The human and the search for the meaning

Book title: Man and Search for Meaning Author: Viktor Emil Frankl Publisher: Seven Pages Book classification: Self-development Number of pages: About the book: Dr. Frankl, the author of this book, was sometimes directed as a psychiatrist to his patients, who suffer from many kinds of harsh or slight torment, the following question: "Why did you not commit suicide?" And from their answers, he can often find the line that guides him to his psychological treatment. Frankl presents in this book the experience that led him to discover logotherapy. He found himself, as a seasoned prisoner in terrible detention camps, stripped and naked in his existence. His parents, brother, and wife died in camps or were sent to gas chambers, meaning all his family except his sister perished in these camps. All that he owned was gone, all value shattered, suffering from hunger, cold, cruelty, and the expectation of extermination at any hour—how does a person like this find in life what makes it worth staying alive? This psychiatrist, who personally faced these strange conditions, is a psychiatrist worth listening to. The reader learns a lot from this book about the author's biography. The reader knows what the living human being does when he suddenly realizes that he "has nothing to lose except his naked life in a way that is laughable." And what Frankl offers in his description of the mixed flow of emotion and numbness makes us pause to understand its essence. Frankl, at the publisher's request, adds to his autobiography about his experiences in the concentration camp another part in which he presents the main principles of logotherapy. Before that, most books and studies published about the "Vienna School of Psychotherapy" (preceded by Freud's and Adler's schools) were mainly published in German. Therefore, the reader will welcome this added part about the main principles of logotherapy.