Man's Search for Meaning
Victor Frankl
This book was recently recommended by a very close friend who told me that the book was life changing. Normally, when people say that I don't trust them because they are exaggerating. However, after reading the book I must say: this is a life changing reading!
This is a concentration camp first person report from the author who became one of the most celebrated psychologists in century XX. Shocking like that!
The author just nine months after his marriage was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and from there to Auschwitz, Victor spent 3 years in four different concentration camps. This book is a testimony about a man's search for meaning while living one of the most terrible experiences someone could live.
I don't have a single best quote for this book, I have several, but I will include in this short review only 3:
About Inner Freedom:
“The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress”.
About Sense of Purpose:
“Nietzsche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners. Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why—an aim—for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on”
About Nightmares and Reality:
“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him”.
Frankl not only wrote a testimony, he developed a psychoanalytic school (logotherapy)in which the therapeutic approach rather than be driven by the past (such a in Freud or Adler) it is going forward to the future projecting sense to break the bad circle of neurotic egocentrism.
In my opinion, Frankl is under-estimated during the current times. Understanding logotherapy would bring lots of relief to people who are suffering from depression in these strange times in which lack of purpose and mental health are huge issues in young people who do not see hope in their future projections.
This short and profound book is a must read!
João Pedro Paro - November 2024
Conclusion
In my opinion, Frankl is under-estimated during the current times. Understanding logotherapy would bring lots of relief to people who are suffering from depression in these strange times in which lack of purpose and mental health are huge issues in young people who do not see hope in their future projections.
João Pedro Paro
Global Director of Governance, Risk & Compliance | PhD Candidate | Internationally Qualified Attorney
