Victor Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning

Victor Frankl was, and is still today, an extremely well known therapist from Vienna and is widely respected by other doctors in his field including such names as Freud and Nietzsche. One of the reasons that he is so respected in his field is because he is basing his theories off of his personal experiences in the holocaust where he had been held in an extermination camp where he experienced the most extreme of human conditions and came out of it with his teaching of therapy known as logotherapy. While in the camps Frankl studied the lives of the SS (German guards), the capos (Jewish guards), and the prisoners. From this study Frankl learned many basic things about life.

Frankl while in the camps saw that all of the different groups of people had different attitudes, and he believed that a man’s attitude is the one thing that they can’t take away from a man and that no matter what happens he can always choose his attitude and it is a man’s attitude that decides whether or not the man will have a good life. Another important aspect of humanity is a man’s responsibility. He believes that it is a man’s responsibility to find a meaning in his own life. Also he believes that one of the ways to find the meaning in ones life is by having responsibility to others and finding responsibilities that they have to fulfill that make their lifes fulfilling. One of the situations that most often drive men to search for a meaning in his life is because of suffering. According to Victor Frankl, suffering is inevitable and it is what makes us who we are so to speak in that if we transform our suffering into a sacred wound then we will be better for it. I believe that Frankl would be a strong believer in the idea that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Once you have gotten through the suffering in your life Frankl believes that they cannot be perused but instead must ensue meaning that you cannot go looking for either but instead set yourself