Paperback, 165 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 2006 by Beacon Press.
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. In the decades since its first publication in 1959, Man's Search for Meaning has become a classic, with more than twelve million copies in print around the world. A 1991 Library of Congress …
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. In the decades since its first publication in 1959, Man's Search for Meaning has become a classic, with more than twelve million copies in print around the world. A 1991 Library of Congress survey that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. At once a memoir, a meditation, a treatise, and a history, it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living. (back cover)
First half was an incredibly insightful look into the nature of man, and investigated an angle of the concentration camp not often looked at. The second half, which deals with his own theory of logotherapy feels a lot less impressive, mostly just reiterating things already implicit in the first half but a lot less convincingly.
This book has held up well over half a century, tackling the unanswerable question with the authority and pragmatism of a survivor of four concentration camps. Of course I started it thinking "Really?", but it won me over with insights that feel immediately applicable to my own life, which I feel has been slowly shifting from the pursuit of means to meaning over the years. Don't get scared off by part II if you read it - that's where the practical information is.
An amazing book that is both documentary and prognosis - Frankl's book is the documentation of an alarmingly positive psychology that was fine-tuned thanks to an alarmingly negative experience. Incredible read - important both historically and for the future.
