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Health Fitness Dieting

By Self Publishing Titans
Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning

by Viktor E. Frankl

4.7 (89097 ratings)
Health Fitness Dieting

Published

June 1, 2006

Pages

184 pages

Language

English

Publisher

Beacon Press

Available Formats & Prices

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$9.99

Hardcover

$19.61

Paperback

$11.40

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About This Book

A book for finding purpose and strength in times of great despair, the international best-seller is still just as relevant today as when it was first published. “This is a book I reread a lot . .

. it gives me hope . .

. it gives me a sense of strength.” —Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360/CNN This seminal book, which has been called “one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought” by Carl Rogers and “one of the great books of our time” by Harold Kushner, has been translated into more than fifty languages and sold over sixteen million copies. “An enduring work of survival literature,” according to the New York Times , Viktor Frankl’s riveting account of his time in the Nazi concentration camps, and his insightful exploration of the human will to find meaning in spite of the worst adversity, has offered solace and guidance to generations of readers since it was first published in 1946.

At the heart of Frankl’s theory of logotherapy (from the Greek word for “meaning”) is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what the individual finds meaningful. Today, as new generations face new challenges and an ever more complex and uncertain world, Frankl’s classic work continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living, in spite of all obstacles. A must-read companion to this classic work, a new, never-before-published work by Frankl entitled Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything , is now available in English.

Introduction

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning takes readers on an extraordinary journey through one of history's darkest chapters. Through his personal experiences in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl unveils profound insights into human resilience, the quest for purpose, and the crucial role of meaning in life. His captivating narrative not only illuminates his own survival story but also offers timeless lessons that continue to inspire countless individuals seeking fulfillment and understanding in their lives.

Key Takeaways

Finding meaning in suffering can lead to inner strength and resilience. Purpose and love are essential for overcoming the challenges of life. Inner freedom can be discovered even in the most adverse circumstances.

Detailed Description

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning explores the depths of human resilience through his harrowing experiences in concentration camps. His narrative is both an exposition of suffering and a testament to the power of purpose-driven living. Frankl introduces logotherapy emphasizing life's inherent meaning as a pathway to mental and emotional well-being.

This poignant memoir reveals insights into how individuals can find meaning in suffering transforming adversity into personal growth. Frankl's eloquence combines personal narrative with philosophical musings delivering a timeless message of hope. Through vivid storytelling he conveys how maintaining a sense of inner purpose can sustain the human spirit.

Frankl's reflections extend beyond his personal story offering universal lessons on love freedom and the significance of choice in shaping one's destiny. He illustrates how embracing suffering with a sense of purpose enables individuals to transcend challenges and discover inner strength. By sharing encounters within the camps Frankl highlights the importance of human connection illustrating how compassion and empathy fuel resilience.

His own search for meaning underscores the need to find a higher purpose a message that continues to resonate with readers worldwide. Frankl's work answers the existential questions of life's meaning and offers a guide to finding one's purpose even amid adversity. Through this profound journey readers are encouraged to seek personal growth and emotional well-being by identifying and pursuing a meaningful existence.

Standout Features

Viktor Frankl's unique perspective as both a Holocaust survivor and a psychiatrist provides a rare insightful blend of personal experience and professional expertise This dual lens enriches the narrative making it profoundly impactful The introduction of logotherapy in the book is a significant contribution to psychological understanding It offers an approach focused on finding life's inherent meaning prioritizing the human spirit's transcendence over the confines of suffering Frankl's narrative transcends its historical context offering lessons that resonate with modern-day readers seeking purpose and fulfillment Its timeless relevance ensures this work continually inspires and guides those facing their own struggles.

Book Details

ISBN-10:

9780807014271

ISBN-13:

978-0807014271

Dimensions:

5.5 x 0.52 x 8.47 inches

Weight:

8 ounces

Specifications

Pages:184 pages
Language:English
Published:June 1, 2006
Publisher:Beacon Press
Authors:Viktor E. Frankl

Rating

4.7

Based on 89097 ratings

Customer Reviews

A must read

Verified Purchase
M. T. Crenshaw
December 28, 2022

This 2008 edition of Frankl's 1945 book is a must read for every human being who wants to lift their spirit in moments of despair.   The book is structured in three different parts. The first one (Experiences in a Concentration Camp) and the Postscript (The case for a Tragic Optimism) fit beautifully together, and are the basis of Frankl's philosophy and psychotherapy system called Logotherapy. They are narrated in a very conversational way because they are, after all, a memoir. They differ greatly in style and tone from the second part (Logotherapy in a Nutshell), which is a summary of Frankl's therapy system, partially based on Frankl's experiences and observations as Auschwitz inmate, and partially on techniques and views of the world that he had started elaborating before he was sent to the camp. This part is drier in style, way more technical and not as approachable for the reader, unless the reader is really into therapy or a therapist. Harold Kushner's preface to this 2008 edition is a good summary of the book main points, while Frankl's preface to the 1992 edition summarizes well how the book and Logotherapy came to be.    The book has many pearls of wisdom, and is very uplifting despite the brutality of what we read. In all honesty, I already expected that when I picked up the book. Some prisoner's stories are utterly poetic despite their tragedy. I'm glad that those people's historical memoirs had been so beautifully preserved. On the other hand, this is a survivor's first-person narration of the events, so that allows for invaluable insights into the reality of the extermination camps and into the inmates' mental/emotional state and fortune. Since we live in 2021 and we're pretty aware of the Nazis' atrocities, most of the things that Frankl tells about his experience are somewhat lessened by the impact on the reader of dozens of documentaries and movies on WW2. It might have been chilling reading the book in the postwar era, when all the details were still unfolding and the wold came to realize what had really happened. What we didn't know before reading the book is that a new therapeutic model, Logotherapy, was greatly influenced by the Jew's suffering in Auschwitz, and that there is hope even in the biggest moments of despair.    For the rest, Frank's take on life is admirable and full of wisdom, whether you are into Logotherapy or not. I especially liked his comments on love, the youth and unemployment, as they are still, more than half a century later, valid.  LOGOTHERAPY, SOME CORE PRINCIPLES AND POINTS I LIKE > The great task for any person is to find meaning in his/her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: Work (doing something significant), Love (caring for another person), and Courage in difficult times. > Suffering is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. > You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. > Logotherapy aims to curing the soul by leading it to find meaning in life. > What matters is to make the best of any given situation. > Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. > The aim of life is not to be happy as the seeking of happiness can increase someone's unhappiness. > Suffering is unavoidable, is part of life, and we need to accept it and re-frame it. > Tragic optimism, i.e., one remains optimistic in spite of the “tragic triad, or those aspects of human existence which may be circumscribed by: (1) pain; (2) guilt; and (3) death and that we should say 'yes' to life in spite of all that. > To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.  > Success cannot be pursued but it is an end result that 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. There are hundreds of pearls of wisdom that I cannot reproduce here because it would take too long, but those are the ones that made me read the book in the first place. SOME CRITIQUE Frankl poignantly mentions that despite all the inmates being subject to the harsh situations (food and sleep deprivation, hard-work labor, extreme cold, beatings, etc.) some died and some survived, and he ways that, many of those who died did so because they gave up on life and lose hope in getting alive out of the camps and resuming their lives after the war. I love most of what Frankl says and his attitude towards life. However, we cannot say that Frankl survived just because he had a specific mindset, hopes of getting alive, finding his family and publishing the basics of Logotherapy included in this edition, which he had already started writing before being taken to the camp. First of all, he was an intellectual and a psychiatrist, i.e. a person with a strong mind, mentally s stable with enough intellectual harnesses to re-frame anything in his head to give it meaning. He certainly was an optimistic, like it's in his nature. Not everyone was so well equipped mentally and emotionally. What's more, there must have been other people who, like him, had hopes of surviving, seeing their families and doing something with their lives in the outside world, but they never made it because, I can only hypothesize, their physique and immune system, as well as their mental state weren't Frankl's.

Good read

Verified Purchase
Amber
August 12, 2024

It was a very good book. I'm happy to have read it. Although a tough read, it was interesting to compare the circumstances of individuals and how each one experienced it differently. I would recommend it.

Book is very helpful

Verified Purchase
Cheryl Ferdig
September 3, 2024

If I am ever feeling down this book puts me in the right perspective in my own life.

excellent book - for many reasons

Verified Purchase
Bret Aulgur
August 12, 2012

I recently completed a master's in counseling and guidance and have been reading to find a set of books that will best address some of the disorders in the DSM-IV. Following is a list I have put together from my reading so far, and these are books that I would HIGHLY recommend. I would like to say up front that the DSM-IV is full of very normal behaviors that for some reason have become magnified or exaggerated in an individual to the point of causing a negative impact in their daily lives. Take OCD for example, it is quite normal and even preferable (from a safety perspective) to check and be sure that one has turned off all the burners on the stove after cooking, or to be sure the back door is locked before going to bed. But to continue checking time and again would be problematic and can lead to problems in an individual's life. Something is diagnosed as a disorder when it moves from being a "normal" activity to being something that causes dysfunction in daily living. So, one may read the DSM-IV and see themselves reflected in many of the disorders. The question is always: is this behavior negatively impacting my life? If so then that is when it crosses the line of normal and needs to be treated. Depression; I believe there are two sources for depression: one source is our own minds, we think ourselves into the depression - at least in this case we know where it is coming from and we should be able to step behind our thoughts and help ourselves move in a better direction. The other source seemingly comes from nowhere; one minute we are okay and the next we are thrown into the depths * Book = "Transforming Depression: Healing the Soul Through Creativity"- David H. Rosen" o I would recommend reading this at least through chapter 4, going further than that delves into some deep Jungian psychology which will not likely appeal to everyone. I certainly enjoy Jungian psychology and believe that Jung's work will become more and more important and critical to our understanding as we move forward in this field of psychology. Jung's psychology is really on the borderland between spirit/soul and the science of psychology and it is Jung's work that brought me into this field. However it is quite complex/deep/different and may lose some readers. For a very good intro to Jung's work, I would recommend "The Essential Jung" by Anthony Storr, but this is not light reading as is composed of excerpts from Jung's collected works. * Book = "Man's Search for Meaning" - Viktor Frankl o I would recommend this book for two primary reasons: one is it pushes very strongly the message that meaning is essential in our lives - as shown through Victor Frankl's imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl comments on how he observed the individuals who gave up the fight and died, and the individuals who persevered - and most importantly what it was that he believes made the difference. The other reason I recommend this book is that it helps the individuals whose thoughts may have led them to depression to realize that things could be worse. Of course there are devastations we may face that can truly be to us, just as bad as a Nazi concentration camps, but for the most part, we often push ourselves into depression for reasons that are somewhat superficial compared to other realities. Depersonalization Disorder - essentially feeling like you are not really there * Book = "Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self" - Daphne Simeon and Jeffrey Abugel o Excellent book which will help folks understand this disorder. This is for me a very interesting disorder, I think this is one disorder where the connection between our ego consciousness and perhaps what we are at a much deeper level is challenged. Normally we are locked into full belief in our reality - we believe we are very much a part of it and that we "are" the body in which we reside. This disorder forces us to question if we are the body we think we are. It would appear that whatever piece of our mind is keeping us in full belief is breaking down a bit, leaving us a bit outside of the "normal" feeling of being the body. Folks with this disorder can actually worry that they do not have control of their body and that this body may do something they do not want it to do. Driving a car for example can be quite traumatic if you think your body may be acting without your input. Bipolar disorder - the book I am recommending is focused on Bipolar II disorder - essentially swinging from manic (very happy and carefree) to severe depression. This book was actually required reading during the Masters program * Book = "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" by Kay Redfield Jamison o Excellent book written by a psychologist who suffers from this disorder. This book helps to understand the importance of medication for this disorder, as well as the path of destruction that can easily be paved during carefree, manic episodes. ADHD (attention deficit disorder) * Book = "Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It" - Gabor Mate o This is not just a great book for folks with ADHD, but for everyone - as many of the lessons here translate to all of us. This is an extremely excellent book on ADHD and living in general. OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) * Book = "Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" - Ian Osborn o Excellent book on OCD - this book will help individuals with OCD as well as those who know someone with the disorder - to understand what is happening in the mind of a person with this disorder. This book will also help OCD folks realize that they are not alone and that many of the rituals or compulsions are shared by other folks with OCD. That is all for now, but I am still reading