Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl tells of the harrowing experiences in the concentration camp of Auschwitz and provides readers an insight into the psychological effects of the brutalities of the concentration camps on man and how they find meaning in spite of their suffering. It is truly an wonderful read, inspirational and touching and I highly recommend it to everyone.

Part 1: Experiences in a Concentration Camp

Viktor Frankl recalls his experience as a prisoner in a concentration camp in Auschwitz.

There are three stages of psychological reactions.

The first phase was shock as prisoners were stripped off of all their possessions, shaved and all that remained were their naked bodies when they first arrived. Subsequently, they were sent to perform hard labour while being deprived of sleep, food, hygiene, and faced constant beatings. Inmates were able to commit suicide by touching the electrical barb wire fence, and while they initially entertained that idea, they soon realized with such a low likelihood of survival, there was little point in doing so. Death did not scare the inmates since it spared them the act of committing suicide.

The second phase was apathy and emotional death. Prisoners become desensitized to the daily beatings and punishments, and the blunting of emotions and the feeling of not caring were a necessary protective mechanism which surrounds the prisoners. Faced with the reality of constant beatings, hunger, deprivation and suffering, all efforts and emotions were channeled to one task: ensuring one’s survival and that of his friend.

Due to the constant need to focus on staying alive, the prisoner’s mental state was forced to a primitive level. His wishes and desires manifest in his dreams. Simple pleasures such as food, cigarettes and a nice bath were most dreamt about. Waking up from such dreams to the reality of camp life provided a terrible contrast. Viktor recalls a fellow prisoner who had a nightmare, but he chose not to wake him up from it. No matter how bad the dream was, it could never be as bad as the reality of the camp surrounding the prisoners.

It was unavoidable for the prisoners to think about food, whenever he had a moment to spare. Food provided a source of will power and something to look forward to for the famished man. This preoccupation with food and the initial effects of shock suppressed any sexual urges. Prisoners also experienced “cultural hibernation” with the exception of politics and religion. The religious interest developed in prisoners was the most sincere, the depth and vigour of religious belief surprised Viktor.

Despite the mental primitiveness of the life in camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen, particularly for the sensitive people who lived a rich intellectual life. They were able to retreat into his inner life of riches and spiritual freedom. Viktor was able to imagine his wife talking to him, despite not knowing if she was alive, he learned that love goes far beyond the physical person and finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being and inner self. The strength of his love, his thoughts and images of his loved ones, him being able to have a vivid mental conversation with his wife provided refuge from the emptiness and desolation.

An intensification of inner life helps a prisoner seek refuge from his suffering, often by letting him escape into his past. Their thoughts often centred on minor details, trifling things such as train rides, answering telephone calls and switching on the electric lights. Nostalgia often moved them to tears. Prisoners also appreciate the beauty of art and nature, such as the mountains and the setting sun. Prisoners also improvised some form of cabaret, and gathered for songs, poems and satirical jokes. Humour was another mechanism in the fight for survival. Even if for a few seconds, it provided a sense of aloofness. and the ability to see things in a humorous light was some kind of trick learned while living amidst constant suffering.

Everything that was not connected to keeping oneself alive lost its value. In an environment that does not recognise the value of human life and dignity, an environment that fully exploits and robs a man of his will, the personal ego suffers a loss of value. He loses his self-respect and feeling of being an individual and his existence is likened to that of an animal life, being herded by the guards and driven by torture and beatings. There is very little value placed on human life and each individual is counted only because he had a prison number. Majority of the prisoners suffer from some form of inferiority complex, where they once were somebody, but they were now treated like nothing. The average prisoner feels degraded even without conscious thought about it.

It seemed that the human being is entirely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. Is the man an accidental product of his environment, or does he have a choice to escape from the influences? When faced with a decision, it is the man’s choice whether he chooses to give up on his dignity and be molded into a typical inmate. The sort of person the prisoner becomes is the result of an inner decision, fundamentally any man under such circumstances, decides what becomes of him, mentally and spiritually. He can choose to be worthy of his suffering, and not lose his spiritual freedom. The choice to hold on to his spiritual freedom makes life meaningful.

The meaning of life consists of privity, suffering and death. Human life is incomplete without suffering and death. If there is a meaning in life at all, there must be a meaning in suffering. A man’s attitude to his fate and suffering that entails, allows him to add a deeper meaning to life. He can choose to remain dignified and unselfish, or in the face of self-preservation, chooses to forget his human dignity and become an animal. In a difficult situation, he faces the choice of upholding his moral and personal values and this determines whether his is worthy of his sufferings. The majority of the prisoners chooses to ignore and vegetate.

Psychological observations of the prisoners showed that those who allowed their “inner hold” on moral values to be eroded eventually become a victim of the influences of the camp. What constitutes the “inner hold” was the depressing thought of not knowing how long the terms of imprisonment would be. As such, he lives a life of “provisional existence of unknown limit”. Without an ultimate goal in life, he stop to live for the future, and the whole structure of his inner life changes, and starts to decay from the inside. A prisoner who cannot see any future goals becomes preoccupied with looking into the past, to help make the present reality less real. In doing so, it causes the prisoner to lose their hold on life as the present had become pointless and meaningless. Those that were not able to grow spiritually in such difficult circumstances chose to ignore the present and lived in the past.

In order to fight the camp’s psychological influence on the prisoner, a future goal can be pointed out to him to look forward to and giving him inner strength. Man can only live by looking to the future – sub specie aeternitatis, and this is his salvation in difficult moments of his existence. A loss of belief in the future also causes a prisoner to lose his spiritual hold, quickening his physical death, due to the close connection of the state of the mind of a mind and the state of immunity of his body. A sudden loss of courage and hope can have a deadly effect. It was documented that the death rate increased abnormally between Christmas in 1944 and New Year in 1945, despite the same working conditions, food supplies etc. Majority of the prisoners had held on to the hope of being at home by Christmas, but as the time near, there were no news. The lost of hope and disappointment overwhelmed them, lowering their resistance against diseases and many died.

Nietzsche’s words “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how” could help to encourage a man who has nothing to expect from life. A fundamental change in our attitude towards life is required, it did not matter what we expect from life, but what life expected from us. The answer is the right action and conduct, not in talk and meditation. Taking the responsibility to seek answers and solve problems, fulfill the tasks set. These tasks, and therefore meaning to life, differs from man to man. When a man finds that he is destined to suffer, he have to accept the suffering as his single and unique task, no one can relieve his suffering but his suffering provides a unique opportunity to develop his inner strength.

The third stage is the psychology of the prisoner who had been released. Often prisoners dream of liberation, but were awakened to the harsh reality of camp life. Prisoners experienced “depersonalisation” where everything appeared unreal and in their mind could not believe their dream of freedom had come true. A man under enormous mental pressure for a long time faces danger after he is freed when the pressure is released suddenly. After being oppressed for long, they feel justified to be the oppressor and to use willful force and injustice.

Besides the moral deformity, a liberated prisoner also feels bitterness and disillusionment. A man feels disillusioned as what he had looked forward to was beyond his expectation after his return. Attempts to give a prisoner a courage by showing him something to look forward to had proved to be a huge disappointment. Bitterness stems from the indifference of the people he truly cared about towards his sufferings in camp.

Part 2: Logotherapy

In logotherapy, the attempts to find a meaning in one’s life is the main motivational force in man. There is a focus on the will to meaning in contrast to the will to pleasure, on which the Freudian psychoanalysis focuses on, and the will to power, on which Adlerian psychology is focused.

One’s search for a meaning to his existence is strictly not derived from any disease. It is neither pathological nor pathogenic. A man’s despair over the meaning of life is an existential distress, but not a mental disease. A doctor may be motivated by such an interpretation to prescribe tranquilizing drugs. Logotherapy enables the patient to find meaning in his life, find awareness of the hidden logos of his existence.

Mental health is based on a degree of tension. The tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to achieve, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such tension is inherent in the human being and therefore in the mental well-being as well. Challenging a man with a potential meaning to fulfill, or the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, helps to evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency.

A person feeling meaningless in his life lack the awareness of a meaning worth living for and is caught in a “existential vacuum”. The existential vacuum is apparent in situations of conformism, where he does what other people do or in a totalitarian society where he does what other people wish him to do. The existential vacuum manifests mainly in a state of boredom. If leisure hours are afforded to workers due to automations in their work, many will not know what to do with the newly acquired free time.

“Sunday neurosis” is a type of depression caused by a lack of content in their live when their busy week is over and the void within manifests. The resulting depression, addiction and aggression is widespread among pensioners and aging people, underlying them is the existential vacuum. The will to meaning may be compensated by the will to power or will to pleasure, and often satisfying sexual needs becomes common in the existential vacuum.

The Meaning of Life

The meaning of life differs from individual to individual, and what matters is not the meaning of life in general but at a given moment. One should not search for an abstract meaning of life as each has his specific mission in life to carry out a task. Man should not ask what the meaning of life is, rather it is he who is asked. He can only answer to life by answering for his own life, and he can only respond by being responsible. Logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence.

Responsibleness is reflected in the maxim “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time wrongly as you are about to act now!”. This invites one to imagine first that the present is past, and the past may still be changed and amended, and he is faced with the finiteness and the finality which he makes of both his life and himself.

The true meaning of life is to be discovered and directed to something, or someone, other than oneself, in either a cause to serve or another human to love. Viktor coined the term “self-transcendence of human existence”. The more one forgets himself, by giving himself to a cause to serve or to another person to love, the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. The more one strive for self actualization, the more he misses it as it is possible only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

According to logotherapy, the meaning of life can be found:

1. By creating a work or doing a deed
2. By experiencing something or meeting someone
3. By the attitude taken towards suffering

The first is by way of achievement or accomplishment.

The second way is by experiencing something, such as goodness, truth and beauty, by experiencing culture and nature, and by experiencing another human in his uniqueness and by loving him. Love is the only way to grasp the innermost core, the very essence of a human being.

The third way is by suffering. Transforming a personal tragedy into triumph, turning one’s predicament into a human achievement, or challenging ourselves to change our attitude if we cannot change a situation. One of the main tenet of logotherapy is that man’s main concern is not to seek pleasure or to avoid pain, rather to see meaning in his life. Even when a man has to suffer, his suffering has a meaning. Meaning is possible in spite of suffering that is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic.