Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)

Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, examines the relationship between human conditioning and the human spiritual dimension of freedom and meaning. As a psychotherapist, Frankl does not offer religious solutions, but he clearly believes that the individual seeking freedom and meaning in his or her life must connect with some cause beyond himself or herself, or with some person other than himself or herself, if he or she is to overcome the dehumanizing and unhealthy forces of conditioning in physiological, social and psychological terms. Frankl also believes that it is the responsibility of the individual to recognize his or her freedom of choice, despite the conditioning circumstances which prevail, and to take action based on that freedom which will transcend that conditioning and lead to a connection with another human being and/or with a cause which transcends individual self-concern. A passage from Frankl containing the essence of his logotherapy emphasizes the relationship between freedom and meaning, whatever the circumstances:

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this

. . . "the self-transcendence of human existence." The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the

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in even the most barbaric conditions, allowing the individual to discover meaning in life even under such conditions. The selected passage on physiological conditioning: "Even though conditions such as lack of sleep [and] insufficient food . . . may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, . . . the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision. . . . " (87). This passage shows how the individual can overcome physical and biological conditioning by making an inner or spiritual decision not to be limited as an animal is to biological needs. The individual is responsible for refusing to be reduced to a physical vessel, which is what the Nazis sought in their conditioning of the camp victims. Frankl and his fellow camp victims suffered horrible physiological deprivation, but some of them showed they could transcend their biological suffering and achieve a connection to a greater cause and to the other suffering human beings around them. For Frankl, the physiological conditioning imposed by the Nazis became a test which showed the content of an individual's spirit. He does not judge those who completely surrendered, but he does argue that there is a choice involved between that surrend

Category: Psychology - M