Man’s Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl’s personal account of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, how he survived
the ordeal, and how he applied what he learned to develop
logotherapy (also called existential therapy or psychology). In the first part of the book, which is all memoir, Frankl describes the
suffering and heroic acts of the prisoners. He shares a secret that makes us uncomfortable: only those prisoners who unscrupulously fought for survival lived to tell the tale. Because weekly selections for the gas chambers were made unceremoniously by guards who had quotas to fill and no real knowledge of the prisoners’ identities, the survivors would say anything to let others be selected in their places. According to Frankl, the really good people were the ones who didn’t make it back.
Frankl’s determent lasted three years in various camps, including Auschwitz. He developed a profound internal life that gave meaning to his rather inglorious existence. He realized that physical survival was hinged upon emotional survival, so it was necessary for him to give purpose to his life. Because he kept his personal meaning clear in his mind, he survived while others fell victim to depression and died shortly thereafter.
When the camps were liberated, Frankl searched for his family only to find they had all died during the war. Still Frankl had the internal strength to give ascribe meaning to his life and persevere. Out of Frankl’s suffering came logotherapy.
Logotherapy differs from conventional analysis in that each and every patient is believed to be an individual and treated differently. Overarching terms like Oedipus complex are not ascribed to patients because every patient defines his or her life differently. To treat a patient requires that the psychologist instead help the patient find the meaning of his or her own life. If patients were truly depressed beyond hope, they would have killed themselves to end their suffering long before seeking professional help. The key is to finding the reason patients persevere despite their suffering. The end goal of logotherapy is not to end suffering per se, but to give suffering meaning or reason so that it can be dealt with in a constructive and healing way.