A00355 - Book of the Month for the Month of November 2024: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl: Afterword: Part Two

 Under the influence of Freud's ideas, Frankl decided while he was still in high school to become a psychiatrist inspired its part by a fellow student who told him he had a gift for helping others, Frankl had begun to realize that he had a talent not only for diagnosing psychological problems, but also for discovering what motivates people.  

Frankl's first counseling job was entirely his own -- he founded Vienna's first private youth counseling program and worked with troubled youths.  From 1930 to 1937 he worked as a psychiatrist at the University Clinic in Vienna, caring for suicidal patients.  He sought to help his patients find a way to make their lives meaningful even in the face of depression or mental illness.  By 1939 he was head of the department of neurology at Rothschild Hospital, the only Jewish hospital in Vienna.

In the early years of the war, Frankl's work at Rothschild gave him and his family some degree of protection from the threat of deportation.  When the hospital was closed down by the National Socialist government, however, Frankl realized that they were at grave risk of being sent to a concentration camp.  In 1942 the American consulate in Vienna informed him that he was eligible for a U.S. Immigration visa.  Although an escape from Austria would have enabled him to complete his book on logotherapy, he decided to let his visa lapse: he felt he should stay in Vienna for the sake of his aging parents.  In September 1942, Frankl and his family were arrested and deported.  Frankl and his family were arrested and deported.  Frankl spent the next three years at four different concentration camps -- Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering, and Turkheim, part of the Dachau complex.

It is important to note that Frankl's imprisonment was not the only impetus for Man's Search for Meaning. Before his deportation, he had already begun to formulate an argument that the quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.  As a prisoner, he was suddenly forced to assess whether his own life still had any meaning.  His survival was a combined result of his will to live, his instinct for self-preservation, some generous acts of human decency, and shrewdness; of course, it also depended on blind luck, such as where he happened to be imprisoned, the whims of the guards, and arbitrary decisions about where to line up and who to trust or believe.  However, something more was needed to overcome the deprivations and degradations of the camps.  Frankl drew constantly upon uniquely human capacities such as inborn optimism, humor, psychological detachment, brief moments of solitude, inner freedom, and a steely resolve not to give up or commit suicide.  He realized that he must try to live for the future, and he drew strength from loving thoughts of his wife and his deep desire to finish his book on logotherapy.  He also found meaning in glimpses of beauty in nature and art.  Most important, he realized that, no matter what happened, he retained the freedom to choose how to respond to his suffering.  He saw this not merely as an option but as his and every person's responsibility to choose "the way in which he bears his burden." (pgs. 156-158)

*****

Food for thought.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

Fairfield, California

November 26, 2024