Existentialist Psychiatrist, Auschwitz Survivor Viktor Frankl Explains How to Find Meaning in Life, No Matter What Challenges You Face

Free will often seems like noth­ing more than a cru­el illu­sion. We don’t get to choose the times, places, and cir­cum­stances of our birth, nor do we have much con­trol over the state of our states, regions, or nations. Even the few who can design con­di­tions such that they are always secure and com­fort­able find them­selves unavoid­ably sub­ject to what Bud­dhists call the “divine mes­sen­gers” of sick­ness, aging, and death. Biol­o­gy may not be des­tiny, but it is a force more pow­er­ful than many of our best inten­tions. And though most of us in the West have the priv­i­lege of liv­ing far away from war zones, mil­lions across the world face extrem­i­ties we can only imag­ine, and to which we are not immune by any stretch.

Among all of the psy­chi­a­trists, philoso­phers, and reli­gious fig­ures who have wres­tled with these uni­ver­sal truths about the human con­di­tion, per­haps none has been put to the test quite like neu­rol­o­gist and psy­chother­a­pist Vik­tor Fran­kl, who sur­vived Auschwitz, but lost his moth­er, father, broth­er, and first wife to the camps.

While impris­oned, he faced what he described as “an unre­lent­ing strug­gle for dai­ly bread and for life itself.” After his camp was lib­er­at­ed in 1945, Fran­kl pub­lished an extra­or­di­nary book about his expe­ri­ences: Man’s Search for Mean­ing, “a strange­ly hope­ful book,” writes Matthew Scul­ly at First Things, “still a sta­ple on the self-help shelves” though it is “inescapably a book about death.” The book has seen dozens of edi­tions in dozens of lan­guages and ranks 9th on a list of most influ­en­tial books.

Fran­kl’s the­sis echoes those of many sages, from Bud­dhists to Sto­ics to his 20th cen­tu­ry Exis­ten­tial­ist con­tem­po­raries: “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.” Not only did he find hope and mean­ing in the midst of ter­ri­ble suf­fer­ing, but after his unimag­in­able loss, he “remar­ried, wrote anoth­er twen­ty-five books, found­ed a school of psy­chother­a­py, built an insti­tute bear­ing his name in Vien­na,” and gen­er­al­ly lived a long, hap­py life. How? The inter­view above will give you some idea. Fran­kl main­tains that we always have some free­dom of choice, “in spite of the worst con­di­tions,” and there­fore always have the abil­i­ty to seek for mean­ing. “Peo­ple are free,” says Fran­kl, no mat­ter their lev­el of oppres­sion, and are respon­si­ble “for mak­ing some­one or some­thing out of them­selves.”

Fran­kl’s pri­ma­ry achieve­ment as a psy­chother­a­pist was to found the school of “logother­a­py,” a suc­ces­sor to Freudi­an psy­cho­analy­sis and Adler­ian indi­vid­ual psy­chol­o­gy. Draw­ing on Exis­ten­tial­ist phi­los­o­phy (Fran­kl’s book was pub­lished in Ger­many with the alter­nate title From Con­cen­tra­tion Camp to Exis­ten­tial­ism)—but turn­ing away from an obses­sion with the Absurd—his approach, writes his insti­tute, “is based on three philo­soph­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­cepts… Free­dom of Will, Will to Mean­ing, and Mean­ing in Life.”

You can hear how Fran­kl works these prin­ci­ples into his phi­los­o­phy in the fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view, as well as in the short clip above from an ear­li­er lec­ture, in which he rails against a crude and ulti­mate­ly unful­fill­ing form of mean­ing-mak­ing: the pur­suit of wealth. Even us mate­ri­al­is­tic Amer­i­cans, renowned for our greed, Fran­kl notes with good humor, respond to sur­veys in over­whelm­ing num­bers say­ing our great­est desire is to find mean­ing and pur­pose in life. Like no oth­er sec­u­lar voice, Fran­kl was con­fi­dent that we could do so, in spite of life’s seem­ing chaos, through—as he explains above—a kind of ide­al­ism that brings us clos­er to real­i­ty.

Note: You can down­load Fran­kl’s major book, “Man’s Search for Mean­ing,” as a free audio book if you join Audi­ble’s 30-Day Free Tri­al pro­gram. Find details on that here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cre­ativ­i­ty, Not Mon­ey, is the Key to Hap­pi­ness: Dis­cov­er Psy­chol­o­gist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s The­o­ry of “Flow”

Albert Ein­stein Tells His Son The Key to Learn­ing & Hap­pi­ness is Los­ing Your­self in Cre­ativ­i­ty (or “Find­ing Flow”)

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


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  • Julia Richardson says:

    Here is a link to an excel­lent doc­u­ment­ed dis­cus­sion about the poignance of Fran­kl’s work to con­tribute as a resource. The indi­vid­ual clip explores a num­ber of sub­jects, includ­ing one of Fran­kl’s rev­e­la­tions described in “Man’s Search for Mean­ing.” I work with Dar­rell Calkins, an edu­ca­tor with Cobalt­Saf­fron, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary orga­ni­za­tion for high­er learn­ing with roots in psy­chol­o­gy and com­par­a­tive reli­gion, who has a rare appre­ci­a­tion for Fran­kl’s work.

    youtu.be/OMvnfkMjqe8

    (On Find­ing Mean­ing and Ful­fill­ment: Vik­tor Fran­kl — Dar­rell Calkins)

  • Thomas Roberts says:

    This gen­tle­man’s per­spec­tive of our lives is accurate.He has learned much from his life.He has proven him­self to be a capa­ble student.He is intel­li­gent with an impres­sive imag­i­na­tion that allows him per­spec­tives most have no access to.
    HIS UNDERSTANDINGS ARE CORRECT — AND HE IS ABLE TO EXPLAIN AND MAKE SENSE OF THIS EXPERIMENT — OUR LIVES — AS BEST HE KNOWS HOW.
    HE KNOWS THIS IS THE TREASURE HE NEEDS TO SHARE.
    HE UNDERSTANDS HE HAS A RESPONSIBILITY TO SHARE WHAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT HIM ‑WITH WE WHO ARE LESS EDUCATED.
    HE HAS NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO TEACH AND EDUCATE US — WITH WHAT HE HAS GROWN AS A TOOLKIT –HIS BEST IS DELIVERED TO US THROUGH THOSE EYES THAT LEARNED HIM TO SEE THE TRUTH.
    HE OPENS OUR MINDS WITH TRUTH AND HONESTY AND CLARITY.
    IF RECEPTIVE WE SEE THROUGH THOSE EYES
    AND THROUGH THAT MAGIC EXPERIENCE WE ENTER ANOTHER UNIVERSE.
    A DIFFERENT DIMENSION.
    A DIFFERENT IMAGINATION — WELCOMING FRIENDLY HELPFUL CARING — CARING ENOUGH TO DELIVER US INTO HEAVENS AND EVEN INTO HELLS WE FIND UNTHREATENING.
    THOSE BITTER HELLS HE KNOWS WE FIND OURSELVES FALLING INTO AS HE DESCRIBES THEM.WE SHOULD BE REPELLED IN FEAR SLIPPING INTO THAT DARKNESS BUT BY HOLDING OUR HAND — THAT GENTLENESS OF HIS MAKES OUR DESCENT AN EASY ODYSSEY WITH A FRIEND.WE KNOW WE WITH A FRIEND — OUR BEST FRIEND — WHO HAS SURVIVED HELL — AND HAS GROWN MATURE FROM THE EXPERIENCE — SO MUCH MORE THAN WE.
    HAS BECOME THE HERO — ITS NO SECRET.
    HE CHANGES EVERYTHING.HEROS DO THAT.
    THEY ARE THE ONLY CREATURES WE CAN COUNT ON AS REAL AND TRUE — DEPENDABLE ALWAYS ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF NEED.
    EVERYTHING WE FEAR — EVERY THREAT WE FACE AND ARE INADEQUATE TO DEAL WITH
    THEY HAVE SUCCESSFULLY OVERCOME.
    THEY ARE THE LIVING PROOF.
    A REAL TRUE HERO IS SOMEONE WHO IS THE LIVING BREATHING PROOF OF HIS ACHIEVEMENT.
    HIS HOLDING OUR HAND IS A MAGIC NOTHING ELSE CAN MATCH.
    ONLY HEROS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
    ONLY HEROS HAVE THOSE BALLS .THEY EARNED THEM.
    AS A DOCTOR — DOLING OUT HIS KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTANDINGS AND WISDOMS IS A MEDICINE — HIS LIFE GIFTED HIM THIS TREASURE.
    HIS INTENTION IS TO HELP US UNDERSTAND WHAT SEEMS COMPLETE INSANITY.
    HE KNOWS WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH — HE LIVED IT AND WORSE.
    BUT HE SURVIVED AND IT DID NOT DESTROY HIM.
    IT GREW HIM.
    HIS SHARING THIS UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE THAT HE STRUGGLED TO GRASP AND SUCCEEDED IN WRESTLING FROM IT IS A MAGIC — AN IMAGINATION GROWN FROM THE FIRES OF HELL THAT DELIVERED HIM TO FREEDOM — TO HEAVEN.
    NO EXAGGERATION TO SEE HE IS GODLY.HIS UNDERSTANDING HAS DELIVERED HIM TO DIMENSIONS BEYOND THE ROLLER-COASTER RIDE WE ARE STLL STRUGGLING IN — LOST — HELPLESSLY IN ITS CHAOTIC GRIP — IT VICTIMS.
    HE HAS GROWN BIGGER WISER THAN ALL OF US STILL STUCK ON THAT RIDE.
    HE LIVED IT — AND LET IT TEACH HIM.
    HE IS DESPERATELY TRYING TO HELP GROW US INTO MATURE MEN AND WOMEN.
    HE KNOWS WE ARE LIKE HELPLESS IGNORANT INFANTS LOST AND STUPID.
    BUT HE LOVES US TOO MUCH TO NOT WANT TO HELP US IN OUR CONFUSION AND PAIN.
    HE KNOWS HOW THAT FEELS.
    HE HAS A MEDICINE- A MAGIC POTION — THAT CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
    IN THIS INTERVIEW HE IS REALLY USING THIS MAGIC WITHOUT ACTUALLY MENTIONING IT OR DIRECTLY TELLING US WHAT IT IS.
    IT IS THE SOURCE AND FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING HE IS AND SAYS.
    ALL HE SAYS IS A KIND OF MIRAGE — A COVER — AN ILLUSION — A DELUSION — A MAGIC SHOW THAT MESMERIZES AND CAPTURES US.HE TRAPS US IN WEB CLEVERLY BUT TRUTHFULLY SPUN.
    THIS MAN KNOWS WHAT LOVE IS AND WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT.HE IS BECOME A MAN WHO HAS THE POWER OF LOVE AND WORKS WITH IT WISELY.IT AND HE ARE ONE.
    HAVING GROWN THE MOST CLEVER AND SUBTLE MIND THAT IS A FRIEND WITH HIS IMMENSE HEART — IS A COMBINATION NOTHING IN THIS WORLD HAS YET KNOWN.
    SUFFERING AND PAIN IS NO MATCH FOR HIM.HE HAS BEEN HERE AND DONE THAT.HE IS NOT IMMUNE BUT HAS DEFEATED IT.DEATH IS NOT A THREAT TO HIM.
    HE KNOWS FREEDOM.HE LIVES IT.
    A HUMBLE MAN WHO IS FEARLESSLY FULLY ALIVE
    A GOD.

  • Thomas Roberts says:

    SIMPLY PUT

    THIS MAN KNOWS

  • Harrie Baken says:

    Your all caps text isn’t hum­ble.

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