1. Victor Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl was one of
Europe’s leading
psychiatrists and one of the
most modern thinkers in the
world.
During and partly because
of his suffering in
concentration
camps, Frankl validated a
revolutionary approach to
psychotherapy known as
Logotherapy.

2. Viktor E. Frankl
 Born in Vienna, Austria on March 26, 1905 as the second of
three children.
 He died in 1997 in Vienna, Austria, of heart failure. His mother
was from Prague and his father came from Suedmaehre.
 Frankl grew up in Vienna, the birthplace of modern psychiatry
and home of the renowned psychiatrists Sigmund Freud and
Alfred Adler.
 A brilliant student, Frankl was involved in Socialist youth
organizations and became interested in psychiatry.
 At age 16 he began writing to Freud, and on one occasion
sent him a short paper, which was published three years later,
 Frankl earned a medical degree from the University of Vienna
in 1930 and was put in charge of a Vienna hospital ward for
the treatment of females who had attempted suicide.
 When Germany seized control of Austria eight years later, the
Nazis made Frankl head of the Rothschild Hospital.

3. Victor Frankl
 In 1942 Frankl married his first wife, Tilly Grosser.
 Nine months later, Frankl, his wife and his parents were
deported to the Theresienstadt camp near Prague.
 Even though he was in four Nazi camps, Frankl
survived the Holocaust, including Auschwitz in Poland
from 1942-45, where the camp doctor Josef
Mengele, was supervising the division of the incoming
prisoners into two lines.
 Those in the line moving left were to go to the gas
chambers, while those in the line moving right were to
be spared.
 Frankl was directed to join the line moving left, but
managed to save his life by slipping into the other line
without being noticed.
 Other members of his family were not so fortunate.
Frankl’s wife, his parents, and other members of his
family died in the concentration camps.

4. Victor Frankl
 On returning to Vienna after Germany’s defeat in
1945, Frankl, who had secretly been keeping a
record of his observations in the camps on
scraps of paper,
 published a book in German setting out his ideas
on Logotherapy.
 This was translated into English in 1959, and in a
revised and enlarged edition appeared as The
Doctor and the Soul: An Introduction to
Logotherapy in 1963.
 By the time of his death, Frankl’s book, Man's
Search for Meaning, had been translated into 24
languages and reprinted 73 times and had long
been used as a standard text in high school and
university courses in psychology, philosophy, and
theology.

5. Victor Frankl
 In 1947 Frankl married his second wife Eleonore
Schwindt, who survived him, as did a daughter, Dr.
Gabrielle Frankl-Vesely.
 Frankl’s postwar career was spent as a professor of
neurology and psychiatry in Vienna, where he taught
until he was 85.
 He was also chief of neurology at the Vienna Polyclinic
Hospital for 25 years. F
 rankl received twenty-nine honorary doctorates from
universities in all parts of the world.
 He wrote over 30 books and became the first non-
American to be awarded the American Psychiatric
Association’s prestigious Oskar Pfister Prize and was a
visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford and other
universities in Pittsburgh, San Diego and Dallas. x

6. Victor Frankl
 Frankl has given lectures at 209 universities on five
continents. The U. S. International University in
California installed a special chair for Logotherapy- this
is the psychotherapeutic school founded by
Frankl, often called the “Third Viennese School” (after
Freud’s Psychoanalysis and Adler’s Individual
Psychology.)
 The American Medical Society, the American
Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological
Association have officially recognized Dr. Frankl’s
Logotherapy as one of the scientifically based schools
of psychotherapy.
 In a 1991 survey of general-interest readers conducted
by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month
Club, Man’s Search for Meaning has sold over nine
million copies alone in the USA and was ranked among
the ten most influential book in America.
 In 1992, the “Viktor Frankl Frankl-Institute” was created
in his honor in Vienna.

7. LOGOTHERAPY
 At the core of this theory is the belief
that man’s primary motivational force
is search for meaning
 "Other things being equal, those apt to survive
the camps were those oriented toward the
future - toward a task, or a person, waiting for
them in the future, toward a meaning to be
fulfilled by them in the future" (Viktor 2003, 1-
2).

8. LOGOTHERAPY
Frankl's approach is based on three
philosophical and psychological
concepts:

9. FREEDOM OF WILL
 According to LTEA humans are not fully subject
to conditions but are basically free to decide and
capable of taking their stance towards internal
(psychological) and external (biological and
social) conditions.
 Freedom is here defined as the space of shaping
one's own life within the limits of the given
possibilities.
 This freedom derives from the spiritual dimension
of the person, which is understood as the
essentially human realm, over and above the
dimensions of body and of psyche.
 As spiritual persons, humans are not just
reacting organisms but autonomous beings
capable of actively shaping their lives. >>>>

10. WILL TO MEANING
 Human beings are not only free, but most
importantly they are free to something -
namely, to achieve goals and purposes.
 The search for meaning is seen as the primary
motivation of humans.
 When a person cannot realize his or her "Will to
Meaning" in their lives they will experience an
abysmal sensation of meaninglessness and
emptiness.
 The frustration of the existential need for
meaningful goals will give rise to
aggression, addiction, depression and
suicidality, and it may engender or increase
psychosomatic maladies and neurotic
disorders. >>>>

11. MEANING IN LIFE
 LTEA is based on the idea that
meaning is an objective reality, as
opposed to a mere illusion arising
within the perceptional apparatus of
the observer. >>>>

12. Three Sources of Meaning

13. Love
 Love is the strongest bond between
people and will lead to wonderful
inspiration and great sacrifice.
 Many of the great works of art were
inspired by love, including more general
love such as of nature or God.
 Frankl himself used his love of his wife to
keep up his spirits and also noticed how
other prisoners used their connection
with others to stay positive in the face of
extremely negative circumstances. >>>>

14. Work
 Without work, people easily fall into an
aimless existence.
 Work provides both short- and longer-
term objectives and completion of these
can result in a deep satisfaction and
sense of value.
 Frankl had the manuscript of a book he
had written confiscated.
 He used this as a spur to re-write the
book, using every scrap of paper he
could find. >>>>

15. Suffering
 Suffering as a source of meaning is both
curious and also understandable when it is
seen in the light of pain that leads to
enlightenment.
 There is more than one religion in the world
that is founded on the suffering of its prophet.
 A key effect is that with a loss of outer
freedom, we often turn inwards and find
meaning in places where external cruelty
cannot reach.
 In the manner of the Stoics, we may also
reframe suffering as our 'task', of 'bearing the
cross'. and gaining a sense of achievement
simply by surviving.

16. Suffering
 Frankl's concentration camp experiences
were no doubt fraught with unbelievable
suffering and it is remarkable that he
could find meaning.
 He did note that it was unavoidable
suffering that led to meaning, thus
obviating self-flagellation or other
privation. >>>>
 Frankl quoted Dostoevski:
 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be
worthy of my sufferings.'

17. Prepared by: JC de Egurrola
jeelchristine@i.ph
THE END