Viktor Emil Frankl

Viktor Emil Frankl: Born 26 March 1905 – Died 2 September 1997

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Viktor Emil Frankl

Viktor Frankl, from Vienna, founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life’s meaning as the central human motivational force. An accomplished neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and author. In 1948, Frankl earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna with his dissertation, The “Unconscious God”, which examined the relationship between psychology and religion. He advocated for the use of the “Socratic dialogue” (self-discovery discourse) for his, and other’s clients to connect with their spiritual unconscious.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl states:

“Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor. In 1942, just nine months after his marriage to Tilly Grosser, Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. His father died there of starvation and pneumonia. In 1944, Frankl and his surviving relatives were transported to Auschwitz, there his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers. His wife Tilly died later of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Frankl spent three years in four concentration camps. All of his immediate and extended family and his beloved wife were murdered by the Nazis.

Frankl proposed that all of us are motivated to seek a higher purpose, even when we face unimaginable circumstances such as cruel death camps, starving, murder, barbaric experients while surrounded by barbed wire and vicious men armed with machine guns. Frankl originally developed his framework for his powerful ideas while he was practicing psychiatry in Vienna before the Nazi occupation. He saw how he could help patients overcome their suffering by making them aware of their life’s calling. His treatise, stashed in his coat, was literally lost when he was imprisoned.

He became a renowned psychiatrist, philosopher, and writer, Viktor Frankl, who stands in high regard amongst the other 20th-century thinkers. Some controversy exists today while Frankl’s ideas continue to be studied, refuted, debated, and argued by learned and well-intentioned academics. It is always healthy to consider and debate aspects of developing practices, as Frankl did himself in reflecting on his studies with Sigmund Freud.

Frankl certainly saw more adversity than most in one lifetime. From freedom to doom to freedom, assessing and assisting many patients, and achieving high career accomplishments. His daughter, and now grandchildren have followed in his footsteps. With his second wife, Elly Frankl, he had one daughter, Gabriele, who went on to become a child psychologist.

References:

Man’s Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Logotherapy, Beacon Press, Boston, 2006.

On the Theory and Therapy of Mental Disorders. An Introduction to Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. Translated by James M. DuBois. Brunner-Routledge, London & New York, 2004.

Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning. (A revised and extended edition of The Unconscious God; with a foreword by Swanee Hunt). Perseus Book Publishing, New York, 1997.

The Doctor and the Soul. From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl, New York: Vintage Books, 2019

Happiness and Meaning: The Bottom Line – Viktor Frankl https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/

The Life of Viktor E. Frankl, https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/viktorfranklamerica.com/viktor-frankl-bio/%3famp