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Man's Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust Paperback – 7 February 2008
| Viktor E Frankl (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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- Print length160 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRHUK
- Publication date7 February 2008
- Reading age15 years and up
- Dimensions11 x 0.9 x 17.8 cm
- ISBN-101844132390
- ISBN-13978-1846041242
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From the Publisher
A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances.
The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.
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About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 1846041244
- Publisher : RHUK; Exported edition (7 February 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 160 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1844132390
- ISBN-13 : 978-1846041242
- Reading age : 15 years and up
- Item Weight : 130 g
- Dimensions : 11 x 0.9 x 17.8 cm
- Country of Origin : United Kingdom
- Generic Name : Book
- Best Sellers Rank: #102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Holocaust
- #1 in United States History (Books)
- #2 in Military History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Viktor E. Frankl was professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School until his death in 1997. He was the founder of what has come to be called the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy (after Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology)—the school of logotherapy.
Born in 1905, Dr. Frankl received the degrees of Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Vienna. During World War II he spent three years at Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps.
Dr. Frankl first published in 1924 in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and has since published twenty-six books, which have been translated into nineteen languages, including Japanese and Chinese. He was a visiting professor at Harvard, Duquesne, and Southern Methodist Universities. Honorary Degrees have been conferred upon him by Loyola University in Chicago, Edgecliff College, Rockford College, and Mount Mary College, as well as by universities in Brazil and Venezuela. He was a guest lecturer at universities throughout the world and made fifty-one lecture tours throughout the United States alone. He was President of the Austrian Medical Society of Psychotherapy.
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Reviewed in India on 5 July 2018
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Well writing a review for this kind of extraordinary book is a big audacity for me. however here I’m, trying to give some brief review of the book.
The book is basically divided into three parts, the first one describes the way the Jews prisoners were treated in the Nazi Concentration Camps and how their lifestyle was. In the second part, the author described the basics of Logotherapy, a way of treatment of the Psychotherapeutic Patients. And finally, in the third part, he described what he actually meant by Man’s Search for meaning.
Being a Jew, the author was transferred to the Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps during the Nazi occupation in Austria. Here, in the first part of the book, the author described his days in those concentration camps, where is were no chance of seeing the morning sun in the next day. And this happened every day. He described the way the SS guards used to treat the prisoners, the corruption prevailed in the camps, the malnutrition, the lifestyle of the camp Jews etc. The way he described the tortures the prisoners suffered, would surely bring tears to your eyes. During his description, he also pointed out the psychological condition of the other comrades in those camps. When most of the prisoners lost all hope of his life, some of them still kept the faith, that good days were coming.
In the second part, the author basically described the Logotherapy Techniques. And the most interesting part of the book is the third part. Here the author describes “Man’s search for meaning”. We, the human beings on this planet are living for a purpose. Until & unless we can’t find the purpose of our life, there is no reason for us to be here alive. Most of the prisoners in the camps lost all of their hopes and then died because they lost their purpose, as per the author. It is a must-read book for all I think.
The book also consists of few life-changing quotes which I liked in the book and would like to share:
1. For success, like happiness, can’t be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
2. There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.
3. Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great of little. Therefore the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.
4. No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
5. The human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings.
6. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life can’t be completed
7. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
8. There is no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
9. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ” how”.
10. The body has fewer inhibitions than the mind.
11. No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.
So, here is the summary & take away from this thrilling story.
The author was a neurologist and psychiatrist. So, by education he knew technical brain anatomy (being neurologist) as well as logical and emotional aspects of human behavior with respect to the brain functioning (being psychiatrist). He spent 3 years in various concentration camps which were basically prisons where Nazis (hitter’s army) used to keep potential threat like prisoner of wars and Jewish during holocaust in 1940 (somewhat during second world war).
The book is a journey of the author’s surviving in various camps during his 3 years tenure where he went through immense physical torture, hyper anxiety, inhumane living conditions, insufficient food and unhealthy environment of deadly diseases. The details on tortures were so horrifying that they will give you goosebumps by imagining how humanely it was impossible to bear such pain. The life of prisoner was only a number (a number was printed on everyone’s body) for guards and they looked for every possible opportunity to torture and kill prisoners.
At various instances he explained the two aspects of feeling in one scenario where a person is feeling horrified and blessed at the same time. For instance, once few people along with him were standing bare feet in snow for 8 hours straight in one of the camp they were recently transferred and due to frostbite on their foot there was immense pain but at the same time they were happy as standing outside in snow they observed that there was no chimney in the camp (chimney showed that there were gas chambers in camp where prisoners were burned alive). Another instance he talked is that one day they were getting transferred in a train and everyone was anxious that they were getting shifted to a death camp where all of them will be killed yet they happy to see outside scenery after a long time from small holes in train.
Author explained that there are various mental stages a person goes through in such camp and at the last stage he becomes numb to death. Imagine that a person is so much scared for a long time that he doesn’t feel scared anymore. His emotional imbalance causes various types of behavioral changes which ultimately makes him inhumane emotionally, after all emotions are something which makes a man different from other living creatures.
Now, here to avoid going into the last mental stage where the person gives up the hope to live and dies author explains the ways or tips using which he survived and as well as he help few among himself survive. The first tip is, let me quote exactly what he mentioned in the book is “He who has ‘WHY’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘HOW’. So basically, he explained that if a person has a reason and hope to survive and sees a logical ending to these sufferings will be able to survive. Let me try to explain the reason he has referred here, there were two people in the camp who gave up the hope and wanted to commit suicide author asked few questions to them which made them realize that what reason they must live for. One person had a small kid which would be waiting for him in some other country, so he realized that one day he might have chance to go and live with his kid. Another person had an unfinished script which only he could complete on which he was working from a very long time before he was captured and sent this camp, so he realized that one day he will get freedom and will complete his pending script.
Another point to note in above mentioned instance is the reason or hope to live can be anything, it may be a personal matter to you, another human in your life or a thing also. He said “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears towards other human who affectionately waits for him or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw his life as he knows the WHY for this life & existence and hence will be able to bear with almost any HOW”.
He also talked about stimulus and response control which I think was better explained by Steven covey in his book. But one of the quote he put in the book was worth mentioning that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing, and that is one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”.
Lastly, he talked about happiness where he says that “happiness cannot be pursued but ensued”. The happiness is internal, and its means changes time to time, situation to situation, to person to person and like there cannot be a standardize rule to happiness like next movement in a game of chess as movement will be specifically based on current position of other players chess components (hope you understand what I mean). Happiness comes in alignment with your core values in life and which is why it changes time to time, person to person.
What I did not like about the book is that there were disconnection in the story he narrated and the journey in camp is not in proper sequence, he only explained some random days and instances which sometime become irritating and disappointing. I understand that the prime purpose of the book was not to take the reader through the day by day, event by event his tenure in camp, but it is to only to use such events of the camp as context to explain the point he is trying to make about human behavior. But I felt that it would have been a very great story of his survival to go through day by day in detail.
4 out of 5. So, what’s your meaning of life at this moment in this phase of your life…...? Think about it.
The very vivid account of events, faith and luck.
This book tells us to appreciate everything in our day to day life.
All the this that we takes as granted can be so much meaningful in time of their absence. Family, food, medicine and even our own thoughts.!!
This book has given me new dimensions about life.
✔By job or deed
✔By going through something or someone.
✔The way we deal with unavoidable suffering.
Top reviews from other countries
Anyone who feels their life has no meaning or purpose, as our society has become increasingly Dickensian in the last 10 years, will find hope, as I did, to motivate myself to lead a fuller life, in spite of some of life's setbacks. I feel a winner, now, and am grateful for a special mentor who gave me her copy to learn wisdom.... I bought my own copy, as above to refer to it in times of stress. Other than that, it is a great read, which casts an objective eye on a period of history, some would rather forget.
But actually it’s a detached prose (insofar as a scientist who lives his unchosen experiment can write) which signifies the importance of finding meaning in life.
It’s like a really visual, visceral reminder that we can survive anything if we choose to. If we have our attitude reframed or we do it ourselves. If we see purpose or meaning in suffering, we cannot die.
Quite a profound read that gave rise to new thinkings and questionings in my head, and which I intend to follow for my own personal development and flourishing but also as a path to teach others.
Thank you, for going through it, sharing it, understanding it.
It’s not just a matter of enduring or retreating into an inner realm in which you’re free. In fact, it’s not really about the inner realm at all, because the way you find meaning is not within, but through a purpose in the world, something that’s outside you, something that is greater than you. It could be by creating something, and it could be — and very often is — connections to other human beings, whether it’s comrades, friends, family or the people you come up against in life. And if all else fails — as it tended to in the concentration camps — and all the usual sources of meaning fall apart, there is always the chance of finding a meaning in the suffering itself. This is something that’s very hard to talk about in the abstract, but that was the conclusion that he came to.
It’s interesting how optimistic Viktor Frankl’s philosophy is. Existentialism is often characterised as a rather morbid philosophy, dwelling on. That view of existentialism as “Life is terrible and we just have to resign ourselves to it” is a real misrepresentation. Sartre would have said, “No, we can change the circumstances of our lives.” He believed we could do it through revolution, through Marxism, through politics — and potentially through ethics as well, though that is something he never finished working out completely. With Viktor Frankl there’s a sense that we need this philosophy to help us to live. Existentialist philosophy doesn’t bring despair and angst into our lives, it gives us a way of making sense, it’s a way of discovering our own inner freedom. There’s a lot more that’s positive in existentialism than it’s ever given credit for, because it really is about how you live your life, and how you exist, given what you’re presented with. angst and anguish and the difficulty of making choices. It’s a nice foil to that caricature of existentialism. It avoids the pitfalls of Colin Wilson's evangelical approach.
He gives so much reason to ponder about one's own life with this reading, It really forced me to rethink my life.
I mean he's gone through hell and we are complaining about so many things in life that are ridiculous. We are so focused on our own ego and always wondering why the f*** nothing happens that makes us happy.
Always running after the next big thing, or the next opportunity instead of just realizing how awesome everything is. We aren't in danger we don't have to fear the freaking gas chambers or any of that.
We just have to remember that the true happiness comes from nobody else but us. It's not even deep inside, we just burried it with our so called problems and our misleading expectations.
Life is not a good nor a bad thing, I think it's a challenge, WE MAKE IT GOOD or we stay in our comfort zone and hope for the best.
Well it's hard but you either go out and do something about it or you don't but then you shouldn't complain. Most of us will sadly never realize that.
Thank you for reading this, you're a champion and don't you ever forget that!










