Man’s Search for Meaning: Viktor E. Frankl“He who has a why to live for can bear any how.” The words of Nietzsche begin to explain Frankl’s tone throughout his book. Dr. Frankl uses his experiences in different Nazi concentration camps to explain his discovery of logotherapy. This discovery take us back to World War II and the extreme suffering that took place in the Nazi concentration camps and outlines a detailed analysis of the prisoners psyche. An experience we gain from the first-hand memoirs of Dr. Frankl.In the first half of this book, Dr. Frankl explains his theory of logotherapy through his concentration camp experiences. He explains how his worldly possessions were striped from him literally in the sense that his family was put to death and he himself was striped naked and assigned to a number. Furthermore, he was made to endure endless hourly suffering for several years. It is though the experiences that Dr. Frankl explains that suffering is life and that to survive suffering one must find a means for the suffering. Therefor, finding a means for ones suffering will aid that individual to survive life. This brings us back to Nietzsche’s quote “He who has a why to live for can bear any how.” Dr. Frankl explains, though his psychiatric analysis of himself and other prisoners in the concentration camps, how this theory works. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those being questioned by life - daily and hourly." With this, Dr Frankl shows how when one losses the means to look to the future and see the possibilities that it holds, one losses the capacity to survive, because, that individual no longer understands the meaning of his suffering. In other words, the individual losses hope or gives up. Dr. Frankl also explains that the means for the s...
