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Man's Search for Meaning |  | Author: Viktor E. Frankl
Publisher: Beacon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
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Seller: booksandlooks
Rating:  174 reviews
Sales Rank: 717
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 165
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0807014273
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5318092
EAN: 9780807014271
ASIN: 0807014273
Publication Date: June 15, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780807014271 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, Man's Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America.
Born in Vienna in 1905 Viktor E. Frankl earned an M.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. He published more than thirty books on theoretical and clinical psychology and served as a visiting professor and lecturer at Harvard, Stanford, and elsewhere. In 1977 a fellow survivor, Joseph Fabry, founded the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy. Frankl died in 1997.
Harold S. Kushner is rabbi emeritus at Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, and the author of several best-selling books, including When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
William J. Winslade is a philosopher, lawyer, and psychoanalyst at the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 174
 Life-changing book March 9, 2010
Loring Slivinski (San Fran, CA)
The last 10 years has been a real struggle, and as I go through life trying to find ways to cope and stay happy, I ran across this book. Heard about it many years ago and always wanted to read it. I HIGHLY recommend that everyone read this. It's a very interesting psychological look at the people who survived the Nazi death camps in particular, but in general, is a good resource for anyone going through a hard time. It looks at the coping mechanisms of those who survived, and the mindset of those who gave up, and reminds us all that even when everything including our very identity is taken away, we still have something that NO ONE can take unless we let them - how we will deal with our challenges. Will we give up and give in, defeated; or will we choose to look past the bad stuff at the sunset, the puppy's eyes, the pretty flowers and see that there is still good stuff in the world.
This book, along with Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness and How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People--Their Secrets, Their Stories are excellent textbooks on how to bring more joy back into your life.
Do yourself a favor and buy all three.
The only self-help book you'll ever need March 9, 2010
P. J. Owen (Atlanta GA USA)
Part essay about his time in the concentrations camps, part psychiatric tract based on those experiences, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is one of the most important books I've read. It is not surprising that there are more than 12M copies in print and that it's been named one of the ten most influential books.
In the first 100 pages, Frankl recounts the time he spent in the camps from 1942-1945. Anyone who has read other accounts of the camps or seen movies of them knows the depravities there. But Frankl's account is somewhat unique in that he approaches the experience as a psychiatrist, in a very clinical fashion, only using emotion here and there to spice his writing. His writing is perceptive, showing a keen empathy for not only those who were heroic in such places, but also those who were not. This goes for both the prisoners as well as the German guards. He explains the psychology of lowered expectations, how a simple de-lousing, for example, could be the source of so much happiness for the prisoners. And given the title, it's not surprising he spends much time talking about meaning. The whole premise of his book is that humans are driven by their search for meaning. And in these pages, he demonstrates how meaning in a prisoner's life, whether it be a family to get back home to or work still left to be done, literally was the difference between life and death in many cases.
This leads to the second part of the book, called Logotherapy in a Nutshell. Logotherapy is a therapy Frankl pioneered after his experiences in the camps. In it, a patient is `actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life'. He talks of the existential vacuum, in which so many people now languish due to the complexity of having so many choices and a lack of traditions to fall back on. Logotherapy simplifies this for us. According to it, meaning can come from three places: creating work or doing deeds, experiencing something or encountering someone (love), 3) or by our attitude to unavoidable suffering.
To me, this puts logotherapy in the realm of religion, especially eastern religion. It's about human transcendence. Frankl says here that we derive meaning by helping others (through deeds or work), putting another above ourselves (loving someone), or by seeing unavoidable suffering as something of meaning in its own right. These ideas seem Buddhist to me, and in this case I applaud the convergence of science and spirituality in a space that needs it.
I found this book inspirational. The experiences of the concentration camps by themselves are enough to put matters in harsh perspective for anyone living in freedom. But Frankl's expanding of this information into a book that can help so many others is a fine example of his own theories. We are lucky to have such a work available to us.
Search for Meaning March 4, 2010
Ellie Phillips (Rush, NY, US)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am in no position to comment on this book, except to suggest others read it. What an incredible man and what a book! I will keep this book in my home forever, just in case I ever feel that life is difficult. Wow - this book will stop you complaining and help anyone focus on what really is important in life. I am honored to have read Viktor Frankl's words in this book.
Man's Search for Meaning March 3, 2010
God Gift (Philadelphia, Pa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love this book. The writer really gives you something to think about in your own life. This book touches you mind, heart, and soul. If you every though about a meaning about/for life, please read this book. It would give you more insight then you can imagine!!!!!!!!
 Man's Search for Meaning February 12, 2010
A. Badgett
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book. It was an interesting look at suffering and the human condition as it applies to the most extreme of situations to the everyday.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 174
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