FIND MEANING IN YOUR LIFE - JORDAN PETERSON [AMAZING] 1,959,898 views•Sep 13, 2018; 38:27 min.
Jordan Peterson: "DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE" | 11 Minutes That Will Change Your Perspective on Life; 11 min.
Jordan Peterson: 30 Minutes for the NEXT 30 Years of Your LIFE 1,463,697 views•Oct 22, 2018; 30 min.
It Always Paid Off | Jordan Peterson | Best Life Advice 684,117 views•Jun 24, 2020; 9:28 min.
dr. Viktor Emil Frankl
dr. Viktor Emil Frankl
https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning?language=en
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl
Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants (Beamtenfamilie). His interest in psychology surfaced early. For the final exam (Matura) in Gymnasium, he wrote a paper on the psychology of philosophical thinking. After graduation from Gymnasium in 1923, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and later specialized in neurology and psychiatry, concentrating on the topics of depression and suicide. His early development was influenced by his contacts with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, although he would later diverge from their teachings.[3][4]
Man's Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. 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.
Second edition (1947) | |
Author | Viktor E. Frankl |
---|---|
Original title | …trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager |
Translator | Ilse Lasch (Part One) |
Country | Austria |
Language | German |
Genre | Psychology |
Publisher | Verlag für Jugend und Volk (Austria) Beacon Press(English) |
Publication date | 1946 (Vienna, Austria) 1959 (United States) |
Pages | 200 |
ISBN | 080701429X |
OCLC | 233687922 |
Followed by | The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy in Logotherapy |
According to a survey conducted by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress, Man's Search for Meaning belongs to a list of "the ten most influential books in the United States."[1] At the time of the author's death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies and had been translated into 24 languages.[2][3]
Contents
EditionsEdit
The book's original title in German is ...trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager: that is, "...Nevertheless Say 'Yes' to Life: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp". The title of the first English-language translation was From Death-Camp to Existentialism. The book's common full English title is Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, although this subtitle is often not printed on the cover of modern editions.[4]
Experiences in a concentration campEdit
Frankl identifies three psychological reactions experienced by all inmates to one degree or another: (1) shock during the initial admission phase to the camp, (2) apathy after becoming accustomed to camp existence, in which the inmate values only that which helps himself and his friends survive, and (3) reactions of depersonalization, moral deformity, bitterness, and disillusionment if he survives and is liberated.[5]
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.
An example of Frankl's idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp:
Frankl also concludes that there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent. No society is free of either of them, and thus there were "decent" Nazi guards and "indecent" prisoners, most notably the kapo who would torture and abuse their fellow prisoners for personal gain.
His concluding passage in Part One describes the psychological reaction of the inmates to their liberation, which he separates into three stages. The first is depersonalization—a period of readjustment, in which a prisoner gradually returns to the world. Initially, the liberated prisoners are so numb that they are unable to understand what freedom means, or to emotionally respond to it. Part of them believes that it is an illusion or a dream that will be taken away from them. In their first foray outside their former prison, the prisoners realized that they could not comprehend pleasure. Flowers and the reality of the freedom they had dreamed about for years were all surreal, unable to be grasped in their depersonalization.
The body is the first element to break out of this stage, responding by big appetites of eating and wanting more sleeping. Only after the partial replenishing of the body is the mind finally able to respond, as “feeling suddenly broke through the strange fetters which had restrained it” (111).
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 decent friend who became immediately obsessed with dispensing the same violence in judgment of his abusers that they had inflicted on him.
Upon returning home, the prisoners had to struggle with two fundamental experiences which could also damage their mental health: bitterness and disillusionment. The last stage is bitterness at the lack of responsiveness of the world outside—a "superficiality and lack of feeling...so disgusting that one finally felt like creeping into a hole and neither hearing nor seeing human beings any more" (113). Worse was disillusionment, which was the discovery that suffering does not end, that the longed-for happiness will not come. This was the experience of those who—like Frankl—returned home to discover that no one awaited them. The hope that had sustained them throughout their time in the concentration camp was now gone. Frankl cites this experience as the most difficult to overcome.
As time passed, however, the prisoner's experience in a concentration camp finally became nothing but a remembered nightmare. What is more, he comes to believe that he has nothing left to fear any more, "except his God" (115).
QuotationsEdit
See alsoEdit
- Existential anxiety
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
- Statue of Responsibility - proposed in the book to complement the Statue of Liberty
- Life Is Beautiful (1997), film on how a positive attitude can be maintained in the worst of circumstances, including a concentration camp
ReferencesEdit
- ^ Fein, Esther (1991). "Book Notes". New York Times. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
- ^ Noble, Holcomb B. (September 4, 1997). "Dr. Viktor E. Frankl of Vienna, Psychiatrist of the Search for Meaning, Dies at 92". The New York Times. pp. Section B, page 7. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
- ^ "Viktor Frankl Life and Work". Viktor Frankl Institute Vienna. 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
- ^ Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. Beacon Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8070-1426-4
- ^ Frankl, Viktor (1959). Man's Search for Meaning. ISBN 9780807014295.
- ^ Man's Search for Meaning, Part One, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp", Viktor Frankl, Pocket Books, ISBN 978-0-671-02337-9pp. 56–57
- ^ If freedom is to endure, liberty must be joined with responsibility. Statue of Responsibility, Warnock, C. (2005) Daily Herald (Utah). Retrieved, October 20, 2009.
- ^ Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl, V., Beacon Press, 2006. p. 77.
External linksEdit
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Man's Search for Meaning |
- Man's Search For Meaning full text
- Viktor Frankl: Why believe in others TED talk
- Commentary on Man's Search For Meaning by personal development scholar Tom Butler-Bowdon (50 Self-Help Classics, 2003. ISBN 978-1-85788-323-7)
- Viktor Frankl at Ninety: An Interview
- Man's Search for Meaning book cover
- Gilmore, Byron Ross (1997). The search for meaning in grief: A comparison of Victor Frankl's 'Search for Meaning' with Douglas Hall's 'Theology of the Cross', and their implications for grief ministry (M.A. thesis). Wilfrid Laurier University.
- Man's Search for Meaning at Goodreads