Viktor Emil Frankl is the man who saved thousands of lives. A talented psychiatrist, neurologist and psychologist, he created logotherapy (a direction of existential analysis based on the search for the meaning of life for the patient).
According to the doctor, suicides, drug addicts and alcoholics are deprived of a purpose for which they could live, which leads to tragic consequences.
Frankl named three ways by which a person can make his life more meaningful: creation, gaining new experience and, in fact, finding meaning in life itself, including suffering.
Frankl opened the last, extreme path, being a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, where he tried not only to survive himself, but also to help the prisoners.
He, as well as other psychologists and social workers who turned out to be Theresienstadt, organized a special help service and created a whole information network, thanks to which they learned about the suicidal tendencies of other prisoners of the death camp.
“What was to be done? We had to awaken the will to live, to continue existing, to survive imprisonment.
But in each case, the courage to live or the weariness of life depended solely on whether the person had faith in the meaning of life, in his life. Nietzsche’s words can serve as the motto of all the psychotherapeutic work carried out in the concentration camp: “He who knows the “why” to live will overcome almost any “how”, the doctor recalled in the book “The Will to Meaning”.
Viktor Frankl was released on April 27, 1945 by American troops, and in the same year he completed the world-famous monograph “Say YES to Life. Psychologist in a concentration camp.
We have collected quotes from this and other of his works for our material.
In the era of Freud, sexual dissatisfaction was considered the cause of all troubles, and now we are already worried about another problem - disappointment in life. If in Adler's time the typical patient suffered from an inferiority complex, today patients complain mainly of the feeling of inner emptiness that comes from feeling the absolute meaninglessness of life. This is what I call an existential vacuum. ("Suffering from the meaninglessness of life. Actual psychotherapy")
Let it be for some minutes, even in some special situations, but humor is also a weapon of the soul in the struggle for self-preservation. After all, it is known that humor, like nothing else, is able to create for a person a certain distance between himself and his situation, to put him above the situation, albeit, as already mentioned, not for long. (“To say yes to life!” Psychologist in a concentration camp)
Do not set yourself the goal of success - the more you strive for it, making it your goal, the more likely you will miss it. Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it has to happen - and it does - as an unexpected side effect of personal commitment to a great cause, or as a by-product of love and devotion to another person. Happiness should arise by itself, as well as success; you have to let it arise, but don't care for it… you'll live to see how after a long time - a long time, I said! - success will come, and precisely because you forgot to think about it! ("Man's Search for Meaning")
Happiness is like a butterfly - the more you catch it, the more it escapes. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit quietly on your shoulder. ("Man's Search for Meaning")
No one has the right to commit lawlessness, even those who suffered from lawlessness, and suffered very cruelly. (“To say yes to life!” Psychologist in a concentration camp)
Live as if you are living for the second time and at the first attempt you ruined everything that can be ruined. ("Memories")
Heredity is nothing more than the material from which a person builds himself. They are nothing more than stones that can be used or rejected by the builder. But the builder himself is not made of stones. ("Man's Search for Meaning")
You must understand that the whole world is a joke. There is no justice, everything happens by chance. Only when you understand this will you agree that it is foolish to take yourself seriously. There is no great purpose in the universe. She simply exists. It does not matter how you decide to act in this or that case. ("Man's Search for Meaning")
Each creature is given a weapon for self-defense - someone has horns, someone has hooves, a sting or poison, I have the gift of eloquence. As long as my mouth is not shut, it is better not to mess with me. ("Memories")
The fact is that I observe the principle: to perform any little things as carefully as the greatest deed, and the greatest deed - with the same calmness as the most insignificant. ("Memories")
In inhuman conditions, only those who strive for the future, who believe in their calling and dream of fulfilling their destiny, can survive. ("Man's Search for Meaning")
Only love is that final and highest that justifies our existence here, that can elevate and strengthen us! (“To say yes to life!” Psychologist in a concentration camp)
If fear turns frightening thoughts into reality, then too much desire prevents you from getting what you want. ("Suffering from the meaninglessness of life. Actual psychotherapy")
We must learn it ourselves and explain to the doubters that the point is not what we expect from life, but what it expects from us. (“To say yes to life!” Psychologist in a concentration camp)
I think for an immature person the temptation of psychiatry lies in the promise of power over others: you can order, you can manipulate people; knowledge is power, and knowledge of mechanisms that non-specialists do not understand, but we figured out to the point, gives us power. ("Memories")
The ideas of humanistic psychology served as a bridge for the development of the existential direction in psychology, which will now be discussed.
This direction has not yet been canonized, and Viktor Frankl (1905) is our contemporary. In 1985, he came to the Soviet Union and successfully delivered two lectures at Moscow University, which attracted a large audience from all over the country. His works in pre-perestroika times were almost unknown to us. The first large publication "A Man in Search of Meaning" with a foreword by the author was published in our country in 1990. Although the book was published in a fairly large circulation (136,000), it quickly became a bibliographic rarity.
In official textbooks, the theory and practice of existential analysis, except for its Marxist criticism, was not covered in any way. However, Frankl's ideas are so fresh and relevant for our period of development that I will allow myself to give a more detailed coverage of the theory of existential analysis and logotherapy, especially since I widely use these ideas in my practical work.
But first of all about Frankl himself.
He was born in Vienna. He studied with both Freud and Adler. But the newly emerging trends they led turned out to be too traditional for Frankl, and he began to object to both Adler and Freud. In 1927 he was expelled from the Adler Society for Individual Psychology.
In 1930, Frankl received his doctorate in medicine. He did not have time to emigrate from Germany. Once he miraculously managed to avoid arrest. He was rescued by a Gestapo officer, to whom he provided medical assistance. In 1942, he ended up in a concentration camp, where he stayed until 1945. But even there he carried out psychological and psychotherapeutic work. Its results are summarized in the article "A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp", which is difficult to read without tears. It is impossible not to be amazed at the courage of this man, who, under unbearable conditions, suffering himself, continued his work. And only such a person could write that a person always has freedom of choice. He noted that under such conditions, some become pigs, while others become saints. Frankl, of course, can be considered a holy man.
After the war, he worked as director of the Vienna Neurological Polyclinic Hospital, wrote a lot and traveled around the world. He became convinced that the problem of the meaning of life in a society of material well-being has become even more acute, and "each time requires its own psychotherapy." For our time, logotherapy can be considered the most suitable. After all, we have a large number of people completely unexpectedly and undeservedly deprived of their usual conditions of existence. Check out Frankl's work. When I read his works, I am deeply moved, and the troubles that I have experienced and are experiencing now seem to me petty and insignificant. My listeners become just as excited and inspired when I present Frankl's ideas. But, unfortunately, this effect does not last long. Then again you begin to get bogged down in the little things of life and introspection. We have to return again and again to V. Frankl.
The effect of his methods is amazing not only by the severity of the result, but also by the speed of its occurrence.
Frankl believed that traditional psychology and psychotherapy only reveal the deepest phenomena of mental life in consciousness, and existential analysis seeks to draw the attention of consciousness to genuine spiritual essences and is called upon to lead a person to realize his own responsibility. It is the latter that is the basis of human existence.
First of all, Frankl raises the question of the meaning of life. In an explicit or implicit form, this question torments every person. And you, my young friend, are concerned about this issue when choosing a profession. Doubts about the meaning of life cannot be regarded as manifestations of mental pathology; these doubts reflect true human experiences, they are a sign of man in man himself. For only a person thinks about the meaning of his existence, doubting it.
The problem of the meaning of life at times can literally take over a person completely.
Many neurotics say that they would rather live away from the struggle for existence.
Of course, you can temporarily take a “vacation” from your daily duties and forget yourself, for example, in alcohol. But then all the same, life will show its rights. If a person forgets the goal and gets carried away by the means, he has a "weekend neurosis" - a feeling of emptiness in his own life. The victims of this neurosis pour in order to save themselves from the horror of this emptiness.
Existential analysis helps a person to deal with such suffering, which is caused by philosophical problems posed by life itself.
Spiritual problems are not symptoms, but a virtue that expresses the level of intelligence that a person has reached, or the level that he should achieve.
This is especially true for people who have lost a loved one to whom they dedicated their lives. These people lose their spiritual core and cause special pity. Without it, a person is unable to withstand the blows of fate in difficult periods of life. So, all centenarians adhered to a calm and life-affirming position.
The philosophical position must manifest itself sooner or later. If a person cannot come up with arguments in favor of life, then sooner or later he will have thoughts of suicide. Ask yourself why you don't think about suicide and you will find the meaning of your existence.
First of all, Frankl describes those phenomena and states that cannot be the meaning of life. He refers to them as pleasure, joy and happiness. Pleasure is a consequence of the result of our aspirations, and joy is always directed towards some object.
The pursuit of happiness in itself cannot be the meaning of human existence. A person who is desperately striving for happiness, by his very zeal, cuts off his path to it. Happiness is a by-product of properly organized activities.
Frankl argues that it is necessary to explain to the patient the richness of the world of values and help him develop flexibility and the ability to switch to another value group if interest in the present one is lost. Isn't Frankl addressing you now, my young friend?
Frankl believes that the position of a person, his profession means absolutely nothing. The decisive thing is how he works, copes with his terms of reference.
An ordinary person who really copes with his range of duties and tasks that his position in society puts before him, despite his "small" life, is greater than the "great" statesman, whose immoral decisions can bring great evil.
Values that are realized in productive creative actions, Frankl calls "creative".
In addition to creative values, there are values realized in experiences. These are "experiential values". They manifest themselves in reverence for works of art, nature, in love. The meaning of this moment is not determined by the actions of the individual.
But it is also worth living for the sake of spiritual ecstasy! The greatness of life is determined by the greatness of the moment. After all, the height of the mountain range is determined not by the height of the valley, but by the size of the highest peak. So life peaks determine the meaningfulness of all life. And a single event can retroactively fill everything that preceded it with meaning. And if, at the end of my teaching career, I bring up one genius, all my past teaching work will acquire a deep meaning, even if then, in the past, it seemed ridiculous.
The third category of values refers to the factors that limit a person's life. These are "relationship values". For the relation of a person to his fate, which has fallen to his lot, is really significant. The way he carries the cross, the courage that he shows in suffering, the dignity that he shows when he is condemned and doomed - all this is a measure of how good he is as a person. Indeed, in the crucible of suffering, a person is forged.
Frankl comes to the conclusion that human life in its essence can never be meaningless. And until consciousness has left a person, he is constantly obliged to realize values until the last moment of his existence. And even though he has few opportunities for this, the values of the relationship remain always available to him.
Frankl gave such an example.
The dying patient was paralyzed and unable to function, but he read and enjoyed music. And when even this became inaccessible to him, he consoled the sick. On the day of his death, which he learned about by overhearing the conversation of doctors, he asked his sister to give an injection in the evening so as not to disturb her at night.
When I gave this example in one of the group sessions, it made such a strong impression on one hypochondriac (a person who considers his mild illness excessively severe) that he soon showed a significant improvement.
Frankl is anti-suicide. A suicide is like a chess player who is faced with a very difficult task and just brushes the pieces off the board. But in this way the problem cannot be solved. It is necessary to teach people to revere life. And psychologists should help a confused person fill life with meaning.
"If a man has a why, he can bear any how." Life is always more meaningful if it is more difficult. Nothing helps a person overcome objective difficulties and endure subjective troubles like a vital task, especially if it is presented as something like a mission.
Frankl helps us make a choice. Read this passage. Maybe it will help you in choosing a profession.
Frankl believes that there are situational and eternal values. A person can realize situational value only once in his life. If this opportunity is missed, it is lost forever, and Frankl encourages people in their own lives to realize these unique and unique opportunities.
And if you need to go on a date right now, stop reading this book. She won't leave you anywhere. Go on a date! Otherwise, this situational value will be lost once and for all. And you will have a headache for a long time because of the missed opportunity. Don't worry if the meeting disappoints you. Anyway, you have already solved one problem and you will not meet with this person again. And then you can go back to the book and read it carefully.
Frankl tried to help a person achieve maximum concentration on the life task facing him, to show him that the life of each person has its own unique goal, the achievement of which leads to one path. My dear friend, understand that your life is unique and unique. Don't be like everyone else, don't destroy yourself. How can a person figure out what he should be, as opposed to what he is? Goethe answers this question: “How can we know ourselves? Thinking - never, but only acting! Try to do your duty, and soon you will know who you are. What then is your duty? Demands of every day!
Many tend to strive to complete one task at the expense of others, which is wrong, because we would bypass situational values instead of realizing them. And now I am writing this book as I want, and not as they said. Maybe the publisher will reject it. But I did enjoy writing it. If there is something in the book, he will publish another.
From Frankl's point of view, "a vital task in general" does not exist, just as there is no best move in chess. It is necessary to do not “the best”, but “the best that you are capable of in this situation”. Do not suffer for a long time in choosing a profession if your hesitation is still ongoing. Cast lots and submit to fate. And if you happen to be a psychologist, stop reading this book. Psychology will become an eternal value for you. Read some later. For those who didn't happen to be a psychologist, keep reading. For you, this is a situational value. Having immersed yourself in the study of another profession, you may never return to psychology.
Let's hang out with Frankl a little longer.
He said that death also has meaning. If we were immortal, we could safely postpone our affairs for any time. Unfortunately, many people behave like immortal gods, postponing their affairs. But in the face of death, we must make the most of the time allotted to us. Only then does life make sense. The basis of the meaning of human life is the principle of the irreversibility of existence. This thought should be brought to your ward so that he takes responsibility for his life.
In the beginning, life is untouched "stuff", but as it unfolds, "stuff" becomes less and less. It turns into "clothes". These are our actions, experiences, experiences. All that we have accumulated on the path of life. And if there is none of this, then the “material” is gone forever - gone to rags.
Another analogy is drawn by Frankl. A person is like a sculptor who sculpts his life from stone. And you should do as the sculptor does. He is already trying to see in stone what can be made of it so that there is less waste. In addition, a person does not know how much time is allotted to him. You shouldn't rush, but you shouldn't be idle either. It doesn't matter if the work is not completed. What matters is the quality.
This is Frankl addressing you, my young friend!
Frankl warns us not to strive to be perfect. If all people were perfect, then everyone could be replaced by another. It is from our imperfection that the indispensability and irreproducibility of each individual follows. And a bit more. Frankl believes that where individuality is not recognized, there is no community, there is a crowd, a herd. The crowd does not tolerate individuality. He compares the crowd with a cobblestone pavement, and the true community with a mosaic pattern. In a cobblestone pavement, one stone can be replaced by another; in a mosaic, each piece is irreplaceable. And if it falls out, you have to rebuild the whole drawing. That is why the loss of identity for the community is irreparable.
The community emphasizes the individuality of its members, the crowd suppresses it, limiting the freedom of the individual for the sake of equality and replacing brotherhood with herd instinct.
A person must live according to the formula: to be is to be different. The existence of a person as a person means his absolute dissimilarity to others.
As you can see, Frankl's works are imbued with respect for the person, for the individual.
Frankl teaches us not to be afraid of mistakes. They should serve as fruitful material for shaping a better future: lessons should be learned from their own mistakes.
You need to respect your instincts. “In instincts, my “I” draws energy. My passions are the wind that blows where it pleases, and my "I" must control the sails of fate in order to sail where I need to. A good sailor can sail against the wind. And where to swim? This is what the meaning of life is for. Instincts push us, but meaning attracts.
Primordial weakness is a stupid invention. The weak-willed becomes the one who does not have a goal and who does not know how to make decisions.
Frankl believes that there is meaning in suffering. Man grows and matures through suffering; his unhappy love does him more good than many love victories could give him. By exaggerating the significance of pleasant experiences, people develop in themselves an unjustified tendency to complain about fate. To evaluate the melody, it does not matter whether it is major or minor.
Suffering causes a fruitful, radically transformative spiritual tension, which on an emotional level helps a person to realize what should be. In the suffering of a person, deep wisdom is revealed, which is higher than any reason. For the inner life, sorrow and repentance are full of deep meaning.
Boredom also makes sense. It kind of reminds us that we are inactive. The meaning of suffering is that it protects a person from apathy and spiritual numbness. As long as we are capable of suffering, we remain spiritually alive. We grow and mature in suffering, it makes us richer and stronger. Sorrow brings the past back to the present. Repentance and sorrow - both of these feelings - serve to sort of "correct" the past. It is impossible to extinguish misfortunes with drugs. Trying to forget, a person forces himself to “not notice” what happened, tries to escape from it. But dulling the senses does not lead to the elimination of the very object of experience. Suffering and grief are part of human life, like fate or death. None of them can be torn out of life without violating its meaning. For only under the blows of the hammer of fate in the crucible of suffering is a personality forged, and life acquires its form and content. So keep it up! Whether or not you enter the Faculty of Psychology, everything makes sense!
Frankl warns that a person should not prematurely lay down his arms, for it is easy to take the situation for fate and bow his head before an imaginary fate. Only when he does not have the opportunity to create something, to enjoy something, does the time come to suffer. The only person who truly suffers is the one who has done everything in order not to suffer. This is noble suffering. But if a person has done nothing to avoid suffering, then his suffering cannot be called noble, and indeed cannot be called suffering at all.
My young friend, if you do nothing, then trouble will find you, but can your feelings be considered suffering?
Patience is justified only when fate itself puts a person in conditions when he is forced to endure, because he is not able to change his position or avoid it. Only justified patience is a moral achievement; only inevitable suffering has moral meaning. Thus, the circle of justified suffering, according to Frankl, is very narrow. It includes incurable diseases, provided that all preventive measures have been taken, imprisonment in a concentration camp under authoritarian regimes, the death of loved ones; etc.
"Life is nothing, life is an opportunity to do something." This principle of Goebbel contains the answer to the question of the meaning of life. For there are only two possibilities: to work together with destiny, giving it form, and thus realizing creative values, or, if this is impossible and suffering is inevitable, to suffer, realizing the values of the relationship.
By the way, what do you remember best? I am sure that the suffering and troubles from which you managed to come out with honor!
It is very difficult to retell Frankl's works. Everything there is important. But I have a different goal. Therefore, I will give a few more of his sayings regarding work and love:
“If there are cases when the chosen work does not bring satisfaction, then the person himself is to blame, and not the work. Work in itself does not make a person necessary and irreplaceable; it only gives him the opportunity to become one. What matters is not the work that a person does, but how he does it. It all depends on how many personal qualities a person puts into his work.
"Some financial tycoons are so busy making a living that they forget life itself."
“Unemployment for neurotics is a godsend, because now they can blame it for all the failures in life. Unemployment acts as a scapegoat on which they can shift all the blame for a failed life.
“Where there is no love, work replaces it; where there is no work, love becomes a drug.” (This is Frankl quoting writer Alice Littkens).
“The biggest mistake we can make in life is resting on our laurels. You should never be content with what you have achieved. Life does not stop asking more and more questions, not allowing you to stop.
“The one who is standing is bypassed; self-satisfied is lost. Neither in creativity nor in experiences can one be satisfied with what has been achieved. Every day, every hour demands new achievements from us.”
"Love is not deserved, love is just mercy."
“Love makes a person not blind, but sighted, able to see values.”
“With physical, as well as with erotic, attraction, betrayal is guaranteed. And only true love is the guarantor of constancy.
“Love is so little directed to the body of the beloved that it can easily endure his death; it remains to exist in the heart of the one who loves.
“When the body disappears, it is wrong to say that the personality no longer exists, it simply does not appear. That is why true love does not depend on the presence of a person. Love is so independent of the body that it does not need it.
Even sex is not primary, it is only a means of self-expression. Love as such can exist without it. Where sexuality is possible, love will desire it and strive for it; but where it is required to reject it, love will not grow cold and will not die. Love only uses the body. This is why physically mature lovers will eventually come to a sexual relationship. But the latter is only one form of expression of love. And it is love that gives sex human dignity, and the sexual act for those who love is an expression of spiritual unity.
“Ala love, physical appearance is of little importance. The real features of the beloved and the traits of his character acquire erotic significance through love itself. It is love, like the best beautician, that makes these traits attractive.” That is why Frankl encourages restraint in cosmetics.
Many “exaggerate the meaning of love. In fact, it is just one way to fill life with content, and not the best one. Our life would be poor if its meaning depended on love.”
“You must not try to force open the door that opens itself and does not lend itself to violent assault. Problems of love cannot be solved, they are solved by themselves. But you should prepare yourself for love. And if it falls on you, you need to be strong by this time so that this burden does not seem like a burden and gives pleasure.
“One should not devalue love, as sometimes those who have not achieved success in love do. Then they resemble that fox who, without reaching for the grapes, announced that it was green and sour, and they themselves block the path to happiness.
“After a failure in love, give it up for a while, and then try again if the opportunity arises.”
“It is dangerous to overestimate the importance of beauty for erotic love, since in this case a person is depreciated as such. There is something offensive about it when a woman is described as beautiful. A high score in a lower category suggests a low score in a higher one.”
“In work, each person manifests his own uniqueness, and in love he absorbs the uniqueness and originality of a partner.”
“Love sees a person as God intended him to be when he was created. In love, we comprehend a person not only as he is, but also as he can become. If a psychologist is able to love, he sees the potential values in his wards and helps them realize them.
“There is no such thing as “unrequited unhappy love”, because love inevitably enriches the one who loves. There is a contradiction in the concept itself. Either you really love and in this case feel enriched, or you do not really love and look for qualities in a partner that he has and that you could have. Of course, your feelings may remain unrequited, but then, it means that you do not love either. We all need to remember this: infatuation blinds us, true love makes us see."
“In true love there is no place for jealousy, for the beloved cannot be compared with anyone else. If I’m jealous, then I think that they don’t love me. ”
"People infected with jealousy of the past should be more modest and wish to be the last, not the first."
"Jealousy is foolishness in any case, as it manifests itself either too soon or too late."
“Loyalty is one of the tasks of love; but this is a task for the one who loves, and should never be a requirement for a partner.
“A person should wish to be worthy of happiness, and not strive for it, wish to be worthy of love, and not seek it, do their own thing, and not think about success. All these are by-products of a properly organized meaningful life.
“Monogamous relationships are the culmination of sexual development. But this is an ideal, and can only be a guiding principle. It sets up like a bullseye on a target that you must always aim at, even if you don't always hit it. Few people are capable of true love, and just as few people reach the highest spiritual maturity. This is the norm.”
"BUT. Einstein once wrote: “A person who considers his life meaningless is not only unhappy, he is hardly fit for life at all.” Meaning is always ahead of life. He directs the course of events. Inclinations push us, but meaning pulls and gives direction.
“Every person has their own meaning. And the psychologist should not impose meaning on the individual, but help to find it, because the life of each person is unique.
“The human heart does not find peace for itself and will not find it until it finds the meaning and purpose of life.”
"Meaning is discovered, not invented... Meaning is rather something to be found."
“We can make mistakes, but the possibility of error does not save us from making decisions. Perhaps my conscience is wrong. At the same time, I admit that, perhaps, the conscience of another person is right. This entails humility, modesty, and tolerance for other opinions. To be tolerant does not mean to adhere to the beliefs of another, but it means to allow the other to believe in his own conscience and obey it ... Therefore, the psychologist should not impose values on the patient, but direct him to his own conscience.
Notable sound people
I saw the meaning of my life in
to help others find meaning in life
Viktor Frankl
Throughout human history, there have always been people concernedsearching for the meaning of life. What hypotheses were not put forward in response to the question:Why does a person live?. One of the most interesting researchers of the meaning of life was the Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and neurologist Viktor Emil Frankl (life years 1905 - 1997). His method of psychological assistance is called logotherapy (existential analysis), which became the basis for the founding of the Third Vienna School of Psychotherapy.
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl. Bio pages
Viktor Frankl was born in Vienna to a Jewish family of civil servants and from his youth showed a keen interest in psychology. His thesis at the gymnasium was devoted to the psychology of philosophical thinking. After graduating from high school, Viktor studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna, specializing in neurology and psychiatry. He was especially attractedpsychology of depression and suicide. In his early years, he was attracted by the ideas of Sigmund Freud (with whom he even corresponded) and Alfred Adler, but later he created his own school.
Back in the 1920s, he proposed the term"logotherapy", and subsequently the name of his method was used equally"existential analysis".The word “logos” was understood by Viktor Frankl not only as a “word”, and the method of logotherapy was not just as a “treatment with a word”. The Greek stem of the word "logos" meansthat a word is not just a verbal act, but the quintessence of an idea, a meaning. Actually, this is the very meaning. Such an understanding of the “word” clarified for him the meaning of the gospel: “In the beginning was the word…”
Frankl worked in the field of clinical psychiatry and received his MD in 1930. It was at this time that the foundation of existential analysis was laid.
His work with patients was carried out in line with the psychological assistance to patients prone todepression and suicide. So, he created a special program to support students during the busy period of obtaining certificates. During his work with this program, there were no cases of suicide among the Viennese students.
In 1933, he made an interesting study of the so-called"neurosis of unemployment"(term V.F.), which is an urgent problem today. In 1933-37, Viktor Frankl headed the suicide prevention department in one of the Vienna clinics, where about 30,000 suicidal women were his patients.
It is believed that Viktor Frankl is the author of the term"Sunday Neurosis". This is a depressed state, emptiness, apathy, boredom that people often experience at the end of the week. Frankl believed that this state comes from an existential vacuum, when a person feels the loss of purpose and meaning of activity.
His most interesting research work was interrupted by the Second World War. On September 25, 1942, Frankl and his family were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp (the reason was his Jewish origin), where he was instructed to organize psychological assistance for newly arriving concentration camp prisoners. He devoted all his time in the camp to this activity, along with other psychiatrists and social workers from Central Europe. The service, which he created secretly from the SS, had the task of overcoming the shock at the initial stage of life in the camp.
In the center of his attention were the most unprotected from psychological stress people: psychopaths, antisocial personalities, epileptics, as well as the elderly and sick people. An information service was organized, which, if prisoners were found to have suicidal thoughts or attempts to commit suicide, immediately reported this to Dr. Frankl. So the mental health group actively prevented suicide.
The essence of the therapy that Viktor Frankl conducted in the camp was an appeal to the meaning of life. A person in extreme conditions between life and death had to answer the question:“What is the meaning of his life, as well as the meaning of suffering and death?”People asked the alarming question: "Will we survive the camp?" And the second question, which sounded like this: “Does this suffering, this death have any meaning?” If they answered the first question in the negative, then all further suffering and attempts to survive the horrors of the camp lost all meaning. “No” to the second question made survival itself meaningless.
Viktor Frankl sought to ensure that an objective view of what is happening in the camp would help people survive. The inner strength of the prisoner was restored when some goal was sought in the future. Nietzsche's words“If there is a “Why” to live, you can endure almost any “How”became the motto of his successful therapy. Anyone who did not see the meaning and purpose of his life, lost his foothold and almost always died.
It turned out almost by a miracle (but a natural miracle) that Dr. Frankl himself left the camp unbroken in spirit, preserving himself, his personality. Of his family, only he and his sister survived. In the camp, he was able to put into practice his theory of the meaning of life. And hardly any other theory has been paid so dearly. The fruit of his efforts was the book"Psychologist in a concentration camp", which saw the light after the war.
The essence of Viktor Frankl's logotherapy
In one of his letters to his student and admirer Marie Bonaparte, Sigmund Freud dropped the phrase that later became famous:“If a person thinks about the meaning of life, then he is seriously ill”. It can be understood in two ways. In my opinion, such an understanding is much closer to reality: problems and troubles make a person think about why he came into this life, engage in a reassessment of values.
Viktor Frankl went further. He called the search for the meaning of life the path to mental health, and the loss of this meaning is the cause of a lot of life's troubles for a person. His most famous book is called this:"Man's Search for Meaning".
Freud spoke of the human desire for pleasure as the driving force of life. Frankl put forward the idea of the will to meaning. He suggested that humans have an innate desiregive your life as much meaning as possible, show as many values as possible. It is this desire that is mostspiritualin man, by what distinguishes us from the animal, because the animal does not burden itself with questions of meaning.
Viktor Emil Frankl (March 26, 1905 – September 2, 1997) was an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and neurologist, a former Nazi concentration camp prisoner. Known as the creator of logotherapy - a method of existential psychoanalysis, which became the basis of the Third Vienna School of Psychotherapy.
There is no situation in the world that does not contain a core of meaning. But it is not enough to fill life with meaning, one must perceive it as a mission, realizing one's responsibility for the final result. Viktor Frankl
In his youth, deciding whether to become a cartoonist or a psychotherapist, Viktor Frankl said to himself: “As a cartoonist, I will be able to notice human weaknesses and shortcomings, and as a psychotherapist, I will be able to see opportunities to overcome today’s weaknesses.” Letters from different countries with the words "Dr. Frankl, your books have changed my whole life" became the best confirmation that he made the right choice.
In my youth, like many others, I was tormented by the question: who needs my life? I looked for answers everywhere, but mostly books helped: Richard Bach, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse ... They did not give recipes, but posed new questions, but it was even interesting. And when my father brought Viktor Frankl's newly published book Man's Search for Meaning, I felt like a traveler who was tormented by thirst and suddenly saw a spring gushing from the ground. The word meaning was then a sign of recognition for me, they talked a lot about meaning in classrooms, in the kitchen, under the starry sky ...
I read the book in one night and, closing the last page, I already knew that I would return to it more than once. And I still go back, trying to understand the person who wrote it, based on my own experience, because I realized that otherwise it would be impossible to explain the meaning of life to anyone.
You can only know yourself by acting, not by thinking. Goethe
Viktor Frankl... Who was he? A professor of neurology, a professional psychotherapist? Mountain climber? A pilot who made his first solo flight at the age of 67? A composer whose music is featured on popular TV shows? A prisoner of a concentration camp who survived in inhuman conditions against all odds? A kind genius whose books help to cure boredom and fuss? All this and more. But above all - a man who knew how to discern the good in everyone that, perhaps, sleeps for the time being. See and wake up...
Viktor Frankl was born in 1905 in Vienna, his childhood and youth fell on the difficult years of the First World War, economic crises and psychological instability. Together with them, the need to find his place in the world grew in the boy. As a thirteen-year-old teenager, having heard from a teacher that life is ultimately nothing but a process of oxidation, Frankl broke down and jumped up with the question: “What then is the meaning of life?” Trying to find some balancing principle that underlies the entire universe, he filled several notebooks during his school years, giving them a grand name: "We and the Universe." All this time, struggling with despair and misunderstanding, Frankl worked out in himself immunity against nihilism.
Perhaps someone will think that he was destined by fate to become a psychotherapist, because just at that time the Freud school was actively developing in Vienna and a little later the school of individual psychotherapy of his opponent Adler appeared. Perhaps, but Frankl didn't stop at their ideas, he kept looking.
Viktor Frankl in his youth. In 1928, in an effort to prevent suicide among students, he opened a youth counseling center in Vienna and, together with like-minded people, defeated this problem: for the first time in many years, the number of suicides among young people began to decline. Frankl received his MD in 1930 and continued to work in the field of clinical psychiatry. He sought to make people who turn to him begin to realize that they are free to change something in the world for the better and change themselves for the better, if necessary.
When you think about such people, you involuntarily ask yourself the question: can I do this? I will be able to follow the rules that Frankl worked out for himself:
- Treat the smallest things with the same attention as the biggest ones. And do the biggest things as calmly as the smallest ones.
- Try to do everything as quickly as possible, and not at the last moment.
- First do all the unpleasant things, and only then the pleasant ones.
It seems to be simple, but ... The second point suffered especially, and I always found an excuse for myself. This, probably, was different from Frankl, because if he failed to adhere to the rules, he could not talk to himself for several days.
Often in his work, Frankl used the method of paradoxical intention, which he himself developed. The essence of the method is this: instead of running from unpleasant feelings and situations related to them, one must go towards them. To get rid of a symptom, it is necessary to form a paradoxical intention, that is, the desire to do something opposite to what needs to be got rid of, and it is desirable to do this in a humorous form. Laughter allows you to look at yourself and your problems from the side and gain control over yourself. Frankl mastered this method well and encouraged followers to do the same, he cited examples from his own and their practice in his book. The results are really impressive, but what a sense of humor one must have to invite a patient suffering from trembling hands to arrange a trembling competition, and even encourage him to shake faster and harder! Or instruct a patient suffering from insomnia to stay awake all night. And you need to be very brave not to take a back seat to the patient’s remark: “Doctor, I always thought that I was crazy, but it seems to me that you are too” - calmly answer: “You see, sometimes it gives me pleasure to be crazy.”
Only the pinnacle of man is man. Paracelsus
But the most important thing in the work of a psychotherapist is not techniques and techniques. Frankl was ready to answer phone calls at any time of the day, look for different explanations and always tried to see a person behind a clinical case. He believed that the picture of the disease is just a caricature, the shadow of a person, and one can be a psychiatrist only for the sake of the human in the patient and for the sake of the spiritual in a person. Many of Frankl's patients admitted that they were kept from irreparable acts by gratitude to a person who was ready to listen to them even at three in the morning and was able to see in them that good that they themselves had long ceased to believe in.
The Second World War prevented the publication of his first manuscript, Healing the Soul, with the basics of logotherapy, treatment through the search for the meaning of life. At this time, Frankl was head of the neurological department of the Jewish Hospital in Vienna. He could emigrate to the United States, but he understood that then he would leave his elderly parents to the mercy of fate and could not help them in any way. He also knew that he, a Jew, would have almost no chance to survive ... Frankl decided to ask heaven for advice. The first thing he saw when he came home was a piece of marble with one of the ten commandments: "Honor your father and your mother, and you will remain on earth." In the depths of his soul, he had already decided to stay, and the commandment only helped to realize this. For two more years he continued to work, since the Gestapo officer, on whom Frankl's fate depended, was his patient. But in 1942, together with his parents and wife, he ended up in a concentration camp. His sacrifice made sense. Both Frankl's mother and father died, although in a concentration camp, but in his arms. And the doctrine of meaning passed the test in four camps, proving its right to exist.
Viktor Frankl with his wife. In the concentration camp, Frankl organized a psychological help service for prisoners, learned about those who were losing the purpose and meaning of life, and tried to help them ... He saw how the mysterious "stubbornness of the spirit" allowed people to remain free even in a concentration camp and not depend on the conditions in which they hit. “Here in the camp there were people who always had a kind word to support a comrade, they were ready to share the last piece of bread. Of course, they were few - these people who chose for themselves the opportunity to maintain their humanity, but they set an example for others, and this example caused a chain reaction.
In inhuman conditions, not those who were stronger survived, but those who had something to live for. Already after the war, Frankl wrote: “As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am well aware of the extent to which a person depends on biological, psychological and social conditions, but, in addition, I am still a man who survived in four concentration camps - and therefore I am a witness to what an unexpected degree a person is able to challenge the most difficult conditions that one can imagine.
Frankl also had something to live for, because he kept the manuscript of the book with the first version of the doctrine of meaning and made sure that it survived, and when this failed, he hoped to restore it. In the typhoid barracks of the concentration camp, he was able, diverting fever attacks, to use excitement and intellectual upsurge in order to recreate his scientific work - for 16 crazy nights, Frankl made short shorthand notes on tiny scraps of paper in the dark.
If we accept people for who they are, we make them worse. If we treat them as if they are what they should be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. Goethe
His inner life continued, he imagined how after the war he would talk about everything he had experienced, mentally communicated with his wife - this helped him not to break down. “I realized that love penetrates far beyond the essence of a loved one, allowing the soul to break away from the existence of a prisoner ... More and more I felt that my wife was present here, that she was with me, that I could touch her - take her hands in mine,” wrote Frankl. He saw his wife in a bird crouched next to him on the ground, her face was brighter than the rays of the setting sun, and no one at that moment could convince him that this was not so. Sometimes the heart is wiser than the mind, Frankl believed. And sometimes it's smarter not to be too smart...
The fact that Frankl managed to survive is probably a bit of a coincidence. He was transferred from camp to camp, he ended up on the death list, worked with infectious patients, tried to escape ... But if it were not for the “stubbornness of the spirit”, the ability to hear fate and the voice of conscience, no accident would have helped him.
After the war, returning to Vienna, Frankl came to his friend Paul Polog and told him about the death of his parents, brother and wife. He could not help crying: “When something like this happens to someone, when a person is subjected to such tests, then all this must have some meaning. I have a feeling that something is waiting for me, that I am destined for something. No one could understand him better than an old friend, because Frankl himself had to deal with the crisis. “Suffering only makes sense if it changes me for the better,” he wrote. And, like no one else, I understood that any medicines that help drown out the pain of loss and forget those you loved would not help. But around Frankl, he saw people who also experienced the same pain, were confused, lonely and also needed help, and he again found meaning: “The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in their lives.”
Frankl described his experience and experiences in the book "A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp", which was published shortly after the war. He wanted to publish it anonymously, not thinking that anyone would be interested in it, and only friends convinced him to put his name after all. It was this work that became the most famous.
Viktor Frankl at a lecture. In 1946, Viktor Frankl became director of the Vienna Neurological Polyclinic, from 1947 he began teaching at the University of Vienna, writing several books one after another. His Man's Search for Meaning has been translated into 24 languages. Since the 1960s, he has traveled a lot around the world and feels that in this relatively peaceful time, the problem of the meaning of life has become even more urgent. In the post-war world, more dynamic, more developed and richer, people gained more opportunities and prospects, but began to lose the meaning of life.
Frankl called his psychotherapy the pinnacle because he saw in the human soul the heights to which one should strive. And he said that a person should be helped to find the courage to live spiritually, to remind him that he has a spirit. “Despite our belief in the human potential of man, we must not close our eyes to the fact that human beings are ... a minority,” wrote Frankl. "But that's why each of us feels challenged to join this minority." A man is somewhat like an airplane, he joked. An airplane can travel on the ground, but in order to prove that it is an airplane, it must take off into the air. So are we: if we stay on the ground, no one will guess that we can fly.
When Frankl was asked to say what is the meaning of life, he smiled. After all, there is no universal, only correct answer to this question. Each person and each moment has its own, unique meaning. “There is no situation in the world that does not contain a core of meaning,” Frankl believed. “But it’s not enough to fill life with meaning, you have to perceive it as a mission, realizing your responsibility for the final result.”
In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, the famous Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist, was arrested and sent to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. When the camp was liberated three years later, most of his doctor's relatives died, including his pregnant wife. However, he - prisoner number 119104 - survived. The book about his life in the concentration camp "A Man in Search of Meaning", which instantly became a bestseller, was written by Viktor Frankl in 9 days. Reflecting on the fate of the prisoners, the author came to the conclusion that the difference between those who survived and those who did not was in one thing - the desire for Meaning.
According to Viktor Frankl's observations of concentration camp prisoners, people who managed to find meaning even under the most horrifying circumstances were much more resilient than others. “Everything can be taken away from a person, except for one thing,” Frankl wrote in his famous book, “the last of human freedoms is the ability to independently choose how one relates to certain circumstances.”
In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl describes the case of two prisoners who exhibited suicidal behavior. Like many others in the camp, these men lost hope, stopped seeing the meaning of life. “In both cases, it was important to let them know that something else was waiting for them in life, that they had a future.” For one man, the youngest child, who was then living abroad, became such a ray of hope. For another - a scientist - this role was played by a series of books that he had to complete. Frankl wrote: “This uniqueness and exclusivity, which distinguishes each individual and gives meaning to his existence, has as much to do with creativity as it does with human love. When it becomes clear that it is impossible to replace one person with another, the responsibility of a person for his existence and its continuation is fully manifested. A person who has realized his responsibility to another human being who is passionately waiting for him, or to unfinished work, will no longer be able to throw his life away. He knows the "why" for him to live, and will be able to endure almost any "how".
It seems that today the ideas presented in Frankl's work - the emphasis on meaning, the significance of suffering and responsibility not only to oneself, but to something greater - are at odds with the principles of modernity, when a person is more interested in personal happiness than in the search for meaning. The author notes: “In the eyes of Europeans, an important characteristic of American culture is the imperative: over and over again it is ordered and prescribed to be happy. But happiness cannot be an object of aspiration, a pursuit; it must be the result of something else. You have to have a reason to be happy.
According to Gallup, having purpose and meaning in life increases well-being and life satisfaction, improves mental and physical health, improves resilience and self-confidence, and reduces the likelihood of depression. And a person who is solely in search of happiness, it turns out, feels less happy. This is what Frankl points out when he says that “the search for happiness interferes with happiness itself.”
During a psychological study, 400 Americans aged 18 to 78 answered the question of whether there is meaning and / or happiness in their lives. Based on data obtained from respondents - the level of stress, their financial capabilities and the presence of children - scientists came to the conclusion that a life endowed with meaning and a happy life overlap to some extent, but in fact are very different. A happy life, researchers said, is associated with the ability to take, while a meaningful life is associated with the ability to give.
“Happiness without meaning characterizes a rather superficial, self-centered, even selfish life in which everything goes well, needs and desires are easily satisfied, and difficulties are tried to be avoided”
“Happiness without meaning characterizes a rather superficial, self-centered, even selfish life, in which everything goes well, needs and desires are easily satisfied, and difficulties are avoided,” the authors of the article write. Psychologists say that happiness is nothing but the satisfaction of desire. An elementary example: you feel happy when you satisfy your hunger. In other words, people become happy when they get what they want. But not only people are capable of such feelings - animals also have needs and desires, and having satisfied them, they equally feel happy.
What distinguishes people from animals is not the search for happiness, but the pursuit of meaning - an exclusive feature of man. This was concluded by Roy Baumeister, who co-authored the book Willpower: Rediscovering Man's Greatest Strength with John Tierney. Martin Seligman, another well-known modern day psychologist, has described a meaningful life as “using your strengths and talents for the benefit of something bigger than your ego. For example, finding the meaning of life is associated with such simple actions as buying gifts for other people or taking care of children. People who have a high level of meaningfulness in life often continue to search for meaning, even realizing that this will be to the detriment of their happiness. “We take care of other people, we devote ourselves to them. This brings meaning to our lives, but it does not necessarily make us happy,” concludes Baumeister.
Returning to the life of a Jewish psychotherapist, it is important to tell about an episode that occurred before his imprisonment in a concentration camp. An episode that defines the difference between finding meaning and finding happiness in life. Frankl was a successful psychologist with an international reputation. As a 16-year-old youth, he entered into correspondence with Sigmund Freud and received admiring comments from the great scientist. While in medical school, he not only founded a center for the prevention of teen suicide, but also began to develop logotherapy, his own technique in clinical psychology, aimed at overcoming depression through the search for personal meaning in life.
By 1941, Viktor Frankl's theories are already in the public domain, he works as the head of the neurological department at the Rothschild hospital in Vienna, where, at the risk of his own life and career, he makes false diagnoses of mentally ill patients in order to save them from euthanasia under the Nazi program. In the same year, a famous doctor makes a decision that changes his whole life.
Having reached certain career heights and realizing the danger of the Nazi regime, Frankl requested a visa to America and received it just in 1941. At that time, the Nazis had already begun to send Jews to concentration camps, taking away the elderly first of all. On the one hand, Franul understood that the moment when they descended on his parents' house would not have to wait long. He also knew that once this happened, he would have to go into prison with them to help them cope with the horrors of camp life. On the other hand, he had recently become a husband himself, and a fresh American visa tempted him to be safe and quietly continue his successful career. Viktor Frankl decided to set aside personal goals in order to stay with his family and help them and, later, other prisoners in the concentration camp.
The truth that the Jewish doctor learned from the unimaginable suffering he had to go through in prison is still relevant today: “A person’s being is always directed towards something or someone other than himself - be it a meaning that needs to be realized, or another person to meet. The more a person forgets himself - giving himself to the service of an important cause or love for another human being - the more human he is and the more he realizes himself.
Baumeister and his colleagues would agree that the search for meaning is the only thing that makes a person human. By putting aside our selfish desires and dedicating ourselves to others, we not only show humanity, but also realize that a good life is about something more than the pursuit of simple happiness.
