MAN's SEARCH FOR MEANING

Sufferings tend to cause a human to feel hopeless with a deep sense of failure. “MAN's
SEARCH FOR MEANING” is a helpful book during such times. Written by Austrian neurologist-
psychiatrist and four Concentration camps survivor Victor Frankl, this book is simple yet very
intense. The author by narrating his life instances in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and
explains how one can see the meaning of life in any situation he has put through. He noticed
minute changes in the behavior of the individuals throughout the inevitable days of the camp
which made him to develop the ground breaking logotherapy after he got released by the
American soldiers from the concentration camp. He has expressed his personal experience
along with his survival philosophy. Which was highlighted repeatedly “He who has a why to
live can bear almost any how.” in all the sections. This book consists of three sections.

The first section describes the brutality every prisoner faced at concentration camps for three
years including the author. The author distinctively clarified the three noteworthy stages the
prisoners have experienced in the camp, and furthermore how each stage changed the
prisoners from their past lives and how they created different health deterioration. The
prisoners were first in a condition of shock, which was trailed by the period of creating lack
of concern lastly, on being freed, prisoners felt depersonalized from the outset and later
showed solid side effects in differential ways.

Though the language has been written in less harsh tone, the brutality and the sufferings of
all the fellow prisoners can be felt vividly in detail in front our eyes. At the end of first section,
one realizes the true meaning of life, love and also how thankless one has become towards
the little mercies in life.

Author also introduced about a new topic “Logotherapy” which he explained in the second
section. To the prisoners who gave up on their lives and felt no meaning in their suffering
where treated by logotherapy by the author. Even the finest differences between
psychoanalysis and Logotherapy are clearly specified. Every concept of Logotherapy, the
process and the techniques have been explained through great practical examples and case
studies. A novice therapist may find these useful. However, he failed to explain how these
techniques can be integrated with the psychotherapeutic process.

The third aspect of the book is for readers wishing to apply the principles of Logotherapy on
themselves. The triad of pain, guilt and death is well justified, though further reading is
necessary for a practicing therapist. This section is also useful for a therapist to comprehend
how anticipatory depression, anxieties, unemployment neurosis, obsessive behaviors,
aggression and even Sunday neurosis can be dealt with effectively through Logotherapy. He
explained how meaninglessness in life may not be pathological, but can certainly be
pathogenic.
It is explained that how “suffering is not necessary to find meaning.” If suffering can be
avoided, meaningfulness would lie in attacking the cause of suffering; but if it can't,
meaningfulness would lie in changing the way we look at the situation and unlock the actual
meaning lying “dormant” in that suffering!

An admirable analogy is given between “meaning of life” and “meaning of movie”.

“meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we
cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components,
each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life?
Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of
death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning
of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s
knowledge and belief?”

Moral:

One has to live till the last to figure out the complete meaning of one’s life, no matter what
infliction comes in his way he has to face it upfront with full spirit.

Judewin Elson J