Analysis Of Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy In A Concentration Camp

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Meaninglessness is a condition which the mind finds it hard to tolerate. It leads to boredom, not well thought out plans, neurosis and in some cases even depression and suicide. On the other hand, as the author, Dr Viktor E. Frankl is fond of quoting, ‘He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.’

This amazing and fascinating book is an exposition of those words of Nietzsche. Dr Viktor Frankl is a man who lost everything in his life and yet found meaning in all his personal despair and lived to tell the tale of it. Viktor Frankl, an up and coming psychiatrist and neurologist of Jewish origin was living in Vienna, when in September 1942, was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years …show more content…

The term is derived from "logos" the Greek word for meaning. Frankl believes that the origins of so many self-destructive patterns and behaviors lie in people 's existential frustration and their inability to see meaning in their lives. Which can be channeled in much more healthier and holistic way, logotherapy can make a person find a single strand in life that the individual holds close and hold on to it until that becomes the thing that keeps the person alive and gives their life more …show more content…

In logotherapy, accomplishing something, experiencing something or encountering someone, or turning a personal tragedy into triumph are the three ways in which people can attain meaning according to Man’s Search for Meaning. Suicide in most cases happens when people find no meaning in life and because of that have lost all hope. Tragic optimism is the concept that a person is naturally optimistic even in the face of extremely negative circumstances but they only have to find it and channel it to an operational