Man's Search for Meaning

The book's original title is Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager ("A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp"). Later German editions prefixed the title with Trotzdem Ja zum Leben Sagen ("Nevertheless Say Yes to Life"), taken from a line in Das Buchenwaldlied, a song written by Friedrich Löhner-Beda while an inmate at Buchenwald.[4] The title of the first English-language translation was From Death-Camp to Existentialism. The book's common full English title is Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, although this subtitle is often not printed on the cover of modern editions.[5]

Frankl identifies three psychological reactions experienced by all inmates to one degree or another:

1. shock during the initial admission phase to the camp,
2. apathy after becoming accustomed to camp existence, in which the inmate values only that which helps himself and his friends survive, and
3. reactions of depersonalization, moral deformity, bitterness, and disillusionment if he survives and is liberated.[6]

Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. In a group therapy session during a mass fast inflicted on the camp's inmates trying to protect an anonymous fellow inmate from fatal retribution by authorities, Frankl offered the thought that for everyone in a dire condition there is someone looking down, a friend, family member, or even God, who would expect not to be disappointed. Frankl concludes from his experience that a prisoner's psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has even in severe suffering. The inner hold a prisoner has on his spiritual self relies on having a hope in the future, and that once a prisoner loses that hope, he is doomed.

Frankl also concludes that there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent. No society is free of either of them, and thus there were "decent" Nazi guards and "indecent" prisoners, most notably the kapo who would torture and abuse their fellow prisoners for personal gain.

His concluding passage in Part One describes the psychological reaction of the inmates to their liberation, which he separates into three stages. The first is depersonalization—a period of readjustment in which a prisoner gradually returns to the world. Initially, the liberated prisoners are so numb that they are unable to understand what freedom means or to emotionally respond to it. Part of them believes that it is an illusion or a dream that will be taken away from them. In their first foray outside their former prison, the prisoners realized that they could not comprehend pleasure. Flowers and the reality of the freedom they had dreamed about for years were all surreal, unable to be grasped in their depersonalization.

The body is the first element to break out of this stage, responding by big appetites of eating and wanting more sleeping. Only after the partial replenishing of the body is the mind finally able to respond, as "feeling suddenly broke through the strange fetters which had restrained it" (p. 111).

This begins the second stage, in which there is a danger of deformation. As the intense pressure on the mind is released, mental health can be endangered. Frankl uses the analogy of a diver suddenly released from his pressure chamber. He recounts the story of a friend who became immediately obsessed with dispensing the same violence in judgment of his abusers that they had inflicted on him.

Upon returning home, the prisoners had to struggle with two fundamental experiences that could damage their mental health: bitterness and disillusionment. The last stage is bitterness at the lack of responsiveness of the world outside—a "superficiality and lack of feeling... so disgusting that one finally felt like creeping into a hole and neither hearing nor seeing human beings any more" (p. 113). Worse was disillusionment, 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 became nothing but a remembered nightmare. What is more, he comes to believe that he has nothing left to fear "except his God" (p. 115).

The central idea behind Man's Search to Meaning, as described throughout Part I of the book and extending to an academic discussion in Part II, titled "Logotherapy" is the idea of "Man's Will to Meaning" being the central and overarching goal of each person's life.

In a 1991 survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Man's Search for Meaning was named one of the 10 most influential books in the US.[7] At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies and had been translated into 24 languages. As of 2022 the book has sold 16 million copies and been printed in 52 languages.[8]

Gordon Allport, who wrote a preface to the book, described it as a "gem of dramatic narrative" which "provides a compelling introduction to the most significant psychological movement of our day".[9] Sarah Bakewell describes it as "an incredibly powerful and moving example of what existentialist thought can actually be for in real life"[10] while Mary Fulbrook praises "the way [Frankl] explores the importance of meaning in life as the key to survival."[11]

However, aspects of the book have garnered criticism. One of Frankl's main ideas in the book is that a positive attitude made one better equipped for surviving the camps. Richard Middleton-Kaplan has said that this implies, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that those who died had given up and that this paved the way for the idea of the Jews going like sheep to the slaughter.[12] Holocaust analyst Lawrence L. Langer criticises Frankl's promotion of logotherapy and says the book has a problematic subtext. He also accuses Frankl of having a tone of self-aggrandizement and a general inhumane sense of studying-detachment towards victims of the Holocaust.[13][14]

In his book Faith in Freedom, psychiatrist Thomas Szasz states that Frankl's survivor testimony was written to misdirect, and betrays instead an intent of a transparent effort to conceal Frankl's actions and his collaboration with the Nazis, and that, in the assessment of Raul Hilberg, the founder of Holocaust Studies, Frankl's historical account is a deception akin to Binjamin Wilkomirski's infamous memoirs, which were translated into nine languages before being exposed as fraudulent in Hilberg's 1996 Politics of Memory.[15] Szasz's criticism of Frankl is not universally embraced. Similarly, Hilberg's allegations have been rebutted by several reviewers.

• Existential anxiety
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Statue of Responsibility – proposed in the book to complement the Statue of Liberty
• Life Is Beautiful (1997), film on how a positive attitude can be maintained in the worst of circumstances, including a concentration camp

Wikiquote has quotations related to Man's Search for Meaning.

• Viktor Frankl: Why believe in others TED talk
• Commentary on Man's Search For Meaning by personal development scholar Tom Butler-Bowdon (50 Self-Help Classics, 2003. ISBN 978-1857883237)
• Viktor Frankl at Ninety: An Interview
• Man's Search for Meaning book cover
• Gilmore, Byron Ross (1997). The search for meaning in grief: A comparison of Victor Frankl's 'Search for Meaning' with Douglas Hall's 'Theology of the Cross', and their implications for grief ministry (M.A. thesis). Wilfrid Laurier University.
• There's More To Life Than Being Happy in The Atlantic, discussion of Man's Search For Meaning. 2013.