No tengo absolutamente nada en contra de este libro, sino todo lo contrario: hace reflexionar profundamente acerca de cuánto un ser humano puede sufrir (y aguantar). Cuando lo leí, estuve el día completo pensando en el libro y en sus historias, y de pasada, quiero interiorizarme un poco en lo que es la logoterapia.
Le puse 3 estrellas porque es un libro tipo motivacional y esos definitivamente no son mi estilo. La verdad es que no me gusta leer mucho de esto, precisamente porque es triste, pero lo leí porque tenía curiosidad al ser un libro tan nombrado y no me arrepiento de haberlo leído en absoluto.
Totalmente recomendable.

This book is split into two parts. The content, style and purpose of each are not the same. The first part I liked a lot, the second I found OK. Depending upon what you are looking for, your preference may may differ from mine. I will describe both parts, in the hope that you can determine if you wish to read the first, the second or both parts of the book.

The first part speaks of that which Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) learned from his own experiences as prisoner of four Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War—Auschwitz, Dachau, Theresienstadt and Turheim. What is offered is not a day by day account of his experiences but rather a description of “…everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of an average prisoner.” He speaks of the shock on arrival, the apathy that arises as time passes and finally the psychological reaction of prisoners after liberation. The psychological patterns of behavior are distinct. Frankl was Austrian by birth and a neurologist and psychiatrist before entering the camps. He dispassionately relates what he saw and the subsequent psychological conclusions he drew. The book was first published in 1946, thus very soon after the war.

This, the first section, is very good because of its simple honesty, clarity and dispassionate presentation. Here is how the most ordinary prisoners behaved and reacted to the camps. He looks at the behavior of kapos too, i.e. the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps who were assigned by the SS guards to carry out administrative tasks. They had more power and cannot be viewed as ordinary prisoners.

Frankl points out that there are two types of people, those who are decent and those who are not. Both types are found to exist in all groupings of people. One’s rank, religion or creed is insignificant in determining an individual’s decency.

The first section is riveting. It is clear and well formulated. It underlines the need for an individual to feel there is a meaning to one’s life, even in the direst of situations. The importance of hope is paramount.

Frankl goes deeper and deeper into an explanation of the particular form of existential psychology he propones--logotherapy. Logo is based on the Greek word logos, which means to strive to find a meaning in one’s life. It is one type of existential analysis, a form of humanistic psychology. Spinoza and Nietzsche and other famed existential philosophers are quoted, as is Thomas Mann too.

It is not necessary to read the second part to understand Frankl's philosophy or how he treated patients.

The second part of the book is entitled Logotherapy in a Nutshell. This section has been rewritten, if I remember correctly, sometime in the 1980s. It focuses on the theory of logotherapy—as a science and as a medical treatment. It begins at a simple level, explaining how logotherapy differs from Adlerian and Freudian theories of analysis. These three different psychological theories’ focus respectively on the search for the meaning of life, the search for power and the search for pleasure. Then Frankl goes into more and more detail, specifying the terminology of his theory. If you are looking for an in-depth, very specific and detailed explanation of logotherapy you will be pleased. I instead became confused by the excessive redefinition of terms. He takes an idea, a concept that is simple to understand at the start, gives it a new name and then using all these complicated, newly defined names for simple ideas, propones the principles of logotherapy. He is selling his way of thinking, his point of view; this annoyed me too. This section becomes more and more convoluted as one proceeds.

A controversy has arisen both about the author and his books, the result being that none of his works are sold in the bookstore of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. None of this is discussed in the book. It can be read about in the second paragraph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_...

Simon Vance narrates the audiobook. The first section he reads very well. The speed is perfect, and he reads in a tone that matches the subject’s seriousness, neither exaggerating nor minimizing the text’s content. I would have preferred that he read the second part more slowly; many logotherapeutical terms are employed, and those not previously acquainted with the terminology of this science need more time to absorb what is said. With four stars for the narration of the first half and two stars for the second, I have given the narration three stars, just as I have for the book’s content.

I have read Man's Search for Meaning because Edith Eger, the author of The Choice: Embrace the Possible, which I gave five stars, built her own theory of psychology and psychiatric treatment on Viktor E. Frankl’s ideas.

This book stands out as one of the most helpful tools I've found in my life-long search for the way to live and be useful to others despite depression. As opposed to Freud, who believed that the primary drive in man, the most urgent motivation, was pleasure, Frankl believes that it is meaning. Now meaning for Frankl is not something abstract and airy and noble but rather something very concrete and specific to your life - what is the task that life asks of you that only you can do? Look at the circumstances of your life, look at your talents and the people that surround you. Where is the need that is calling for you to respond? For Frankl, the hope that kept him trudging on day by day in the concentration camps was the need to re-write the manuscript (taken away when first imprisoned) where he could present to the world his theory of Logotherapy. Why I found this book so helpful in my struggles with depression is because one of the rock-bottom places where depression can take you is despair. Despair is the absence of hope. The search for meaning, for a response to something life is asking of you, is the place where hope is born. Frankl states that hope, like genuine laughter or like faith or love is not something that we can will into being. We cannot make hope appear willy nilly in our lives because hope is more than a nice thought, it is, like true love something that involves your whole being. I find this to be true but there are things that we can do to prepare the way for hope's arrival and hope will come, it will always come. We can search for meaning because searching and looking and asking and expecting are acts and attitudes that we can will. Meaning, according to Frankl is found in three different forms. Meaning is found in creating or doing. Meaning is found in experiencing something greater than ourselves and in encountering another being through love. And finally, meaning can be found in the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The important thing here is that in all of these instances the value of the thing that gives meaning is subjective. There is no scale out there that says that writing a novel gives more meaning than helping your spouse with the dishes. When it comes to meaning, the small, the hidden, the unsaid is as important as the great acts of genius and you alone are the judge. Orienting yourself to responding in some way to what life is asking of you may not be the sole cure to depression but it is for me a necessary part of any healing process, of learning to live and be useful, despite the illness.

الإنسان يبحث عن المعني ...كتاب للطبيب النفسي فيكتور فرانكل و هو يعتبر مؤسس مدرسة فيينا الثالثة في العلاج النفسي بعد مدرستي فرويد و إدلر...

دكتور فرانكل مش بس طبيب نفسي و لكنه واجه ظروف صعبة جداً حيث كان معتقلاً في معسكرات الإعتقال النازية خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية و فقد كل من والده،أخوه وزوجته الذين لقوا حتفهم في هذه المعسكرات...

الكتاب مقسم إلي جزئين ...الجزء الأول بيتكلم فيه الكاتب عن تجربته الشخصية في المعتقل وبيحلل نفسيا كل ما يمر به أي سجين مستنداً طبعاً لملاحظات كثيرة للمسجونين وخبراتهم وما عايشه بنفسه من تجربة قاسية ومؤلمة ..أما الجزء الثاني فهو بيتكلم بإيجاز عن أفكاره ونظريته للعلاج بالمعني اللي ممكن نختصرها في مقولة نيتشة
"من يمتلك سبباً يعيش من أجله فإنه يستطيع غالباً أن يتحمل بأي طريقة وبأي حال.."

الكتاب الصراحة مفيد جداً ..و أنا أعتبرته ميكس بين أدب السجون و علم النفس ..مكتوب بإسلوب بسيط ومش معقد...
الجزء الأخير يحتوي علي بعض التحليلات والمصطلحات العلمية اللي كانت صعبة وجافة شوية
بس هو عموماً جزء صغير لكن معظم الكتاب كان فعلاً سلس..

الكتاب حيخليك تقف مع نفسك و تفكر في حاجات كتير بطريقة إيجابية وحيخليك تؤمن إن طبيعي إننا نضايق و نمر بظروف صعبة و إن المعاناة جزء طبيعي من حياتنا ومهماً حصلك كفاية إن يكون عندك حد بتحبه وبيحبك أو حاجة بتؤمن بيها أو هدف نفسك توصله ودة لوحده كافي إنه يعطي معني لحياتك ويخليك تحبها و تتمسك بيها...

شكر واجب لصديقي العزيز محمد قائد علي ترشيح هذا الكتاب الرائع..
بالتأكيد ينصح به...

Hem psikiyatrist hem de nörolog olan yazarın kitabı iki bölümden oluşmakta. İlk bölümde Nazi toplama kamplarından sağ kurtulan çok az sayıdaki kurbanlardan biri olan yazarın ağzından yaşanılan vahşetin ve acımasızlığın büyüklüğü anlatılıyor. Doğrusu bu konuda yazılanlardan, çevrilen filmler ve seyrettiğimiz belgesellerden daha çarpıcı ve etkili olmasını beklerdim. Yüzeyel bir anlatım gördüm.

İkinci bölümde ise yazarın bu vahşetten kurtulmasının ardında yattığına inandığı güce bağlayarak ortaya attığı “logoterapi” yöntemi anlatılıyor. Metafizik öğeler üzerine inşa edilmiş farklı bir “varoluşçuluk” yorumu olan yöntem çok naif, her çözümü “sevgi” ile ilişkilendiren, kaderci ve kolaycı olmakla kalmıyor bence çokca üstünde durduğu “umut” kavramını da boşa çıkarıyor.

Psikiyatrist değilim, ancak kitabı okuduktan sonra, dünyanın en aşağılık yaratıklarından olan “kapo”lar ile işbirliği yaparak hayatta kalmanın, ne “güçlü umut” , ne “sevgi” , ne de “anlam arayışı” peşinde koşularak kazanıldığının haklı kılınamayacağı düşüncesinde olduğumdan, yazarın kurtulmasındaki insanüstü gayretlerinin de, önerdiği ütopik tavsiyelerinin de, en önemlisi bilimsel- akademik bir kılıfla “hayatta kalışın sırrını” sunmasının zayıf kaçtığını çekinmeden söylüyorum. Neden çekinmeden olduğunu da açıklayayım; kitap 19 dilde yayınlanmış, elimdeki baskısı 62. olan, goodreads notu çok yüksek popüler bir kitap çünkü.

Victor E. Frankl sadece anılarını anlatsaydı, hayatta kalmasının psikolojik-bilimsel gerekçelerini keşfetmeye gerek duymasaydı keşke diyorum.