Man's Search for Meaning

Truly amazing. A story of surviving and even prevailing in the Holocaust -- the story itself is amazing, and the philosophy that Dr. Frankl comes out with is very thought provoking and inspiring. Very fresh perspective. Wonderful writing. Highly recommended if you are willing to really think.

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. 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." This quote from Frankl's masterpiece depicts that physical possessions mean nothing more than fraction of a moving shadow. It is so impermenant that we have no choice but to add to it undue value for it to retain its shape and importance. At times of pain and sufferings, it is the human spirit, our very own attitude and freedom that determine how far we can go and not how much money we have.

Man's Search For Meaning is set in concentration camps during the dark days of the Nazi rule. Frankl is not interested to show how evil and inhuman were the Nazis but rather to display the strength of survival of the prisoners. How they (1) were shocked having lost their initial freedom, family, status and friends, (2) felt aphatetic as they adapted to the new devastating environment of the camps (3) once liberated, they couldn't fit in to normal life as they felt that people were superficial, unkind, manipulative and dishonest.

Highly recommended. Explains humanity through a much wider spectrum of reality.

Required reading for human beings.

Part 1 was very, very interesting. Part 2 was a little scientific for my reading tastes, part 3 was a nice way to wrap it up.

Sufro, luego existo. El hombre entendido como "homo patiens" y el sufrimiento como "experimentum crucis" (su vida se acredita en el sufrimiento, que le brinda la oportunidad de crecer, trascender).
Para una comprensión sociológica recomiendo adentrarse en los conceptos de masas de Le Bon, "La banalidad del mal" de Hana Arendt y "Modernidad y Holocausto" de Zygmunt Bauman. El Holocausto no fué producto de la irracionalidad sinó de un excesivo racionalismo.

Frankl's book is a study into the human mind--you may sense some repetition, but it is only to have his theories "hit home" with the reader. If you actively read, you will find many inspirational messages that will help you in your own quest for meaning.

Frankl begins with his experiences as a prisoner and as a medical doctor. While struggling to survive, Frankl notices that a common thread among prisoners who live through typhus, disease, injuries and mental agony is, namely, hope. Visualizing the future, finding love as a strength and mentally working through suffering are some of the strategies Frankl employs. Frankl emphasizes that in any situation, there is meaning and there is hope.

The second half of the book deals with Frankl's theories, which can be a bit technical, but is amazingly informative--especially his ideas on the existential vacuum as it relates to Americans. While a personal narrative, Man's Search for Meaning is also an instructional book on how people in ANY decade can find his or her own personal truth.

How one psychiatrist's experience in a holocaust camp could be viewed as the meaning of life in man through the ability to survive suffering. A great book to read if you are a survivor of any kind of abuse or have simply gone through hard times. You views will change after reading this book.

awesome. His philosophy at first kind of sounded religious, but after a while of reading i realised it was far from. The first half of the book, the authors account of survival in a nazi concentration camp. The second, his philosophy that came from it..all suffering is for a reason...or something like that

This is a book I share with my students as often as I can. Frankl's central tenet, born out of his experiences at Auschwitz, is that humankind's central need is for MEANING. As long as we can discern a meaning behind our struggles and our sufferings, we can be happy. As Frankl succinctly states it, "he who has a why can live with any how." The book has sustained me through some of the most challenging periods in my life.

A Jewish psychiatrist that was in the concentration camps talks about what is important to a man when every thing is stripped from him.