I read Viktor Frankl's seminal book "Man's Search for Meaning" 20 years ago, twice, it made quite an impact. I was in a much different point in my life then - young, married, healthy, working for a prestigious multi-national company. Now all of that has changed, in most ways it's now the opposite, and I knew that reading it again would prove important, and could change my life.
I've always been quite the reader, at my elementary school fair, after winning at one of those throw the idontrememberwhats at the hole/peg, out of all the possible prizes, I picked a book.
Several weeks ago, I read a dairy here about books that changed your life, and looking through the comments, couldn't believe that no one had responded with Victor's book, and I made that comment. Later the author contacted me about writing a review. After thinking for all of a second, I responded yes -- I'm a big believer in synchronicity. I knew that there would be a message, maybe an answer for the crisis in my life.
It was harder to read Viktor's book this time, the shock value of the concentration camp experiences was gone, and compassion often grows with hard life experiences. Part two of the book, on Logotherapy, had much more value this time.
The book, "Man's Search for Meaning", details Viktor Frankl's almost incomprehensible struggle to survive the Nazi concentration camps, and the development of his existential psychotherapy theory called Logotherapy. The stories of the camps are filled with everyday people making heroic decisions and actions. One of the bravest, I thought reading it this time, occurred even before the camps, when Viktor chose to stay in Vienna to help his elderly parents through what he knew was coming, even though he had papers to leave the country, and escape the Nazis.
Dr. Frankl, a medical doctor and psychiatrist in Vienna, developed and wrote his first book manuscript on logotherapy before being interned to Auschwitz. His want to see his book published and his therapy method practiced gave him the will to survive the camps.
Logotherapy is a type of existentialist analysis that focuses on a will to meaning as opposed to Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure. Rather than power or pleasure, Logotherapy is founded upon the belief that it is the striving to find a meaning in one's life that is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans.
Frankl liked to consider and quote Nietzsche:
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy. In the Nazi concentration camps, one could have witnessed that those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive.
What he wrote about in the book about life meaning is ringing very true for me. I've found myself thinking rarely about the about the future or even much about the present. I'd be working, and at the same time, recalling a place and events from years ago, paralleling both for extended periods of time. Not doing all I could to take care of myself, eating right, exercise, drinking too much; I am living for the most pleasure right now. For 15 years I have been struggling with chronic health issues (MCS) that affects all other aspects of my life: work, relationship, financial. Over the years, things became compressed to where I'm not looking beyond today, let alone this week. And I have lost sight of the future, my future.
I remember reading that identifying a problem is half the battle -- you can't fix what you don't know is broken. I now have a starting point, and I'm feeling encouraged and optimistic about developing longer-term goals that give my life meaning. It's a short and concise book, I'll be rereading it to continue mining information from it.
Wiki: Viktor Frankl