Review of “Man’s search for meaning”

Man’s search for meaning is a life-changing and impactful book written by Viktor Frankl. It describes the psychology of survival in the camps.

This book is primarily divided into three parts, in the first part specifies the way the Jews prisoners were treated in the Nazi Concentration Camps. In the second part, the author described the basics of Logotherapy, a way of treatment of the Psychotherapeutic Patients and finally the best part of the book i.e the third part where he described what he actually meant by Man’s Seach for meaning.

The author being a jew was conveyed to the Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps during the Nazi control in Austria. Here, in the first part of the book, the author described his days in those concentration camps, where there’s no chance of seeing the morning sun the next day and this happened every day. He outlined the way the SS guards used to treat the prisoners, the depravity prevailed in the camps, the malnutrition, the way of living of jews prisoners etc. His way of describing the suffering would surely bring tears to your eyes.

In the second part, the author described Logotherapy Techniques and in the third part the author describes “Man’s search for meaning”. We, the human beings on this planet are living for a purpose. Until & unless we can’t find the purpose of our life, there is no reason for us to be here alive. Most of the prisoners in the camps lost all of their hopes and then died because they lost their purpose.

A few life-changing quotes from the book:

• Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life can’t be complete.
• There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.
• Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.
• No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
• For success, like happiness, can’t be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
• The body has fewer inhibitions than the mind.
• The human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings.
• Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
• There is no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
• A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ” how”.
• No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.