Man’s Search For Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
This is a MUST read . . . for everyone.
For therapists, it is a great resource for our work.
For clients, there are some invaluable life lessons, including a shift from focusing on happiness, to focusing on meaning.
For everyone, words to inspire and live by.
It is hard to believe that a little paperback book, only 165 pages, can be so packed with life lessons. Viktor Frankl does an excellent job with his memoir by telling you his story as if you were sitting by the fire with him, having a chat.
How does one survive a Nazi death camp? And not only survive, but come out of it to use his experience to benefit others? This is truly what Viktor did, and in this important book he shares his experiences, his ways of coping, and the common traits of human nature that we all share. As a psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl’s theory is known as Logotherapy:
…there are three main avenues at which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work, or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love…Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. (pages 145, 146)
What I loved about this book were the practical applications for all of us in our everyday present lives. This is not just a book about history, nor just about suffering, but rather the key ingredients to a meaningful life today.
The quest for meaning is the key to mental health (page 157) …mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become (pages 104, 105)
I truly hope you enjoy the book as much as I did, and that you can use Frankl’s very sound principles to help guide you in your own life.
…every human being has the freedom to change at any instant (page 131)
