My review of the book “Man’s search for meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl

Man’s search for meaning is a story of an Austrian Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl. Viktor was a neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and author. Some of you who have studied psychology might already know about him. He was the founder of logotherapy which is a meaning-centered school of psychology that is also considered to be the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.

This book takes you through the journey of a man who survived the concentration camp in NAZI Germany. It walks you through the horror of the camp and the brutality of the SS soldiers in the camps. But besides telling you all the horrors and all the pain that poor jews felt inside the camp, it tells you about how and why few of them could survive.

This book is divided into two parts, one being the writer’s personal experiences inside the camp and the torchers he faced. Another is logotherapy. Now, Logotherapy is a very interesting and deep topic in itself but to give you a hint, logotherapy is based on the theories developed by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, two popular names in psychoanalysis.

Logotherapy helps people to find the meaning of their life. It encourages people to find a reason to live for, to realize that taking their life is not worth it because someone or something is waiting for them. Obviously, this is a very narrow explanation of logotherapy, but you can read more about it either in the book or over the internet.

Now I’ll be sharing the three key takeaways from the book

1. In several instances, this book tells us that we cannot avoid suffering. Suffering a part of life, suffering is life, but we can choose to find meaning within it and move forward. Some of us in the third world countries struggle to find the “means to live” while others, in the first world countries, find the “meaning of life”. This fact tells us that man’s search for meaning can never come to an end.
2. When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves. In the book, Victor has described how the mentality of those who survived was different from those who didn’t. There was one thing common among all the survivors, they had lost the fear of death. They became numb to all the pain and all the torchers. They just had one hope, a hope that kept them alive, a hope that the “war will end soon”.
3. We should stop asking about the meaning of life, but instead, realize we are being questioned by life. Our life questions us every second. It gives us choices and asks us to choose one. But no matter what you choose you will have to bear its consequences. That’s the part and parcel of life.

Now I’ll be sharing the two quotes that I liked very much

1. Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’. I found this quote by Friedrich Nietzsche in the book very powerful and I think this would resonate within all of us in tough times.
2. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Now, this quote sums up everything told in the book. It tells you that you and only you are responsible for what is going to happen to you.

I hope you liked my review of the book and now I would like to leave you guys with one question.

I want you to think about what would have been the mentality of the guard inside the concentration camps? How could a human being do such horrible things to a fellow being? What could lead them to adopt such a sadistic nature?