Read this week’s course material, and research the life and work of Viktor Frankl. Based on the information reviewed, answer the following question:
- What were the events that precipitated and inspired the work of Viktor Frankl?
Submission Instructions:
- Submit your initial discussion post by 11:59 PM Eastern on Wednesday.
- Contribute a minimum of 200 words for your initial post.
- It should include at least 2 academic sources, formatted and cited in APA.
- Respond, with a minimum of 50 words, to at least one of your classmates’ discussion postby 11:59 PM ET on Sunday.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, is best known for his development of logotherapy, a form of existential analysis. Frankl’s work was deeply inspired and shaped by his experiences during World War II, particularly his imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps from 1942 to 1945. He was sent to Auschwitz and later Dachau, where he lost his wife, parents, and brother. These profound personal losses and the horrors he witnessed during his time in the camps had a significant impact on his philosophy and psychological theories.
While in the camps, Frankl observed that those who survived were not necessarily the physically strongest, but rather those who found meaning in their suffering. This led to his belief that the primary drive in human beings is not pleasure (as Sigmund Freud suggested) or power (as Alfred Adler proposed), but the pursuit of meaning. Frankl later reflected on his experiences in his seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning, in which he argued that life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones. His time in the camps crystallized his belief that individuals could find meaning through love, work, and facing suffering with dignity.
Frankl’s approach, logotherapy, emphasizes that mental health can be achieved through identifying purpose and meaning in life, even when faced with adversity. His experiences of suffering, resilience, and survival provided the foundation for his contributions to existential psychology.
References:
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946).
Lukas, E. (1998). The life and work of Viktor Frankl: Viktor Frankl’s mission. Springer Publishing.