Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy". His best-selling book Man's Search for Meaningchronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living. Frankl became one of the...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth26 March 1905
CountryAustria
Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.
Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.
Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
This is the core of the human spirit ... If we can find something to live for - if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives - even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.
Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be
Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality
A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.