Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Man's Search for Meaning
    Unavailable
    Man's Search for Meaning
    Unavailable
    Man's Search for Meaning
    Audiobook4 hours

    Man's Search for Meaning

    Written by Viktor E. Frankl

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Man’s Search for Meaning is the chilling yet inspirational story of Viktor Frankl’s struggle to hold on to hope during the unspeakable horrors of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. Through every waking moment of his ordeal, Frankl’s training as a psychiatrist lent him a remarkable perspective on the psychology of survival. As a result of these experiences, Dr. Frankl developed a revolutionary approach to psychotherapy known as logotherapy. At the core of his theory is the belief that man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning. Frankl’s assertion that “the will to meaning” is the basic motivation for human life has forever changed the way we understand our humanity in the face of suffering.

    This revised and updated version includes a new postscript: “The Case for a Tragic Optimism.”

    Editor's Note

    Searing & inspiring…

    It’s the question that makes us human: “What’s the meaning of life?” Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, is imprisoned at Auschwitz and flips the question on its head. His memoir is searing, inspiring, and unforgettable.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlackstone Audio
    Release dateApr 20, 2010
    ISBN9780786125074
    Author

    Viktor E. Frankl

    Dr Viktor Frankl was the leading figure of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy. He was born in Vienna in 1905, and on being freed from Dachau concentration camp, found that his family had been almost entirely wiped out in the Holocaust. He went on to hold professorships at universities around the world, including Harvard University and the University of Vienna. He died in 1997.

    More audiobooks from Viktor E. Frankl

    Related to Man's Search for Meaning

    Related audiobooks

    Philosophy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Read the Lost Dream Journal of the Man Who Discovered Neurons: An exclusive look at the dreams Santiago Ramon y Cajal recorded to prove Freud was wrong.

      Aug 20, 2015

      Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish histologist and anatomist known today as the father of modern neuroscience, was also a committed psychologist who believed psychoanalysis and Freudian dream theory were “collective lies.” When Freud published The Int

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Dreams of the Man Who Discovered Neurons

      Oct 24, 2019

      Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish histologist and anatomist known today as the father of modern neuroscience, was also a committed psychologist who believed psychoanalysis and Freudian dream theory were “collective lies.” When Freud published The Int

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      All In The Mind

      Sep 5, 2022

      All In The Mind
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Learning to Fly: Coping with anxiety in an uncertain world.

      Jun 27, 2013

      There are important life events that people tend to remember. Some of them are personal, like your first kiss; others are historical, such as where you were on 9/11. I remember my first kiss, seeing John Lennon in concert, and watching a plane hit th

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      When Neurology Becomes Theology

      Jun 15, 2017

      Early in my neurology residency, a 50-year-old woman insisted on being hospitalized for protection from the FBI spying on her via the TV set in her bedroom. The woman’s physical examination, lab tests, EEGs, scans, and formal neuropsychological testi

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theories

      Aug 5, 2021

      As one of the foremost European thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud is considered the father of psychoanalysis: a pioneering treatment for psychopathology (the study of mental disorders) that require

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Out of Your Head

      Aug 22, 2024

      Out of Your Head
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Decoding Dreams

      Aug 16, 2024

      Decoding Dreams
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Buddhadharma On Books

      Jun 13, 2023

      FOR THE ANALYTICALLY minded who appreciate a systematic presentation of ideas, the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series (Wisdom), conceived by the Dalai Lama, compiled by a team of monastic scholars, and edited by Thupten Jin

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Still A Stigma

      Jun 21, 2022

      Depression is a word that is often bandied about lightly in everyday conversation. But for those who suffer from it the reality is far grimmer, with devastating consequences, and more often than not, there is no conversation and no light at the end o

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Decoding Dreams

      Feb 23, 2022

      Decoding Dreams
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Decoding Dreams

      Feb 23, 2022

      Decoding Dreams
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Reviews / Books

      Feb 23, 2023

      This new discussion of the nature and origin of consciousness might be completely wrong, says Charles Foster, but it’s still a brilliant and essential book The Invention of Consciousness Nicholas Humphrey Oxford University Press 2022 Hb, 256pp, £16.9

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Theory Of Everything

      Dec 3, 2022

      A Theory Of Everything
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books In Brief

      Jul 23, 2024

      MOST OF US STRUGGLE with confidence. As meditation teacher Ethan Nichtern puts it, we’re like the inflatable people found in used car lots. The wind causes balloon men to rise and sway proudly, but if the wind dies, they collapse completely. Praise m

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How to Learn to Love Your Doppelganger: Hallucinating yourself can be both a symptom and a tool.

      May 15, 2014

      What are you doing running through the streets in your underpants?” asks Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club. “We both use that body.” He is addressing his unnamed doppelganger (German for “double walker”), whose life he has gradually usurped. The m

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      What Is It Like To Die?

      Apr 12, 2024

      PATIENT ONE WAS 24 YEARS OLD and pregnant with her third child when she was taken off life support. It was 2014. A couple of years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a disorder that caused an irregular heartbeat, and during her two previous pregnan

      16 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books In Brief

      Jul 23, 2024

      MOST OF US STRUGGLE with confidence. As meditation teacher Ethan Nichtern puts it, we’re like the inflatable people found in used car lots. The wind causes balloon men to rise and sway proudly, but if the wind dies, they collapse completely. Praise m

      4 min read

    Reviews for Man's Search for Meaning

    4.5/5

    2,701 ratings138 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      When comparing the three great Viennese pioneers in the field of psychiatry, Freud, Adler, and Frankl, I find Viktor Frankl's hypotheses the most compelling. While Freudian psychology emphasized the "will to pleasure" as the basis of all human motivation, and Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology offered a "will to power", Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy proposed a "will to meaning"---that human beings have the capacity to transform suffering into self-transcendence.
      Human beings have the capacity to think about meanings and values, to take a creative approach to life's conditions, and to be conscious of the responsibility to fulfill a unique purpose in life.
      Frankl believed that we are motivated by a desire for purpose in our lives: to evaluate, judge, and seek out the meaning of an event, of the here-and-now moment.
    • 5/5
      One of the most important transformative books I have ever read. I read this first in college, and I recall feeling changed then, but cannot recall my precise thoughts. Frankl is a hero, a genius, a historian, and a mensch. This works as psychology, history, memoir, and philosophy. It does Frankl no favors to try to recount this. I will say that in the current sociopolitical moment this is essential reading, and that logotherapy is the single best approach I have ever heard to understanding the human mind. Just read it.
    • 5/5
      Phew.

      You can't just ask me to put a number of stars to this book, Goodreads. That's just not fair.

      Man's Search for meaning is a short book. In it, Viktor E. Frankl describes his experiences in the concentration camps during the second world war. He also describes how his new school of psychotherapy, logotherapy, helped him get through it all alive and more-or-less sane.

      The whole second half of the book is a description of how logotherapy works. I did not understand all of it (I am many things, but not an expert on psychology), but what I understood seemed to be extremely smart. In fact, looking back on the last few years, I can see that he is probably right with his theories (i.e. I have empiric evidence that his methods work, even though I did not conciously employ them).

      This book is not only for those who may have psychologic problems (although I would expect that it would help those as well). It is also not only for those interested in world war 2 and the concentration camps (although, again, it is interesting in that regard, and manages to convey the experiences, the desparation there very well).

      In my opinion, schools should stop teaching Freud and start teaching Frankl. That would actually help students deal with the trouble their life will inevitably have in store for them, instead of confusing them with talk about the different levels of conciousness and how everything is just an expression of their need for sex.

      On that basis alone, I will give this book 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      I don't usually read books of this kind, so my opinion probably doesn't hold much weight, but I found this book very edifying. I don't necessarily relate to or agree with every point he makes (mostly because some of it feels old-fashioned or outdated), but I got a lot out of his overall message. My therapist recommended this book to me when I was going through a hard time, and I think that's really the best time to read this.
    • 1/5
      So, I know this book means a lot to a lot of people, and I recognize that it has power. However, I either didn't get it or what I got from it is simply not helpful for my depression.
    • 5/5
      This touched me deeply. The first part of this book is one of the most compelling and moving pieces of writing I've encountered.

      Viktor E, Frankl was a prominent pyschiatrist and holocaust survivor. Being a psychiatrist offered Frankl a unique insight into how people did (or didn't) survive in the most extreme of circumstances.

      While some of the pyschiatric thinking in the second part of the book, 'Logotherapy in Nutshell' may be slightly dated, the first part of this book is truly remarkable.

      I've a full review here but at just over a 150 pages, I would suggest you simply read the book. Surely, it's not too much time to dedicate to a man with Frankl's insight.
    • 4/5
      Victor Fraqnkl is a pshychiatrist who was incarcerated in several Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The first part of this book is a description of several experiences in those camps and how various individuals, including himself, dealt with the horrors of the concentration camp. His “Logotherapy” is fully explained in the book. Frankl basic philosophy states that a captor can strip an individual of just about everything, but not his freedom to respond to what he is experiencing. And therein lies the key to survival. This is a gross oversimplification of his tenets, but it marks the basic belief that allowed him and others to survive to the liberation of the camps after four years. The book is not casual reading, but it provides an academic look at Frankl’s well respected work in the field of psychology.
    • 4/5
      The first part is a bare bones memoir of the author's experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. These stories have not lost their power to shock and appall.

      What Frankl brings is a clear sighted view of prisoners, guards and capos that describes their shared humanity even as humanity was the thing being stripped away. He finds meaning in suffering, dignity in death and value in surviving and living past the suffering.
    • 5/5
      This is the ultimate "must read" book. The author, Viktor Frankl, survived the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. How he survived, and what he learned in the course of his ordeal - that the most basic human motivation is the will to meaning - is the cornerstone of this book.
    • 4/5
      a very famous book. michael enright talked about it on his sunday show.
    • 4/5
      Came highly recommended by a trusted friend, and it did not disappoint. A gripping short memoir of life in WWII concentration camps, followed by an explication of Frankl's logotherapy, an approach to psychotherapy which focuses on humanity's search for meaning.
    • 5/5
      my words are not enough to define the brilliance of the writing;the story speaks for itself. history proves how reality is so much more hauting than nightmares.
    • 4/5
      I found this book to be very enlightening. It is the first book I have read about the Holocaust from the view of a prisoner of a concentration camp. I liked how he didn't elaborate on all of the horrors that we (those that have read about the Holocaust) have heard many times and stuck with just his experiences. I was also fond of the medical aspect of the book as well. The author being a psychiatrist, was able to use his knowledge to help with not only his own outcome, but help the other prisoners too.

      I now want to read his other books to try and absorb his knowledge.

      I would recommend this book to anyone willing to read it.
    • 5/5
      It unveils many perspectives of a human life.
    • 5/5
      I am not sure how I had never come across this book before. A classic memoir by Frankl that tells his story of how he survived the concentration camps of World War II. The book also doubles as a psychology study where Frankl argues that the most important part of life for human beings is the search for meaning. No matter what the circumstances or what life throws at a person, searching for meaning is what keeps us going. It is obviously more complex than this short review, but I highly recommend it to all.
    • 5/5
      Most people read Frankl's little book in college but I just read it for the first time, at 67, and found it an intensely moral, life-affirming and hope-filled book about human life and health. If you haven't read it, don't wait as long as I did!
    • 5/5
      I mistakenly read Frankl's sequel to this book back in December 2016. In Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, Frankl focused on the "existential vacuum" and psychological concepts in some detail. I barely recall this work and when I looked at it just now, the lack of pencil markings in the book means I cannot recall the parts that resonated, or the ideas I wrote about in my (rather short) review of the sequel, I also discovered that the key concepts relating to logotherapy were outlined, but I had no recollection of logotherapy, Frankl's "Austrian School" of psychology. Man's Search for Meaning is in two parts. The first part outlines Frankl's experience as a prisoner at Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War II. He does not go into the detail of the horrors there, but focuses on how people coped or didn't cope with suffering. The word "suffering" is important in that, if one has no choice but to suffer, then suffering can give purpose to life. In the second part, Frankl outlines his logotherapy in some detail. How does logotherapy fit in with Freud and Adler? Freud focused on man's (sic) will to pleasure; Adler focused on man's (sic) will to power (obviously drawing on Nietzsche); whereas Frankl draws on man's (sic) will to meaning as a central element of human behaviour, happiness, and self-actualisation (somewhat in the Maslow sense of the word, but Abraham Maslow is not mentioned). Some quotes are worth noting:

      ...unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic (p. 148).

      Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted wrongly the first time as you are about to act now (p. 151).

      ...happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue (p. 140).

      ...man (sic) is ultimately self-determining... [He] has [good and bad] potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions (p. 135).

      Nietzsche: ""He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how" (p. 109).

      suffering may well be a human achievement (p. 108).

      ...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 (p. 78).

      I found this book disturbing: enlightening, enraging, sad, hopeful, empty, full, academic, spiritual, contradictory, confronting, conservative, even judgemental. But it made me think deeper than I may have thought before. And there are techniques, too, for dealing with "anticipatory anxiety" - "hyper-intention" and "hyper-reflection". (Put simply, the paradox that the harder we try to make something work, the more we psych ourselves out. In certain cases, one can use this paradox to have a positive effect. Frankl gives the example of a man who sweats profusely, and the more self-conscious he is, the more he sweats. Frankl has the man say to himself "I will show them how much I can sweat!" and paradoxically, he doesn't sweat at all.) This paradox serves another purpose in the pursuit of meaning:What is called self-actualization is not attainable at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he (sic) would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is only possible as a side-effect of self-transcendence (p. 114).This leads to what I think is Frankl's most important lesson:Ultimately, man (sic) should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked (p. 113).From what I can gather, in Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl outlines how his experience in the concentration camps helped him refine his concept of logotherapy, something he had written about and was writing about before he was taken prisoner. He mentions modern problems concerning the "existential vacuum", in particular, "boredom". But it is not until Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning that this is covered in more detail. I say as far as I can work out because there is a lot to comprehend in these two books, and the disturbing nature of the original (now classic) work continues to haunt my sleep, let alone coming to grips with the details of logotherapy that I was quite able to overlook through my ignorance and poor reading technique the first time around. As Epictetus said: if you would learn, be prepared to look the fool. A key lesson learnt from this experience is in comparing my current reading technique to what I was doing back in 2016; the improvement is palpable. Mortimer Adler was right and I am glad I overcame my resistance to marking and taking notes in my books. Another lesson is that a single reading of a book may not be enough, especially when subject matter that is new to me is readily over-looked. Yet, much like asking myself "What is the meaning of my life?", I need to ask myself "What is the point of my reading?". The answer is rather simple: it is to learn. Maybe I can draw on the hyper-intention paradox technique: I can tell myself that my life has no meaning and wait for meaning to appear. Or better yet, I can live the rest of my days as if it really were a second chance, and let my learning allow happiness to ensue. The real paradox is that it has been happening already without me even trying. And while I doubt I can understand Frankl until I have finished reading Nietzsche and made a start on Wittgenstein, there is enough in this book (in particular, the quotes outlined above), to keep me going for some time.
    • 4/5
      "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" (p. 280). Between 1942 and 1945 Viktor Frankl laboured in the concentration camps Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering and Turkeheim. His experiences are brutal, honest and raw. Throughout his experiences he pondered important questions and came to believe that the way a prisoner imagined the future could affect his ability to survive. He argued that one cannot avoid suffering, but can instead choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. After he was released Frankl found his pregnant wife, parents and brother had all died in the camps. He continued to explore his theories about how life is a quest for meaning and how important it is that people restore meaning to their lives. I speed read some of the book, but it is well worth a read.
    • 5/5
      This autobiograpical books contains Viktor Frankl's testimonies regarding his experience in Auschwitz. His analysis from a psychotherapeutic point of view has fascinated the world reaching the cifre of 10 millions copies sold by 1997.
    • 5/5
      I began reading this book after reading an article about happiness, and why it's overrated. While happiness is a good thing, Frankl's slender volume explores why being happy in life and having a meaningful life aren't necessarily the same thing.

      Towards the end, Frankl discusses the American tendency to command people to be happy, and to pursue happiness. While the Declaration of Independence secures our right to do so, a human being pursuing happiness is sort of like a small dog chasing a car. Frankl's contention is that we ought to pursue meaning, and once we've discovered our meaning and purpose, happiness will follow on its own.

      No easy answers are offered here, but for anyone willing to give it the time and thought, this book can really live up to its reputation as a life-changer.
    • 4/5
      Excellent. A classic.
    • 4/5
      An intense blend of psychiatry and the horrors of concentration camps, Viktor Frankl composes a masterfully concise book about how he found his own meaning for life and ways in which you can find yours. I think it got a little too repetitive towards the end, but it was impactful and left a lasting impression.
    • 4/5
      The advice communicated in this book is simple and profound. The story wrapped around it is heartbreaking as well as uplifting. This was my first reading, but I think it will be a book I'll pick up many times in the future.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book, really got me thinking. It doesn't answer any religious questions but shows the importance of finding meaning in your life one way or another in order to persevere during trials and in order to live a fulfilling and happy life. Very thought provoking but does not provide any ultimate answers, only challenges you to seek and find those answers yourself.
    • 4/5
      The first half of the book is about the author's experience in a Nazi concentration camp. He spent three years between Auschwitz and Dachau-affiliated camps. The focus of that section is the psychology of the prisoners (and a little on the guards). Mostly, he wants to know who had the best chance of survival and why; that is, who could find meaning in their life in the midst of forced labor, freezing cold with little clothing, severe undernourishment, and no sanitation. I would give the book four stars if it had ended there.The half-star comes because of the second half of the book, which is an explanation of what logotherapy is (it's helping patients find meaning in life [logos=meaning]) and how it might differ from other forms of psychotherapy. There isn't anything wrong with this section, and indeed there are nuggets of interesting information among some of the more technical terms. The inclusion of this section makes the book more for psychologists or researchers. The layperson can very happily read only the first section and skip part two.
    • 5/5
      Amazing. Easy read. Insightful, informative.
    • 4/5
      I read this for a college psychology class, but I highly recommend it.
    • 3/5
      I started reading this classic a few days ago. The edition I have has a 2nd part to it, where Frankl's "logos therapy' is explained further... So far it is riveting.
    • 5/5
      If you've ever dealt with existential crises, or just want to hear the take of a psychiatrist that survived Auschwitz, you need to read this. Phenomenal.
    • 5/5
      A very good and very sinsightful book on psychology and happiness. I should hva eread this long ago.
    pFad - Phonifier reborn

    Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

    Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


    Alternative Proxies:

    Alternative Proxy

    pFad Proxy

    pFad v3 Proxy

    pFad v4 Proxy