NotitiesMan's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
"Man's Search for Meaning" van Viktor E. Frankl onderzoekt de menselijke zoektocht naar betekenis, zelfs onder de meest erbarmelijke omstandigheden, zoals in concentratiekampen. Frankl benadrukt dat de vrijheid om te kiezen hoe men reageert op lijden essentieel is voor de menselijke waardigheid en dat betekenis kan worden gevonden in werk, liefde en de houding ten opzichte van onvermijdelijk lijden.
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. (Location 35)
we are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond. (Location 40)
“Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot 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. (Location 80)
you have to let it happen by not caring about it. (Location 82)
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. (Location 83)
Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? (Location 89)
Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them? (Location 90)
this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for “a hint from Heaven,” as the phrase goes. (Location 91)
This was an unrelenting struggle for daily bread and for life itself, for one’s own sake or for that of a good friend. (Location 114)
everyone knew that for each man saved another victim had to be found. (Location 119)
Any guard who wanted to make a charge against a prisoner just glanced at his number (and how we dreaded such glances!); he never asked for his name. (Location 124)
To return to the convoy about to depart. There was neither time nor desire to consider moral or ethical issues. (Location 125)
there was a sort of self-selecting process going on the whole time among all of the prisoners. (Location 129)
We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles—whatever one may choose to call them—we know: the best of us did not return. (Location 132)
An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty of a book of this kind. (Location 142)
I was Number 119,104, and most of the time I was digging and laying tracks for railway lines. (Location 152)
Thus, when we saw a comrade smoking his own cigarettes, we knew he had given up faith in his strength to carry on, and, once lost, the will to live seldom returned. (Location 160)
Under such conditions, who could blame them for trying to dope themselves? (Location 196)
No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. (Location 231)
Cold curiosity predominated even in Auschwitz, somehow detaching the mind from its surroundings, which came to be regarded with a kind of objectivity. (Location 263)
we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. (Location 275)
“Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how.” (Location 280)
The thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone, if only for a brief time. (Location 282)
It was born of the hopelessness of the situation, the constant danger of death looming over us daily and hourly, and the closeness of the deaths suffered by many of the others. (Location 283)
The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few days—after all, they spared him the act of committing suicide. (Location 288)
want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work. (Location 298)
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. (Location 307)
the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. (Location 323)
By means of this insensibility the prisoner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protective shell. (Location 346)
it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all. (Location 351)
Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one’s own life and that of the other fellow. (Location 406)
It can be readily understood that such a state of strain, coupled with the constant necessity of concentrating on the task of staying alive, forced the prisoner’s inner life down to a primitive level. (Location 409)
always regarded the discussions about food as dangerous. Is it not wrong to provoke the organism with such detailed and affective pictures of delicacies when it has somehow managed to adapt itself to extremely small rations and low calories? Though it may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which physiologically, surely, must not be without danger. (Location 425)
Undernourishment, besides being the cause of the general preoccupation with food, probably also explains the fact that the sexual urge was generally absent. (Location 459)
the war of nerves that was waged in the minds of all the prisoners. (Location 480)
Some men lost all hope, but it was the incorrigible optimists who were the most irritating companions. (Location 481)
In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. (Location 501)
They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. (Location 503)
some prisoners of a less hardy make-up often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature. (Location 504)
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nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. (Location 515)
The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. (Location 519)
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. (Location 521)
In a position of utter desolation, when 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. (Location 522)
The men were silent, their brains numb. (Location 531)
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance. (Location 532)
There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of (Location 535)
my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. (Location 536)
Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.” This intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. (Location 536)
Note: Intensification Of inner life
In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. (Location 557)
The feeling was very strong: she was there. (Location 562)
They came to have a few laughs or perhaps to cry a little; anyway, to forget. (Location 567)
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It was useful, anyway, to be known to The Murderous Capo from a favorable angle. So I applauded as hard as I could. (Location 581)
Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. (Location 590)
Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent. (Location 601)
We were grateful for the smallest of mercies. (Location 634)
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Who can throw a stone at a man who favors his friends under circumstances when, sooner or later, it is a question of life or death? (Location 644)
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. (Location 645)
I thought that it would doubtless be more to the purpose to try and help my comrades as a doctor than to vegetate or finally lose my life as the unproductive laborer that I was then. (Location 664)
For me this was simple mathematics, not sacrifice. (Location 665)
A man’s character became involved to the point that he was caught in a mental turmoil which threatened all the values he held and threw them into doubt. (Location 669)
The men were herded—sometimes to one place then to another; sometimes driven together, then apart—like a flock of sheep without a thought or a will of their own. (Location 674)
each of us tried to get into the middle of our formations. (Location 678)
to save one’s own skin that one literally tried to submerge into the crowd. (Location 680)
The prisoner craved to be alone with himself and his thoughts. (Location 685)
For light cases, I had nothing, except perhaps a word of encouragement. (Location 696)
The list was the only thing that mattered. (Location 705)
I generally answered all kinds of questions truthfully. But I was silent about anything that was not expressly asked for. (Location 717)
The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course. (Location 751)
apathy, which contributed in no small part to the feelings of the prisoner. (Location 753)
The prisoner would have preferred to let fate make the choice for him. (Location 754)
The majority of prisoners suffered from a kind of inferiority complex. (Location 824)
(The consciousness of one’s inner value is anchored in higher, more spiritual things, and cannot be shaken by camp life. (Location 825)
the general irritability (whose physical causes were discussed above) became most intense when these mental tensions were added. (Location 834)
one’s own irritability took on enormous proportions in the face of the other’s apathy and especially in the face of the danger (i.e., the approaching inspection) which was caused by it. (Location 849)
Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? (Location 854)
The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. (Location 858)
Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. (Location 860)
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. (Location 862)
Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate. (Location 864)
the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, (Location 869)
any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. (Location 870)
He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. (Location 871)
It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful. (Location 874)
An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. (Location 875)
But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. (Location 877)
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. (Location 879)
Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. (Location 879)
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. (Location 881)
Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. “Yes.” What did it say to her? She answered, “It said to me, ‘I am here—I am here—I am life, eternal life.’” (Location 905)
only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp’s degenerating influences. (Location 909)
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the most depressing influence of all was that a prisoner could not know how long his term of imprisonment would be. (Location 911)
life in a concentration camp could be called a “provisional existence.” (Location 913)
The Latin word finis has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. (Location 917)
man who could not see the end of his “provisional existence” was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. (Location 918)
Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. (Location 919)
His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. (Location 920)
day lasted longer than a week. (Location 924)
The outside life, that is, as much as he could see of it, appeared to him almost as it might have to a dead man who looked at it from another world. (Location 932)
It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. (Location 935)
often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. (Location 938)
They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. (Location 940)
most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. (Location 944)
One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners. (Location 945)
giving him inner strength by pointing out to him a future goal to which he could look forward. (Location 947)
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future—sub specie aeternitatis (Location 949)
I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such trivial things. I forced my thoughts to turn to another (Location 957)
subject. Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! (Location 958)
By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past. (Location 960)
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. (Location 963)
Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man—his courage and hope, or lack of them—and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect. (Location 981)
This suddenly lowered his body’s resistance against the latent typhus infection. (Location 984)
It was simply that the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naïve hope that they would be home again by Christmas. (Location 989)
As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. (Location 991)
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“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners. (Location 992)
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. (Location 997)
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. (Location 998)
Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. (Location 999)
Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. (Location 1000)
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. (Location 1001)
Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. (Location 1003)
“Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. (Location 1003)
No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. (Location 1005)
Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. (Location 1006)
At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. (Location 1006)
Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand. (Location 1007)
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. (Location 1009)
Long ago we had passed the stage of asking what was the meaning of life, a naïve query which understands life as the attaining of some aim through the active creation of something of value. (Location 1013)
We had realized its hidden opportunities for achievement, the opportunities which caused the poet Rilke to write, “Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!” (How much suffering there is to get through!). (Location 1017)
There was plenty of suffering for us to get through. Therefore, it was necessary to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. (Location 1019)
tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. (Location 1021)
“I have wept it out of my system.” (Location 1022)
In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. (Location 1028)
This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. (Location 1032)
When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. (Location 1033)
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. (Location 1034)
A senior block warden who did not side with the authorities had, by his just and encouraging behavior, a thousand opportunities to exert a far-reaching moral influence on those under his jurisdiction. (Location 1037)
The immediate influence of behavior is always more effective than that of words. (Location 1039)
But at times a word was effective too, when mental receptiveness had been intensified by some outer circumstances. (Location 1039)
But our senior block warden was a wise man. He improvised a little talk about all that was on our minds at that moment. (Location 1048)
But he also mentioned what may have been the real reason for their deaths: giving up hope. (Location 1050)
but I had to make the effort and use this unique opportunity. Encouragement was now more necessary than ever. (Location 1053)
Whoever was still alive had reason for hope. Health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, position in society —all these were things that could be achieved again or restored. (Location 1056)
“Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben.” (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) (Location 1067)
Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind. (Location 1070)
human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. (Location 1071)
He would hope to find us suffering proudly—not miserably—knowing how to die. (Location 1075)
I told them of a comrade who on his arrival in camp had tried to make a pact with Heaven that his suffering and death should save the human being he loved from a painful end. For this man, suffering and death were meaningful; his was a sacrifice of the deepest significance. (Location 1078)
But I have to confess here that only too rarely had I the inner strength to make contact with my companions in suffering and that I must have missed many opportunities for doing so. (Location 1083)
It was found after the liberation—only the camp doctor, a prisoner himself, had known of it previously—that this man had paid no small sum of money from his own pocket in order to purchase medicines for his prisoners from the nearest market town. (Location 1099)
It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. (Location 1103)
The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. (Location 1105)
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It was the human “something” which this man also gave to me—the word and look which accompanied the gift. (Location 1110)
there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. (Location 1111)
Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. (Location 1112)
Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths. (Location 1114)
We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly. (Location 1131)
Psychologically, what was happening to the liberated prisoners could be called “depersonalization.” (Location 1132)
I had but one sentence in mind—always the same: “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.” (Location 1146)
Step for step I progressed, until I again became a human being. (Location 1149)
It would be an error to think that a liberated prisoner was not in need of spiritual care any more. (Location 1150)
naturally in some danger after his liberation, especially since the pressure was released quite suddenly. (Location 1152)
the man who has suddenly been liberated from mental pressure can suffer damage to his moral and spiritual health. (Location 1154)
Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them. (Location 1162)
The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more—except his God. (Location 1188)
logotherapy, in comparison with psychoanalysis, is a method less retrospective and less introspective. (Location 1213)
Logotherapy focuses rather on the future, (Location 1213)
(Logotherapy, indeed, is a meaning-centered psychotherapy.) (Location 1214)
logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. (Location 1215)
typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced. (Location 1216)
to make him aware of this meaning can contribute much to his ability to overcome his neurosis. (Location 1218)
Logos is a Greek word which denotes “meaning.” Logotherapy, or, as it has been called by some authors, “The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy,” (Location 1219)
focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning. (Location 1220)
striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in (Location 1221)
That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, (Location 1222)
Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. (Location 1225)
In these cases we have actually to deal with pseudovalues, and as such they have to be unmasked. (Location 1239)
Unmasking, however, should stop as soon as one is confronted with what is authentic and genuine in man, (Location 1239)
Existential frustration can also result in neuroses. For this type of neuroses, logotherapy has coined the term “noögenic neuroses” (Location 1246)
Noögenic neuroses do not emerge from conflicts between drives and instincts but rather from existential problems. (Location 1250)
I was dealing with a neurotic condition at all, and that is why I thought that he did not need any psychotherapy, nor even logotherapy, for the simple reason that he was not actually a patient. (Location 1263)
suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration. (Location 1265)
Existential frustration is in itself neither pathological nor pathogenic. (Location 1267)
A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. (Location 1268)
interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. (Location 1269)
Logotherapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life. (Location 1271)
Inasmuch as logotherapy makes him aware of the hidden logos of his existence, it is an analytical process. (Location 1271)
in logotherapy’s attempt to make something conscious again it does not restrict its activity to instinctual facts within the individual’s unconscious but also cares for existential realities, (Location 1272)
Any analysis, however, even when it refrains from including the noölogical dimension in its therapeutic process, tries to make the patient aware of what he actually longs for in the depth of his being. Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflicting claims of id, ego and superego, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment. (Location 1275)
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man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. (Location 1279)
precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. (Location 1280)
There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. (Location 1280)
reconstruction of my lost manuscript in the dark barracks of a Bavarian concentration camp assisted me in overcoming the danger of cardiovascular collapse. (Location 1289)
mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. (Location 1291)
Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being. (Location 1292)
We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill. (Location 1293)
I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium (Location 1294)
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. (Location 1295)
in neurotic individuals, it is even more valid. (Location 1299)
If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. (Location 1299)
So if therapists wish to foster their patients’ mental health, they should not be afraid to create a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one’s life. (Location 1300)
They are haunted by the experience of their inner emptiness, a void within themselves; they are caught in that situation which I have called the “existential vacuum.” (Location 1304)
Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. (Location 1308)
man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. (Location 1309)
No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. (Location 1310)
Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). (Location 1311)
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. (Location 1314)
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boredom is now causing, and certainly bringing to psychiatrists, more problems to solve than distress. And these problems are growing increasingly crucial, for progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in the leisure hours available to the average worker. (Location 1315)
many of these will not know what to do with all their newly acquired free time. (Location 1317)
Sometimes the frustrated will to meaning is vicariously compensated for by a will to power, including the most primitive form of the will to power, the will to money. (Location 1322)
In other cases, the place of frustrated will to meaning is taken by the will to pleasure. (Location 1323)
by filling the existential vacuum, the patient will be prevented from suffering further relapses. (Location 1329)
“Every therapy must in some way, no matter how restricted, also be logotherapy.” (Location 1331)
What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. (Location 1335)
“Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one’s opponent. (Location 1337)
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. (Location 1338)
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. (Location 1339)
each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. (Location 1341)
logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence. (Location 1344)
categorical imperative of logotherapy, which is: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” (Location 1345)
imagine first that the present is past and, second, that the past may yet be changed and amended. (Location 1348)
Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully aware of his own responsibleness; therefore, it must leave to him the option for what, to what, or to whom he understands himself to be responsible. (Location 1350)
he will never permit the patient to pass to the doctor the responsibility of judging. (Location 1352)
Logotherapy is neither teaching nor preaching. It is as far removed from logical reasoning as it is from moral exhortation. (Location 1355)
The logotherapist’s role consists of widening and broadening the visual field of the patient so that the whole spectrum of potential meaning becomes conscious and visible to him. (Location 1357)
the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. (Location 1360)
self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be (Location 1361)
self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence. (Location 1364)
the meaning of life always changes, but that it never ceases to be. (Location 1365)
we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. (Location 1366)
sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love. (Location 1378)
When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. (Location 1383)
In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. (Location 1390)
I did succeed in changing his attitude toward his unalterable fate inasmuch as from that time on he could at least see a meaning in his suffering. (Location 1392)
man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. (Location 1393)
in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. (Location 1395)
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To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic. (Location 1397)
In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. (Location 1406)
life’s meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering. (Location 1407)
I had to undergo and to overcome the loss of my mental child. (Location 1410)
How should I have interpreted such a “coincidence” other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper? (Location 1417)
Some of the people who nowadays call on a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest or rabbi in former days. (Location 1423)
Now they often refuse to be handed over to a clergyman and instead confront the doctor with questions such as, “What is the meaning of my (Location 1424)
Viewing her life as if from her deathbed, she had suddenly been able to see a meaning in it, a meaning which even included all of her sufferings. (Location 1444)
Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?” (Location 1450)
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This ultimate meaning necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man; in logotherapy, we speak in this context of a super-meaning. (Location 1453)
What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. Logos is deeper than logic. (Location 1454)
when a patient stands on the firm ground of religious belief, there can be no objection to making use of the therapeutic effect of his religious convictions and thereby drawing upon his spiritual resources. (Location 1460)
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something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation. (Location 1464)
my question was followed by an outburst of tears, and now the true reason for his despair came to the fore: he explained that his children, since they died as innocent martyrs,7 were thus found worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but as for himself he could not expect, as an old, sinful man, to be assigned the same place. (Location 1468)
the only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. (Location 1476)
in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored. (Location 1478)
the transitoriness of our existence in no way makes it meaningless. (Location 1479)
At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence. (Location 1482)
The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. (Location 1486)
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“No, thank you,” he will think. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. (Location 1492)
A realistic fear, like the fear of death, cannot be tranquilized away by its psychodynamic interpretation; (Location 1495)
neurotic fear, such as agoraphobia, cannot be cured by philosophical understanding. (Location 1496)
we take as a starting point a condition which is frequently observed in neurotic individuals, namely, anticipatory anxiety. (Location 1497)
forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes. (Location 1502)
Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself. (Location 1504)
excessive attention, or “hyper-reflection,” as it is called in logotherapy, may also be pathogenic (that is, lead to sickness). (Location 1505)
Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes. (Location 1515)
the phobic patient is invited to intend, even if only for a moment, precisely that which he fears. (Location 1518)
his fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish. (Location 1525)
By this treatment, the wind is taken out of the sails of the anxiety. (Location 1525)
“The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure.” (Location 1529)
I usually advise the patient not to try to sleep but rather to try to do just the opposite, that is, to stay awake as long as possible. (Location 1554)
as soon as the patient stops fighting his obsessions and instead tries to ridicule them by dealing with them in an ironical way—by applying paradoxical intention—the vicious circle is cut, the symptom diminishes and finally atrophies. (Location 1571)
anticipatory anxiety has to be counteracted by paradoxical intention; (Location 1574)
hyper-intention as well as hyper-reflection have to be counteracted by dereflection; (Location 1575)
dereflection, however, ultimately is not possible except by the patient’s orientation toward his specific vocation and mission in life. (Location 1575)
the cue to cure is self-transcendence! (Location 1578)
The existential vacuum which is the mass neurosis of the present time can be described as a private and personal form of nihilism; (Location 1580)
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nihilism can be defined as the contention that being has no meaning. (Location 1581)
there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man’s “nothingbutness,” the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to believe anyway, namely, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free. (Location 1585)
To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions. (Location 1588)
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. (Location 1596)
man is ultimately self-determining. (Location 1597)
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. (Location 1598)
every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. (Location 1599)
Therefore, we can predict his future only within the large framework of a statistical survey referring to a whole group; the individual personality, however, remains essentially unpredictable. (Location 1599)
one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. (Location 1601)
man is more than psyche. (Location 1616)
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Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. (Location 1616)
An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo. (Location 1622)
seeing the human being behind the disease! (Location 1630)
Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. (Location 1633)
can life retain its potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects? (Location 1672)
I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for: (1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action. (Location 1676)
happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. (Location 1683)
One must have a reason to “be happy.” Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. (Location 1684)
a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation. (Location 1685)
Meaning orientation had subsided, and consequently the seeking of immediate pleasure had taken over. (Location 1700)
the drug scene is one aspect of a more general mass phenomenon, namely the feeling of meaninglessness resulting from a frustration of our existential needs which in turn has become a universal phenomenon in our industrial societies. (Location 1703)
As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; (Location 1709)
they have the means but no meaning. (Location 1710)
being jobless was equated with being useless, and being useless was equated with having a meaningless life. (Location 1714)
as soon as they could fill their abundant free time with some sort of unpaid but meaningful activity—their depression disappeared (Location 1715)
Immediately, they were not only challenged but also united by a meaning they had to fulfill. (Location 1740)
90 percent of the alcoholics she studied had suffered from an abysmal feeling of meaninglessness. (Location 1742)
the logotherapist is concerned with the potential meaning inherent and dormant in all the single situations one has to face throughout his or her life. (Location 1745)
Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? (Location 1750)
The fact remains that meaning, and its perception, as seen from the logotherapeutic angle, is completely down to earth rather than afloat in the air or resident in an ivory tower. (Location 1752)
meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality (Location 1756)
becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation. (Location 1758)
Logotherapy conceives of conscience as a prompter which, if need be, indicates the direction in which we have to move in a given life situation. (Location 1761)
values, however, cannot be espoused and adopted by us on a conscious level—they are something that we are. (Location 1764)
if a prereflective axiological self-understanding exists, we may assume that it is ultimately anchored in our biological heritage. (Location 1767)
there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. Edith Weisskopf-Joelson observed in this context that the logotherapeutic “notion that experiencing can be as valuable as achieving is therapeutic because it compensates for our one-sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.” (Location 1769)
the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. (Location 1773)
the incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading” (Location 1776)
“I view my life as being abundant with meaning and purpose. (Location 1789)
I believe that my handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. (Location 1791)
I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible.” (Location 1791)
unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. (Location 1794)
“the criminal never has a chance to explain himself. He is offered a variety of excuses to choose from. (Location 1806)
you are responsible for overcoming guilt by rising above it, by growing beyond yourselves, by changing for the better.” (Location 1809)
I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons. (Location 1813)
as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past wherein it has been safely delivered and deposited. (Location 1824)
In view of the possibility of finding meaning in suffering, life’s meaning is an unconditional one, at least potentially. That unconditional meaning, however, is paralleled by the unconditional value of each and every person. It is that which warrants the indelible quality of the dignity of man. Just as life remains potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable, so too does the value of each and every person stay with him or her, and it does so because it is based on the values that he or she has realized in the past, and is not contingent on the usefulness that he or she may or may not retain in the present. (Location 1831)
More specifically, this usefulness is usually defined in terms of functioning for the benefit of society. But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. (Location 1836)
So, let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. (Location 1869)
He sees freedom and responsibility as two sides of the same coin. (Location 1944)
A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. (Location 1958)
A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness. (Location 1959)
In making personal choices we affirm our autonomy. (Location 1966)
Frankl wondered whether “there may be such a thing as autobibliotherapy—healing through reading.” (Location 1970)
he does not tell people what to do, but why they must do it. (Location 1975)
“I do not forget any good deed done to me, and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.” (Location 1982)
Frankl was able to accept that his Viennese colleagues and neighbors may have known about or even participated in his persecution, and he did not condemn them for failing to join the resistance or die heroic deaths. (Location 1982)
Instead, he was deeply committed to the idea that even a vile Nazi criminal or a seemingly hopeless madman has the potential to transcend evil or insanity by making responsible choices. (Location 1984)
“The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.” (Location 2016)