Viktor Frankl’s early childhood personal vision of the meaning of life, combined with personal application and his reliance on this meaning to survive in five of the worst concentration camps in Nazi-Germany, led to the creation of this powerful book that has and will continue to change the lives of many suffering with mental illness. Societies across the world continue to fail at their strategy to combat suicide. The concepts taught in Victor E Frankel‘s book Man’s Search for Meaning are one of the innovative approaches that we must take in our strategies to prevent suicide. Frankl argues that the primary drive in one’s life should not focus on “pleasure but the discovery in pursuit of what we as individuals define as meaningful in life”. He provides evidence of how one’s purpose or one’s why in life provides great power and can develop a resilient mind that is cognitively strong and capable of overcoming any trial one faces. When one studies neuroscience and understands the biology of the brain, they can see how this is a powerful tool to overcome suicide. When they understand what is happening inside the brain when one is empathetic or focuses on their purpose or meaning in life, this approach then provides a stronger influence for one not to commit suicide. It enables them to combat the biological changes occurring in the brain that influences one to end their life.
The following are some passages from this book that I have found to be most beneficial to help anyone overcome the unavoidable stressors in life. My hope is that by reading these quotes, you become intrigued to read this book and apply it to your own lives and help those around you who are suffering from anxiety, depression, or suicide. Frankel developed a therapy called logotherapy; a logotherapist is concerned with the “potential meaning inherent, or dormant in all the single situations one has to face throughout his or her life.” Through this approach, when we are faced with a trial or difficulty in life, rather than allowing this adversity to define who we are, we make meaning of it and find ways to grow in the face of this adversity that we could not have avoided.
Memorable passages
Pg. 36. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.
Pg. 40. I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment, a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. “Et lux in tenbris lucet”- and the light shineth in the darkness.
Pg. 64. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
PG. 65. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.
Pg. 74. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Pg. 76. As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychogenic approaches regarding prisoners.
Pg. 79. I remember two cases of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them.
Pg. 112. We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation–just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer–we are challenged to change ourselves.
