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{{a|book review|}}Viktor Frankl was, as he put it, “a professor in two fields, but a survivor of four camps — concentration camps, that is”. Already a renowned psychotherapist, Frankl’s experiences at Auschwitz and other concentration camps provided him profound and striking insights into human psychology. He sets them out in this brief and elegant book. | {{a|book review|}}{{br|Man’s Search for Meaning}} — {{author|Viktor Frankl}} | ||
===On existential frustration, from a man who would know.=== | |||
Viktor Frankl was, as he put it, “a professor in two fields, but a survivor of four camps — concentration camps, that is”. Already a renowned psychotherapist, Frankl’s experiences at Auschwitz and other concentration camps provided him profound and striking insights into human psychology. He sets them out in this brief and elegant book. | |||
Firstly, when put in a situation of extreme adversity or deprivation human personalities do not blur into one “uniform expression of the unstilled urge”, as Sigmund Freud had supposed they would but, on the contrary, true personalities are accentuated. Secondly, despair and depression are not at all correlated with the experience of adversity, but if anything inversely so: in our modern, plentiful and comfortable times, neuroses are legion. By contrast, on the whole they weren’t in Nazi death camps. Frankl was uniquely placed and qualified to comment on this; Freud was not: “Thank heaven,” Frankl remarks dryly, “Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside”. | Firstly, when put in a situation of extreme adversity or deprivation human personalities do not blur into one “uniform expression of the unstilled urge”, as Sigmund Freud had supposed they would but, on the contrary, true personalities are accentuated. | ||
Secondly, despair and depression are not at all correlated with the experience of adversity, but if anything inversely so: in our modern, plentiful and comfortable times, neuroses are legion. By contrast, on the whole they weren’t in Nazi death camps. Frankl was uniquely placed and qualified to comment on this; Freud was not: “Thank heaven,” Frankl remarks dryly, “Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside”. | |||
This seems right: I dare say you don’t see much neuroticism in modern day Somalia either (though I do quite like the idea of obsessive-compulsive Mogadishan parents pushing their kids into extra cello lessons.) | This seems right: I dare say you don’t see much neuroticism in modern day Somalia either (though I do quite like the idea of obsessive-compulsive Mogadishan parents pushing their kids into extra cello lessons.) | ||
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This is a short book, but it’s a gem: the message of plurality and self-determination are ones which should strike harmonious chords in the ears of those, like this reviewer, who are nudging into middle age and wondering if it is quite all what it cracked up to be. | This is a short book, but it’s a gem: the message of plurality and self-determination are ones which should strike harmonious chords in the ears of those, like this reviewer, who are nudging into middle age and wondering if it is quite all what it cracked up to be. | ||
{{sa}} | |||
*''[https://archive.org/download/mans-search-for-meaning_202104/Man%27s%20Search%20For%20Meaning.pdf Man’s Search for Meaning]'' | |||