Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning

Victor Frankl

Essay by Thamara Olivo.

Man's Search for Meaning is a bestselling book by Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher Viktor Frankl. It narrates the horrors experienced in the Auschwitz concentration camp and the course of dehumanization, evidencing the good and bad of humanity.

The prisoners were exposed to subhuman conditions, and as for the daily diet, it consisted only of a watery soup once a day, and sometimes a piece of bread.

The situations described above only led to the worsening of diseases such as typhus

Days after the captivity began, the prisoners experienced apathy, a kind of emotional death.

The loss of everything, from one moment to the next, made them consider that there was no point in continuing to live. Those who survived were the people who had become unscrupulous beings, Frankl comments that the best could not return, since they maintained their moral values ​​until the end.

From the author's perspective, in order to survive, people must accept their suffering and see it as a challenge to be overcome.

Viktor Frankl narrates that the longing and hope of seeing his wife again was what manifested him standing up in the face of adversity.

The confinement had such emotional, physical and psychological effects that, once the release arrived, the prisoners did not present any type of feeling.

In conclusion, the book tells us what happened in the Nazi Holocaust from the reality of the prisoners, more specifically from the vision of the author, a person with well-defined moral and ethical values.

Frankl witnessed the change of those who suffered the most excruciating suffering.

The meaning of life for Frankl resides in the fact that if there is a why, it will be possible to find a how.

The ordeal led Viktor Frankl to found logotherapy, which is defined as healing through the senses.

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