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  • Man's Search for Meaning

  • By: Viktor E. Frankl
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (7,646 ratings)
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Man's Search for Meaning

By: Viktor E. Frankl
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Editor reviews

Man’s Search for Meaning is the deeply moving autobiographical audiobook written by world-renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl and narrated by award-winning voice actor Simon Vance. Frankl suffered immeasurable torture and depravity at the hands of Nazi soldiers during World War II. It was during this horrific time in his life that he started to develop the highly effective psychotherapy known as logotherapy. This listening experience is one that sees you explore Frankl’s remarkable life story and his belief that at the very core of what it means to be human lies an unending search for meaning. Available now from Audible.

Summary

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. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.  

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.  

Frankl’s riveting memoir was named one of the 10 Most Influential Books in America after a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and Book of the Month Club. This revised and updated version includes a new postscript: “The Case for a Tragic Optimism”.

©1959, 1962, 1984 Viktor E. Frankl (P)1995 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An enduring work of survival literature." ( The New York Times)

What listeners say about Man's Search for Meaning

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Potentially life changing...

So, we all know about the Holocaust, yet this book is a bit different - told with such "tragic optimism" that the message is not moral outrage or repulsion, but of meaning in the midst of unimaginable degradation. The "why" that makes the "how" of suffering bearable. Frankle quotes Nietzsche throughout.



The most moving passages for me were his imagined conversations with his wife, (who probably by that time was dead), which nonetheless gave him the purpose for continuing to live, and the glimpses of Nature, such as sunsets, raw in beauty, beyond the barbed wire.



His message is simple - it is in loving the people we love and in the struggle that our lives demand of us, that we find meaning that transcends the mere pleasure principle. Our own "ontic logos" is individually uncovered, not found through intellectual introspection on "THE meaning of life" (which is a nonsense and which usually just leads to neurosis).



Frankle highlights the contemporary consumerist "tyranny of happiness", which is endemic in the West, so that many patients feel not just unhappy, but deeply ashamed of their unhappiness.



Existentialism is not popular in the zeitgeist, but I think we can learn much from that generation who lived through the War, and the Holocaust, and developed such philosophies of coping with terrible hardship and suffering. By contrast, we can be very superficial, and self centred, and it left me considering what issues I cared about enough to take action on. Would I regret not doing so otherwise? Yes, probably - as an opportunity wasted!



This is a humane, inspiring, potentially life changing book; well narrated, subtle, profound and unpretentious. It deserves the highest rating.

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91 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • R
  • 03-05-08

Throw out your self-help books!

This is an utterly remarkable book for so many reasons. What strikes me most about it is how it really gives meaning to the idea that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. What I mean by this is the following: the book is not great psychology, nor great philosophy nor even great narrative. And yet, as a whole I would call it a great book. Why? Because it makes a definitive impact. I cannot say that I walked away from this book unchanged. I suppose it is Viktor Frankl himself who makes all the difference -- in him you find a truly humane, humble and ultimately wise human being. I was truly impressed to hear him quoting Nietzsche while in a concentration camp; this at a time when Nietzsche's work had been distorted and used to promote anti-semitism by the Nazis. One warning though -- his existentialist philosophy is outdated and really needs to be complemented by a contemporary understanding of human nature.

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45 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The power of perspective

A book to return to again and again, whenever you feel your sense of perspective slipping. This is the story of a concentration camp prisoner whose humanity and intellect saw him through the worst of all times. The author states at the beginning that it is a book about humanity, not a record of the Holocaust or the realities of concentration camp life, and the lightness and readability of the writing is an incredible achievement. Frankl not only survived, but went on to form a school of psychotherapy that is still revered and relevant today. His central idea is that man can choose his attitude even when he loses control of his circumstances. Whatever horrors life throws at us, our thoughts remain our own. Whatever happens, we should be able to put our problems aside and focus on what is decent and humane and brilliant about the world around us. Compared to what Frankl and his generation went through we live in easy, care-free times. If he could keep his humanity and decency intact, the rest of us have no excuse.

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31 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

The first part talks about what he learned in his experiences in concentration camps. It doesn't focus on gory details, but rather what insights can be drawn from the conditions. The second part is an introduction to logotherapy--which seeks to help people to find meaning in their lives and thus fulfillment.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Eye opening!

I'd split this book into 3 sections.

The first is an amazing account of the war, Frankl's time there and the happenings. It really did open your eyes

The second part of say is about how he helped the people in camp, some links to finding meaning and purpose and crossing the bridge between his time in camp and his use of logo therapy .

The third part is where I tuned out a lot. It's his views and use of logotherapy so can get quite deep - I'm not sure if it's he subject matter or he very English narrator (which works well on the first 2 parts, not as much on the third!) but it was quite specialist!

Still, I'd rate this book highly for the first two sections!

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Deep and Thought Provoking

This is a bool that make you think to the core of your being, it makes you ask just as the title suggests, what meaning actually is and how you can poses it.

The first half of the book is autobiographical and is an harrowing account of the concentration camps, harrowing but not graphic.

The second half is psychoanalytical and more theoretical.

I absolutely loved this book, I can recommend it to anyone one from young adult upwards.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A very small investment for a very large return


This is a book that lighten my load at a time in my life when I needed it. So I will not speak so much about it, but give you a few quotes that might help to get a feeling for the ideas, but I would recommend reading it to get the full impact of the ideas, on different days I get different emphasis, but what I like most about this book is that it gives a well being I have not found in religion or other books, it builds on your humanity a sense of purpose without asking for imposibles or promising absolutes, it gives you a set of tools to live a more content life and that is enough for me.

“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.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“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. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

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. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. 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. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism).”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Valuable insight into mindworks

Very insightful book that is a great addition to anyone interested in what makes any persons struggle worth persevering with. The driving forces that can help someone overcome grief, adversity, when all seems pointless.
So good I ordered the book for someone I know, and as a reference point for some volunteer work I do. Top notch book.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

very wise movie

loved the book. it is amazing and humbling to listen about such extreme life experiences, above all puts one's problems into context and gives an impulse to say yes to life!

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7 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Grippong story and an in depth review at the end

The story of Victors hardships was compelling and I found myself unable to stop listening until the end.

The analysis at the end is a little hard to get you're head around but still worth hearing

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7 people found this helpful