BOOK SUMMARY: Man's Search for Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust

Author: Viktor E Frankl

Publisher: RHUK

Print Length: 160 pages

Release Date: 7 February 2008

Price: ₹193.00 (price may vary)

In this book author described his survival in the concentration camp under Nazi. But the emphasis is on strength, positive approach, religion etc. rather than the travails he suffered and lost in the camp.

This is a kind of religious book. It suggests us that life is meaningful and we must put every effort to find this meaning, despite any ups and downs in the life. It suggests that we all have a purpose in life.

He who has a why, to live for, can bear almost any how -Nietzsche

The above quote inspired the author throughout his journey. He also differentiated between the prisoners who gave up their life due to loss of all hope, died first and the prisoners who were religious and had a hope. They either survived or were last to die. Most of the people in the camp died not because lack of food and medicine but from lack of hope, lack of will to live and survive. But the author kept himself alive and had a great hope to meet his wife again. He thought and imagined most of the time about his wife.

The author emphasized in the question of why anyone at all survived rather in the question of why most prisoners died. Though there were so many prisoners who wanted to live but died some from disease and some in crematoria.

From author’s experienced, in Auschwitz, the concentration camp. It was very terrible to live. But life is not primarily a quest for pleasure as Freud believed, or a quest for power as Alfred Adler taught, but life is all about quest for meaning. It should be our great task to find meaning in our life.

The author suggested three ways as a source of meaning in one’s life.

1. In work -do something significant.

2. In love –care for another person. (As the author held on to the image of his wife through the darkest days in Auschwitz.)

3. In courage -in difficult times.

The author’s most enduring insight, what he did in his own life and in talking to people, that there are so many forces beyond our control. These forces can take away everything we possess except one thing that is our freedom. Our freedom to choose the way we respond to the situation. Sometimes we cannot control the things happening around. But we can always control what we feel and do about these happenings.

I knew so many successful business men who after retirement lost all the zest for life. This is due to their work defined as meaning in their life. This is the only thing that gave them meaning, and rest they spend day and night doing nothing, sitting idle in home, feeling depressed. This can be suffering for them.

In concluding of the book, the author defined logotherapy, curing the soul by meaning of life.

Victor G. Frankl was professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School. He was the founder of third Viennese school of psychotherapy –the school of logotherapy. His writings have been called the most important contributions in the field of psychotherapy.

Born in 1905, Dr. Frankel received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. And doctor of philosophy from University of Vienna. During World War II, he spent his time at Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps. He died in 1997. Now Institutes of logotherapy can be found in all five continents.