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
Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering
The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.
Despair is suffering without meaning.
I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost.
We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
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.
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
Being tolerant does not mean that I share another ones belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another ones right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.