Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, author; Simon Vance, narrator
The more I learn the more I realize that there is so much more to learn. In this book, the author offers a clinical examination of his experiences in several concentration camps. He explains why he thinks some people survived and others did not. He believes that some simply gave up, could not find a purpose to live any longer, could not visualize a future because there was no definitive moment that one could point to which said when the misery would end. Thus they lost hope, they gave up and they died, basically, before they died.
The first part of the book concerns his experiences in four different concentration camps during World War II. In the second part of the book, he elaborates on his theory of logotherapy, explaining the difference between his theories and those of the popular psychiatrists of his time, using the Holocaust experience as the backdrop. While Freud believed that *man’s search was for pleasure and Adler believed that *man’s search was for power, Frankl believed that *man’s search was for meaning. He also believed that “the meaning of his life, was to help others find the meaning of theirs”.
To me his approach to therapy seemed gentler and a bit more benign than the popular psychotherapy of his day. His was almost friendly, more personal, showing interest in the patient. He didn’t have his patients lie down and face away from him, and he didn’t tell them how they should act. They communicated with each other and he listened to them and encouraged them to discover their own answers. He didn’t direct them, but let them search for their own answers and let them discover their own meaning in their lives. In the book, he cites examples of some of his patient’s moments of self-discovery.
I gave the book four stars and not five, because although I really enjoyed it, the second half, at times, was over my head in theory. Still, I understood a great deal. Frankl believed that luck and fate played a large part in who survived in the camps and who did not, however, he also believed that the environment alone did not shape the choices that people made, but rather their own moral values influenced their judgment, as well. He believed that those who sacrificed their moral compass, simply gave up, and succumbed more rapidly. They saw no end to their predicament, and they on longer had hope. They allowed the insanity they were living through to infect them, rather than to embrace it and find something positive to yield from it. When free, some survivors became oppressors, now that they were no longer oppressed. I think he believed, putting it in common parlance, that no matter how grave the situation, one must make lemonade out of lemons. Ultimately, Frankl believed that *man had inner strength and that sometimes it failed because he no longer believed in a future, or visualized a light at the end of the tunnel.
Frankl uses quotes of several authorities to bolster his theories, as with Bismarck’s remark that “Life is like being at the dentist. You always think the worst is yet to come, yet it is over already.” Man must picture “freedom from suffering” as Schopenhauer put it, to find the courage to proceed. In the camps, instead of resenting the cold showers, he was grateful for the opportunity to shower, grateful for the delousing as it would put an end to the itching, grateful to be in Dachau, and no longer at Auschwitz where they had crematoria. He looked for the silver lining in the midst of dark clouds. Frankl believed in Nietzche’s theory stating that, “that which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger”.
Frankl would not judge the Capos, who were prisoners just like him, because he could not imagine how he would behave, if he walked in their shoes. I have a friend who had a very difficult life, at times. When one asked her how she coped. She always responded, I can be happy or sad, I choose happy. This seemed to be Frankl’s overriding attitude as well. His theory seems to be about creating a positive attitude at all times, no matter how difficult the situation is, in order to get through it as well as one could, even when referring to something like a terminal illness. In the book, he cites a patient who knows that she is dying. She talks to the tree outside her window. She hears it answer that it is eternal. It gives her hope. His, is an existential approach to life. We suffer and we find meaning in life through our suffering, but he also believed that if suffering can be avoided, it should be, otherwise it is masochism, which would give the opposite end result of the one he believed people sought.
Ironically, when Frankl described the depression of the unemployed, who felt hopeless, seven decades ago, the comment could just as easily be made today, as we go through the Covid-19 pandemic with no discernible end in sight. To Frankl, even when we suffer, and it is unavoidable, it is necessary to find some positive outlet so that life itself does not grow pointless and meaningless. When that happens *man gives up. If man cannot see a point in the future, man lose the ability to move forward. After reading this book, I believe that with hope, courage, kindness, and goals, coupled with morality and a positive attitude, we can all discover meaning in our lives. Frankl encouraged his patients to see the world as it is, not as they hoped it would be, so they could create new goals. Above all, he believed that love gives meaning to life.
Simon Vance read the book extraordinarily well. Imagine being able to make a dry textbook narrative read like a page turning novel. For the first half, he did just that, yet he did not over emote as many narrators do, which would have made the purpose of this book, which was to unemotionally examine man’s search for meaning, actually meaningless. In the second half of the book, the more theoretical part of the book, he did just as well, for he interpreted theory carefully using tone and expression to help the reader understand.

*For the purposes of this book, the word man is gender free, it refers to human beings of any sexual identity.