Man

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Mans Search for Meaning

• Viktor Frankl

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Dr. Viktor Frankl

• 1905-1997
• 3 years of his life in concentration camps
• 1942-1945
• Professor of both neurology and psychiatry
• Specialized in treatment of depression and
  suicide
• Wrote 32 books, translated into 23 languages

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Logotherapy

• Frankl created the 3rd Viennese School of
  Psychology
• Freud Psychoanalysis
• Adler Individual Psychology
• Frankl Logotherapy
• logos reason/word
• therapy heal

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Mans Search for Meaning

• Originally published in 1959 under the title
• From Death-Camp to Existentialism
• Premise I will try to answer this question How
  was everyday life in a concentration camp
  reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?
  (Frankl 21)

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Mans Search for Meaning

• I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by
  way of a concrete example that life holds a
  potential meaning under any conditions, even the
  most miserable ones. And I thought that if the
  point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme
  as that in a concentration camp, my book might
  gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for
  writing down what I had gone through, for I
  thought it might be helpful for people prone to
  despair. (Frankl 16)

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• An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is
  normal behavior. (Frankl 38)

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• Let one attempt to expose a number of the most
  diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the
  increase of the imperative urge hunger all
  individual differences will blur, and in their
  stead will appear the uniform expression of the
  one unstilled urge (Freud)

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• That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
  (Nietzsche)

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GROUP WORK

• On the block paper, please do the following
• Draw the spectrum of philosophy and place Frankl
  on it
• Please also place each group member on the
  spectrum as well
• According to your assigned school of philosophy,
  record at least 5-10 examples of how that
  philosophy was manifested by the behavior in the
  camps