Viktor Frankl Man’s Search For Meaning

1. Viktor FranklMan’s Search For Meaning Frankl’s thesis: Life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones (xvi)

2. Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) • Prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau (1942-1945) • Parents, brother, wife, and children died in the camps • Logotherapy – existential approach to psychological practice • Rejects the deterministic view of human nature (not fatalistic)

3. Preface • Methodology: “existential validation” - examine the most extreme case of apparent meaninglessness and show meaning is possible even there • “Validation” • Not “proof” • Strong reasons to find reasonable and true; not contradicted by anything known; “valid” • “Existential” • We spent some time examining the “existential worldview” • In general it is “based on a person’s lived experience” the “actual”

4. The Human Condition There are six dimensions of the human condition according to the existential approach: • The capacity for self-awareness • Freedom and responsibility • Striving for identity and relationship to others • The search for meaning • Anxiety as a condition of living • Awareness of death and nonbeing

5. The first stage • the process of discovering the true nature of the circumstances of camp life • Shock • Humor • Curiosity • there are two possible responses: • acceptance • suicide

6. The second stage • maintaining oneself in these circumstances • relative apathy • survival at all costs • remnants of humanity • discovery of the key to survival

7. The final stage • release and liberation • coming back to normalcy • transition is a process that cannot be rushed • the experience of liberation seems difficult to describe, but results ultimately in an experience of personal affirmation, i.e., life is meaningful after all.

8. The key to survival (Frankl’s existentialism) • The last of human freedoms: to choose your attitude in the face of life’s circumstances • Nature of Frankl’s universe: a here-and-now world of human existence, with every moment of each person’s life is pregnant with unique potential for meaning • Our role: we are free to find meaning in our lives

9. Frankl’s Existentialism (cont’d) • The flaw: while we can readily find meaning in creativity and relationship, suffering and death seem to lead us to conclude we are in fact unfree and our lives at root meaningless - to yield the last of human freedoms • The remedy: accept unavoidable suffering as a necessary part of human existence, thereby discovering the existential meaning in life

10. Frankl’s Existentialist Perspective • The "really" real is what I experience • In any experience I have the freedom to choose how I will act (not determined) • Man is driven by a need to find meaning • not pleasure/pain avoidance (Freud) • or mastery (Adler/Nietzsche) • Many problems we face are "meaning" problems — we fail to see/lack the courage to find hope; but our freedom to choose means we have a responsibility to choose

11. What is Existentialism??? • A slippery concept…an approach to a way of looking at the world as opposed to a systematic philosophy • More a genus of worldviews than a single species • Existentialists can be religious (Frankl, Buber) or atheist (Camus, Sartre)

12. Common Themes of Existentialism • the personal struggle with existence is the core of what is essentially real • this reality can never be abstract and can only be found in the concrete circumstances of a person’s life • we are free to choose our response to life’s circumstances

13. Two Existential Approaches • A better classification of existentialist approaches is whether they see transcendence in reality or simply absurdity • Transcendence – reality is more than what we experience with our senses • e.g. Martin Buber, Viktor Frankl, Søren Kierkegaard • Absurd (ab surd = from meaninglessness) – without meaning, or possibility of meaning; something completely out of any context • e.g. Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre • (Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoevsky are somewhere in the middle)

14. Existentialism and Absurdity • All existentialism confronts the absurdity of human existence: • Sartre: "Man is condemned to be free" — so deal! • Camus: Sisyphus triumphs by embracing his fate.

15. Frankl vs. Absurdity • Frankl is much more hopeful than others. • We struggle with meaning not because life has none, but because it’s “too big” to be fully realized in any given moment (the only way we can experience reality). • Contrast Sartre who writes, “Man is condemned to be free.” • But for Frankl this same freedom holds the possibility of transcending the apparent meaninglessness of suffering and death • Frank suggests the reason we fail to see the transcendental meaning is not because it isn’t there • Rather, it’s too big to fit into human experience