In several philosophy courses that I teach at St. John’s University, I have students read and discuss Viktor E. Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” (A Clarion Book, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1970, 145 pp.). There are several reasons I assign the book. One is that in some courses I discuss Sigmund Freud’s view of the human person, and use Frankl’s book as a kind of antidote to Freud’s vision of the human person. The only philosophy with which Freud was familiar was mechanistic, and I think that unfortunately influenced Freud’s view of human beings. Frankl’s book fits beautifully with the philosophy of the person I present to students. However, the main reason I assign Frankl’s book is that I consider it a really great book.
In the preface to Frankl’s book, psychologist Gordon W. Allport wrote the following:
“One cannot help but compare Frankl’s approach to theory and therapy with the work of his predecessor, Sigmund Freud. Both physicians concern themselves primarily with the nature and cure of neuroses. Freud finds the root of these distressing disorders in the anxiety caused by conflicting and unconscious motives. Frankl distinguished several forms of neurosis, and traces some of them … to the failure of the sufferer to find meaning and a sense of responsibility in his existence. Freud stresses frustration in the sexual life; Frankl stresses frustration in the ‘will to meaning’ ”(p. x).
During the Second World War, Frankl, because he was Jewish, was put in a concentration camp in which the treatment of Jews was almost unbelievable. In concentration camps, Frankl’s wife, father, mother, and brother died or were sent to the gas ovens. Except for his sister, Frankl’s entire family perished in the camps. No matter how many times I read about what the Nazis did to Jews, I find it so hard to believe that human beings, the Nazis, did what they did to other human beings, the Jews.
In the absolutely horrible conditions he experienced while in a camp, Frankl noticed something he eventually used to help thousands. He noticed that those who died in a camp died because they no longer had any reason to live, and that those who survived were able to survive because they had some meaning in their life that motivated them to have hope. The meanings that gave them hope ranged from thinking that God was testing them to looking forward to an eventual reunion with loved ones. Those who survived the suffering in the camp had a strong desire to stay alive and to hope for eventual liberation.
Noticing this pattern, Frankl created a new therapy that he called logotherapy. We might call it meaning therapy. Frankl believed that every person could find a meaning on which to base their life. Frankl wrote the following:
“The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome and irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way …” (p. 65).
“But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of just one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude toward his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete” (p. 67).
In my classes at St. John’s University, in my Sunday homilies, and in these weekly columns, I frequently encourage people to examine their lives and realize that God has given us freedom so that we can reach out in love toward God and toward others. By our free choices, we create ourselves. Though I cannot prove this, I believe that the person I am is the person I have chosen to be.
Of course, I have been greatly influenced by others, but I believe that many free actions have made me who I am. I suspect this may be true of almost everyone. Frankl’s excellent book challenges readers to make choices that matter.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.