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Man's Search for Meaning ((Why does Frankl think it is essential for…
Man's Search for Meaning
Victor Frankl says that based on his observations of his fellow inmates, the typical prisoner passes through three mental stages: shock in the first few days after his arrival, apathy and “emotional death” once he has become used accustomed to life in camp, and disillusionment with life after he has been liberated.
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Frankl found meaning in his experiences in the concentration camp by deciding that he was going to use his suffering as an opportunity to make himself a better person. Instead of becoming apathetic and accepting that he was doomed, he chose to embrace his suffering.
Frankl claims that there are three ways to find meaning in life: through work, through love, and through suffering. Frankl kept his will to meaning—or his desire to live a meaningful life—alive through his three years in the camps by focusing on the potential meanings he could create for himself.
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Frankl also found hope in love, and the image of his wife helped him through many of his most difficult times.
In other words, if a man cannot find the meaning or purpose in his life, he can develop mental problems that need to be addressed. Frankl argues that everyone should strive to be in a state of noö-dynamics,
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Every human has the capacity to change his behavior and attitude in every possible situation. In his postscript, Frankl reaffirms this belief as the basis for his tragic optimism, or belief in the importance of saying “yes” in spite of everything.
Why does Frankl think it is essential for each individual to develop a meaning of life that is unique to them?
Question # 2. Frankl meets an old friend on his first day of camp and recalls being happy during that day. He recalls the important advice about how to keep from being sent to the crematorium: always shave and never walk with a limp. Why do you think this was the case
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What are some of the psychological ways that Frankl used to surivive? What one do you think would work best for you.
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Frankl tried to save his scientific manuscript that he was carrying with him, but was forced to surrender it. This proved to be a psychological turning point in his life.
Each of the new prisoners was made to pass in front of a guard who sorted the prisoner to the right or the left. At the time, they did not know what was going on, but they would later learn that everyone sent to the left—about 95% of them—were immediately executed in a crematorium. The SS guards tricked these prisoners by giving them each a bar of soap, walking them to a building labeled “bath,” and then gassing them to deat
he realized that an anonymous book would seem cowardly, so he decided to publish the book under his name. He dislikes revealing intimate details of his life to the general public, but feels it is necessary for him to do so. Frankl clarifies that he only served as a true doctor at the camps for a few weeks. For most of his time there, he was a common prisoner and was made to lay railroad tracks and perform manual labor.
Frankl notes that generally, the prisoners able to survive were the ones who were willing to do anything, no matter how savage, to hold onto life. The cruelest prisoners were chosen to be Capos, or prisoners appointed to be guards. Brutality was so necessary in the camps that Frankl says everyone who survived a camp knows that “the best of us did not return.”
Question: In this particular environment do you think that the brutality of the camps rubbed of on the inmates. For instance, do you think the inmates throwing another inmate under the bus to survive was simply an act of survival or just what was expected to due to the given conditions in the camps.
Frankl uses paradoxical intention to help reverse his patients’ anticipatory anxiety. By asking his patients to try to do that which they fear doing, Frankl demonstrates that their anxieties actually hurt them rather than help them. For example, Frankl might tell someone with a severe stutter to try his best to stutter the next time he spoke to someone. When that person tries to stutter, he discovers that he cannot do it.
Frankl observes that prisoners desperately wanted a moment of solitude or privacy, which Frankl was able to find only once he was taken to a “rest camp.” Every so often, he was able to duck into a small tent for a few moments and be alone with his thoughts. This was a peaceful moment for Frankl, despite the fact that the tent in which he was “alone” was filled with insect-ridden corpses.
For example, after a guard called him a “pig” and accused him of never having done work, Frankl could not resist telling him that he had spent most of his life as a doctor for impoverished patients. He was severely punished for this comment