Man’s search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
Mans search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
Background - Victor Frankl was the Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded logotherapy, the theory based on an individuals intrinsic motivation of searching for meaning in life and helping the individual find that meaning through psychotherapy.
Day one at Auschwitz he was stripped naked, shaved from head to toe, his possessions taken - most notably his lifes work - the manuscript for a scientific book he carried.
Throughout the camp he recreated the manuscript on tiny pieces of paper and following liberation in 1946 he published this book.
MSFM is a huge contribution to understanding the psychology of prison life, explaining the three phases people go through from shock to apathy to disillusionment and the coping mechanisms of humour, detachment from self and loss of feeling/emotion and what got him through it - visualisation of past events, seeing art/beauty in strange places, delusion of reprieve/clinging to hope.
Throughout the book he repeats German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche quoting “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how’ to remind us that having a meaning can give anyone a reason to live and make it though hell.
The result –
You don’t have to be a holocaust survivor to relate to the underlying message of this book. It is relatable for anyone who has survived the feeling of being trapped in an existential vacuum whether it be in a mental illness, physical injury, toxic relationship or grief cycle of any kind.
In transition from Defence we see people with tunnel vision thinking that being in the ADF is the be all and end all. It is not.
Take the time to assess your values and find an occupation that will give you meaning before moving on. Even being reduced to number 119,104 at Auschwitz couldn’t kill the man with a meaning
