Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist and author. He was the founder of logo therapy (literally “healing through meaning”)–– a meaning-centered school of psychotherapy, considered the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy–– following the theories developed by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Logo therapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories. He is the author of over 39 books he is most noted for his best-selling book Man’s Search for Meaning based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.
Main extracts from book:
- We must continuously strive to search for meaning out of our life regardless of the situation. This is particularly important because the meaning or importance we attach to various things that happen to our lives keeps varying. The meaning of our life depends on the purpose or the cause we are moving towards.
- This constant search for meaning and creating an intention behind our life take work, however once we succeed in discovering our purpose in life, this will be a great source of productive energy we human beings posses. If fail to do so, we slowly and gradually fumble to vagaries of life and loose hope on our future.
- Victor Frankel himself was a survivor of Nazi concentration camps. He witnessed for instance when a poisoner in the concentration camp would loose hope and refuse to get out of bed for another day of forced labor, he pulls out a cigarette, hides behind his jacket and smokes it. In this case Viktor says their power of meaning has subsided. They seek instant gratification and pleasure as they assumed bleak hope of tomorrow for themselves. Viktor says he watched these kind of people die all of a sudden due various illnesses or reasons after spending years of time in concentration camp. With this Viktor observed that is the lack of meaning and larger purpose that takes the human lives and not the lack of medicine or food.
- After World War II, Viktor continues to see hoe critical meaning was important in people’s lives . As a psychiatrist he witnessed patients who lacked meaning be quickly consumed with addiction, anger, impulsiveness, hopelessness, anxiety and depression. The loss of purpose and meaning created an existential void in their lives and they tend to fill it with poison with negative behaviors and actions.
- By helping patients through a form of therapy called logo therapy (logo which is Greek for ‘meaning’) he helped his patients fill their internal emptiness, eliminate despair and activate an unlimited source of productive energy.
- While being forced to find meaning during his time in Nazi concentration camps and helping others find meaning as a psychiatrist Frankel found that there are three primary sources of meaning. The are ‘Pursuing a Purpose’, ‘Loving selflessly’ and ‘Suffering Bravely’ .
Pursuing a Purpose
- When Frankl entered the infamous concentration death camp, Nazi guards stripped Frankel of all his possessions and confiscated a manuscript he had been working on for his entire life. After a period of shock and disbelief Frankl vowed to survive the death camp to one-day rewrite and complete the manuscript. When he was suffering from Typhus and on the brink of death, he used scraps of paper he collected around the camp and started making shorthand notes to start the reconstruction of his manuscript.
- Frankl knew that the manuscript was a piece of work that only he could write no one had his collection of experiences knowledge and skills to bring that valuable work into the world. He knew that he had to make it out of the camp to pursue his life’s task because if he died his work would be. If I die today there would be a task that we only I could have completed. A piece of work that required my unique collection of experiences, knowledge and strengths. It could be anything like a presentation to give, a book to write, a person to support or help, to contribute something for a cause in your society, to make a positive impact in someone’s life etc.,
- Frankl observed that in Nazi concentration camps, people who had a greater hope, a bigger purpose and a task awaiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive the horrible situation that they are in.
- So same goes with our lives. It is not a must to have a noble purpose and a task to drive us in life. Purpose of our life need to be discovered and it could take a long time before we realize why we are here and for what bigger cause we are here to pursue. Meanwhile it is enough if we wake up daily with an intent in mind. Leading each day meaningfully by doing stuff that adds value to us and our loved ones. By doing activities that bring positivity, by helping or supporting others, by offering services that you could.
Loving Selflessly
- Frankel met a distraught woman who had lost a son and had another son who was severely handicapped. Prior to meeting Franko she had tried to commit suicide with her disabled son but her son stopped her to help her regain a sense of meaning in her life and activate her will to live. He asked her to imagine herself at 80 years old looking back in the life that was full of pleasure and free of the burden of taking care of her disabled son. After some reflection she told Frankel looking back as an old woman I cannot see what it was all for actually I must say my life was a failure. Then Frankel asked her to imagine a life dedicated to taking care of her handicapped son. After some reflection she told Frankel I have made a fuller life possible for him, I have made a better human being of my son I can look back peacefully on my life for I can say my life was full of meaning, service and purpose.
- Frankel’s definition of love is different than most. It has little to do with the feeling of being in love and more about struggling to help others succeed.
- Love is an act of seeing the potential in others which is not yet actualized.
- Love is elevating people around you, it’s creating opportunities for your child, it’s mentoring a junior member of your team, it’s introducing your friend as someone who might help them find a career, it’s meeting a friend for coffee to help him brainstorm ideas for the latest business venture, it’s being with a sick parent so they can find the strength to live another day.
- When you lack meaning decide every morning who you will help elevate, see the person or group of people whose life you will try to make a little bit better. Get so busy working to help others that you forget yourself in the process.
- Frankl says the more one forgets himself/herself by giving himself/herself in service to another person, the more human he/she is and the more he/she actualizes him/self/herself.
Suffering Bravely
- Frankl bravely suffered over 3 years in concentration death camp.
- Frankl endured unimaginable amounts of sufferings but he found a way to transcend that suffering by imagining himself standing on a platform of a well lit warm and pleasant lecture room.
- He says “I imagine myself giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp and all that oppressed me at that moment became objective. Seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science by this method, I succeeded somehow in raising above the situation, above the suffering of the moment and I observed them as if they were already of the past.
- When Nelson Mendela was thrown in prison for an unjust amount of time, he saw and later used his suffering as a way to inspire millions around South Africa to forgive their enemies and work together to rebuild a nation.
- His suffering has a purpose as Frankl says suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment if we find a meaning in it, when we have an emotional value attached to it.
- Whenever an unexpected or uncontrollable setback happens in our lives, we must find meaning in it to prevent the suffering from turning into despair.
- Look at suffering and ask yourself how might this be valuable . Often the greatest value in suffering is how it strengthens our character.
- When you think of your favorite super hero movie then think of your favorite character in that movie. They had to endure some sort of suffering and through that suffering they discovered who they were and what they stood for.
- Imagine yourself as a character in a movie and when you find yourself suffering, see it as an opportunity to strengthen your beliefs, your values, your ideals and inspire others.
- Frankl says by accepting the challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment and it retains its meaning literally till the end.
- The most important task every day is to find meaning and make life meaningful. We can make life meaningful by preparing and searching for our life’s task by elevating others and by choosing to see suffering as a valuable opportunity to learn and strengthen our character.
- The more you are able to find meaning from hour to hour and day by day and month by month and year by year, the more likely you will get to the end of your life fulfilled and gratified. Pursuing a meaningful and purposeful life means living a life of less regrets and being proud of your past self as each year passes by.
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