Mans Search for Ultimate Meaning

Questions?

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Frankl writes beautifully, although sometimes vaguely about happiness, meaning, religion, suffering and the preciousness of life.

One of my favorite quotes from him is "happiness is the side effect of living out the self-transcendence of existence". Knowledge and the knowledge of its limits.

These ideas may not have quantitative evidence behind them that many modern readers appreciate. The content is at times airy and at times unstructured. But to those of us who appreciate both the zeal and tranquility of life's quiet reflections, a work like this is enriching our deeper levels of human experience. Jul 02, David Roberts rated it really liked it. In that book it was about his experiences in a concentration camp during World War 2 and how he found meaning to his existence whilst there which led to him developing logotherapy and becoming a celebrated psychiatrist and psycho therapist.

One man went to him devastated about his wife's death which had left him alone. Viktor told him he should think that he is suffering instead of his wife and has spared her this ordeal. One thing he often focuses on is a life has to have meaning and an example of this is lab rats had a lever that every time they pressed it produced food. At first they ate lots and lots of food but then it lost its meaning and they went off food and sex. It is only by having sad experiences we can appreciate the good times.

In a concentration they enjoyed great happiness eating a bit of stale bread because they were starving and if they had been well fed would have turned their noses up at it. Another thing is expectations where we expect something and if it disappoints we are upset but if it exceeds our expectations no matter how little we expect are happy. This is only a short book of around pages and Viktor is from Vienna in Austria which of course was invaded by Hitler during World War 2. This is a very interesting book and I enjoyed reading it.

Dec 27, Johnnee rated it it was amazing. While vacationing in Brooklyn, a girl whose lent me her couch to sleep on called me a hippie for reading this book. I panicked and tried to convince her, and myself, that I was NOT a dirty hippie.

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I don't smoke pot, or listen to jam bands, or even love everybody. At the same time, this book really is intensively self-reflective. Frankl's Logotherapy is a great response to life in my opinion, and his philosophy has a lot of value that you can take with you after you're done reading. This book is While vacationing in Brooklyn, a girl whose lent me her couch to sleep on called me a hippie for reading this book.

This book is commonly found in the self-help section I found it in nearby in psychology so i guess that's where it's hippie status originates. Oh well, its weird to think that self-help is such a shameful section to be in keep in mind that hippie in its modern lexicon amongst my friends implies someone with an archaic, narcissistic, self-serving, one-dimentional mindset but I think I'm just too old to care these days.

This book is great after dealing with loss or tragedy I read this so long ago, forgive my broad summary. Ego, Id, Super-Ego; and turns that two dimensional analysis into a three dimensional one. Indeed, we can even add past, present, and future to make the complexity of the Soul more visual. Building a system to explain our Inner World, Frankl scratches the itch of explaining ourselves to ourse I read this so long ago, forgive my broad summary.

Building a system to explain our Inner World, Frankl scratches the itch of explaining ourselves to ourselves. Some may disapprove of an apparent bias toward spirituality, but these are the only words our culturally limited linguistic skills give us to describe the Great Wonder. In short, as I recall, he says the closer we are to our own deepest feelings of meaningfulness, the Super-Ego, the closer we are to the Creator of meaning.

Nov 22, Kent Winward rated it really liked it. Frankl's logotherapy is invigorating when compared with other forms of psychotherapy. Ironically, it shows up in business books like Start with Why: It is such an important part of what it is that makes us human, that it is a crime our mental healt Frankl's logotherapy is invigorating when compared with other forms of psychotherapy. It is such an important part of what it is that makes us human, that it is a crime our mental health professionals are so philosophically deficient that they are leery of tackling the most pressing psychological problem: Dec 28, Whole And rated it it was amazing.

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An extraordinarily difficult yet profound book. Victor Frankl takes us by the hand and walks us through some of the most devastating inhumane conditions imaginable. Be warned, this is not an easy read by any means. The scenes and stories told will reach your core and make you wonder why humans beings were ever created if they could do such terrible things to one another as described in the concentration camps.

However, you will walk through Dr. Frankl's way of thinking as well.

The inner world wi An extraordinarily difficult yet profound book. The inner world will be astoundingly beautiful, learning that love is the ultimate purpose of life and that love can be experienced even where he was, without the presence of the one he loves. Frankl clearly shows us, our choice of attitude in any given situation, even in the most horrific places, is our freedom that cannot ever be taken away no matter where we are or what we may be going through.

There is a constant sense of possible achievement described throughout the book, inner strength and spiritual accomplishment.

Once could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or on could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners. The theme of triumph is indeed prevalent throughout the journey. Lessons that can be applied to any given circumstance in our present world and situation. The lessons are universal and timeless only having been born or cultivated through such agonizing conditions.

The gems gifted from this book are golden but the journey is incredibly grueling, emotionally challenging. Take time to be with the book and with emotions that arise. Rest assured, it is most definitely worth the journey. Mar 31, Dennis Berard added it. When in the concentration camp after they have killed everyone you know, taken everything from you, and I mean everything, Victor Frankl still has a choice, he still has something.

Nearly all of us would've had nothing. Similar to the hope expressed in the shawshank redemption but so much more desperate. Frankl takes us with him on this journey. How could anyone human behave that way? But throughout all the pain and suffering the one thing they could not take from Victor was his soul. Victor When in the concentration camp after they have killed everyone you know, taken everything from you, and I mean everything, Victor Frankl still has a choice, he still has something.

Victor Frankl could contemplate on his beloved wife, her memory. As Phil Cousineau points out to us in Soul an Archeology, the soul has memory. My learning was that memory is a growth at the snyapse, at the receptor sites on the neurons. But in Frankl's case his beloved wife's memory is carried in his soul and that gives him his choice, which, in that moment was his alone to choose that memory, the one thing that the vile nazis couldn't wrest from him.

Victor found his salvation, his hope, in his soul with the memory of this wife to sustain him in the midst of the worst terror even inflicted upon humans in history. Sure, he was seventy pounds, maybe, near death, but Victor Frankl earns the greatest respect of anyone I have ever even thought of, bar none. May 01, Doreen rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Amazing, intuitive, human observations make this book one that everyone should read. It took me a while to finish this book. I didn't want to rush through and miss the nuances that provide such a thorough presentation of man's need to have meaning in his life.

I now understand that every single person has a meaningful life and it's just a matter of recognizing it. Under the most stressful, dangerous, life-threatening circumstances imaginable in life, I can see that life always holds meaning. Fran Amazing, intuitive, human observations make this book one that everyone should read. Frankl's logotherapy is simple. When in the concentration camp, Frankl, a neurologist and psychiatrist, with others, tried to teach despairing men, 'it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

This is a must-read. The people in various societies in our world can all benefit from this books concepts Concepts that can be put into action for everyone's benefit, the individual as well as the masses. Feb 07, Hassan rated it it was amazing Shelves: Something I would not recommend to someone who is beginning to explore the field of psychology. One ought to know the basic foundations of Psychology and Philosophy to interpret it completely. But what a book! I'll share the teaching that touched me the most. Freud would have us believe that we are nothing more than a collection of instincts and drives that are hidden in the unconscious.

Victor Frankl claims that there is a spiritual unconscious as well, and like wise there are s A profound book. Victor Frankl claims that there is a spiritual unconscious as well, and like wise there are spiritual drives that exist that really make us human. He believes that the spiritual instinct to search for meaning in any given situation is what really makes us human.

Now that is something really, really meaningful to think about! I consider it Destiny's timing that I got my hands on this book at a time when the world seems to be spiralling out of control more than ever. Two powerful set of thoughts are what I am taking away with me after the last page has been read. The first thought - " Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.

In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life. Such a book, and such a man who penned it. May 21, Alex rated it really liked it. Oct 19, Erik Stronks rated it it was ok. This book, while full of engaging philosophical ideas, feels rather outdated. The empirical science, the psychiatric viewpoints and the ethical concepts feel distinctly mid-twentieth-century.

Unsurprisingly, that is when most of the book was written.

The last few chapters, added later as ideas and concepts evolved and science progressed, are a much better read. If you're non-religious, and especially if you've read any of the works of recent 'new atheists', it shouldn't be hard to punch a lot of h This book, while full of engaging philosophical ideas, feels rather outdated. If you're non-religious, and especially if you've read any of the works of recent 'new atheists', it shouldn't be hard to punch a lot of holes in Frankl's story, especially when he connects the search for meaning with religion.

Jan 28, Motahareh Nabavi rated it really liked it. Frankl is a very strong writer and the topics discussed in the book were of personal interest to me. I spent the past couple days reading and reflecting on this book and discussing it with friends. It's quite a dense book and the author assumes prior knowledge in the field of psychology, and although I wasn't able to comprehend everything, I still got quite a lot out of it that will continue shaping my understanding of the mind and the spiritual self.

Oct 15, Jim Johnson rated it it was ok. This book was a disappointing follow-up to the author's book, Man's Search for Meaning.

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Frankl dispenses a few useful nuggets of wisdom but puts too much stock in religion and god; effectively diminishing his own philosophy. His attempt to define spirit and god in a broad sense make those concepts completely useless and arbitrary. The author's ignorance of atheism and agnosticism is frustrating, to say the least.

After reading this book, I feel embarrassed on Frankl's behalf. A difficult read in parts, yes. Nowhere near as accessible as Man's Search for Meaning, correct. Worth two books in my Goodreads challenge according to my spouse, fine by me. While Man's Search for Meaning had a clarity and uplifting belief in the common humanity of all, this dense collection of psychotherapeutic theory buries the roadmap but for a few striking nuggets. Oct 29, Melissa Brown rated it liked it.

This read a lot like a psychology textbook. Maybe that is basically what it is used for, but I just was expecting more of a story. There were still great little nuggets in the book and it was thought-provoking, I just wasn't quite expecting all the academic vocabulary and research.

This book is a must read May 12, Frana rated it really liked it. The last stage is bitterness at the lack of responsiveness of the world outside—a "superficiality and lack of feeling Worse was disillusionment, which was the discovery that suffering does not end, that the longed-for happiness will not come.

This was the experience of those who—like Frankl—returned home to discover that no one awaited them. The hope that had sustained them throughout their time in the concentration camp was now gone. Frankl cites this experience as the most difficult to overcome. As time passed, however, the prisoner's experience in a concentration camp finally became nothing but a remembered nightmare.

What is more, he comes to believe that he has nothing left to fear any more, "except his God" One of Frankl's main claims in the book is that a positive attitude was essential to surviving the camps. Consequently, he implied that those who died had given up. However, historians have concluded that there was little connection between attitude and survival. The popularity of Frankl's book, as well as misunderstandings of Frankl's disclaimers, contributed to the myth that Holocaust victims were partially responsible for their fate. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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