later was responsible for running the neurology department at a Jewish Hospital in Rothschild. In 1942 he and his family were arrested and deported. They were separated and sent to concentration

After three years in concentration camps, Frankl returned to Vienna, where he developed and lectured about his approach to psychological healing. He wrote his world-famous Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp, or as it is titled in English, Man’s Search for Meaning. After his suffering in the concentration camps, Frankl made his hallmark conclusion that even under the most painful, dehumanizing circumstances, life has potential meaning and therefore suffering is also meaningful. This conclusion served as a basis for his logotherapy and existential analysis. In 1946, he was appointed to run the Vienna Polyclinic of Neurology. He remarried in 1947, and his resulting daughter went on to

In 1985, Frankl could obtain Oskar Pfister Award from The American Psychiatric Association due to his important works for people and society. 39 books were published from Frankl (Längle, "Frankl, Viktor Emil") that Man's Search for Meaning, his very popular book, is his narration of his life when he was in Nazi camp. Frankl in this book explained that how could find the meaning of his life and discover his new theory which introduced it as logotherapy to the psychology world (Pytell, TIMOTHY E, "Viktor Frankl (1905-1999)"). Frankl's best-selling book "Man's Search for Meaning," chronicles a psychologist's experiences as an inmate in the concentration camp, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence (Pytell, TIMOTHY E, "Viktor Frankl (1905-1999)"). Viktor Frankl founded what he called the field of "Logotherapy." Logotherapy is related to Frankl own experiences in Nazi camp. In his life years, which spent in camp, the tensions caused to contemplate deeply about the meaning of life and human purpose of living ("Logotherapy"). He narrates about his problems and restriction, moreover, other men in Auschwitz, that how they

Psychologist Victor Frankl’s novel: Man's Search for Meaning delivers a powerful and humbling perspective on life that inspires introspection in the minds of all those that read it. The book achieves this by taking us on a journey with Frankl as he describes his personal experiences of the Holocaust. During his time spent in four different concentration camps Frankl gradually learns lessons in spiritual survival. Devoid of all pleasures and possessing nothing but his “naked existence” Frankl is forced to look inward and in the process discovers what he believes to be the primary motivating factor of all men (p. 15).

In September of 1942, Viktor Frankl was arrested in Vienna and taken to one of the many Nazi death camps. Frankl was working on a manuscript which was confiscated from him in a move to Auschwitz. In this manuscript entitled, The Doctor and the Soul, Frankl had began his work on a theory he would later call logotherapy. The term logotherapy is derived from the Greek word logos, which means meaning. According to logotherapy, the striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man (Frankl 121). Frankl’s theory and therapy generated and grew through his experiences in the concentration camps.