got recommended this book by my psychologist. now i am 90% through (middle of reading the screenplay in the end) and wondering why i got recommended this.
It was by far not a fun read, it was both shocking and partially disturbing.
i am unsure if i have benefitted by reading it, because i was hoping for some thriving after hard abuse but this section was like 5pages long..
how do you feel about this book?
by ollirulz
27 Comments
I found it to be really impactful! I think the disturbing elements are completely intentional; they stir up the sediment of the mind and allow for new ideas to flow. I find it interesting that you don’t find it hopeful, which I very much did. It’s not about “things will be better even if you go through hell”, because that’s not always true. Some people who are grievously harmed do not have fantastic lives afterwards. It’s about trying to see a different perspective to suffering, and to craft meaning as a willful act in spite of life’s chaos. Life won’t always serve us well, there is not structured “meaning” to the things that happen to us when they happen, it’s up to us to make something from them.
That book isn’t about thriving, it was about surviving. It’s about the times in life when everything seems completely overwhelming and there is no hope, or when you just feel directionless. I think it’s also about the conscious choices needed to mentally get through those times (the choice to focus on a goal or purpose), and that part can be applied in many other situations as well. I don’t know what you’re in therapy for, and it’s not my business, but it might be a question for your next session. What lessons in the book did they think you could learn from?
This is one of my favourite books. It’s not about ‘thriving after abuse’ as such. It’s more about how people survive when everything that gives life meaning is taken from them. In this case, the author suggests those who find meaning in their experience of suffering are able to survive the unimaginable.
The book itself is a testament to its message, being that finishing it was the author’s ‘reason for living’ and the meaning he found in the suffering he endured, which by all accounts was completely senseless. The fact that he wrote it on scraps of paper and hid them from the concentration camp guards, and that he and the work survived, is an implicit testimony to its significance.
I found this book as a teenager. I had already been through more than most at that point, but later I was to go through incredible suffering. I credit this book for getting me through many moments that I would not have survived otherwise
I found it extremely impactful, which may have been because I sought the book out at a time when I was remorseful and fearful that I was an inherently bad person. What resonated with me was Frankl’s discussion of the freedom to choose. I was moved by his view that it is within a person’s power to choose good over evil. It is liberating to believe that you are defined by your choices, rather than some inherent goodness or badness that is beyond your control.
The first section of the book – where he shares his experience at the concentration camps, discusses the nature of suffering, and stresses the importance of finding meaning – was more valuable to me than the final section describing logotherapy. I agree that portions were dark and disturbing. I suppose this is to be expected given the subject matter (concentration camps) and it didn’t put me off the book by any means.
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I’m reading this now and am having a lot harder time staying engaged than I thought I would. I haven’t read anything from someone who was in a concentration camp and my favourite types of books are those that explore “meaning” in our existence, individually and as a whole. I figured this would be perfect for me but I’m only 70 pages in and I feel like I’ve been reading it forever. I usually read exclusively fiction, so that might be part of the problem. I’m glad others found a lot in it for them, but I don’t think I’m making it all the way through this one.
I think it’s prolly because it is written as a serious textbook, it takes a very clinical look at the suffering and psychology of man and survival. But that’s also the beauty of it. We don’t have anyone else who was trained psychiatrist who lived to shared their observations and lessons from the time. And don’t think things can get more dire than concentration camps, so in that way it is invaluable in its insight. Having said that, I think people who have read more of that time have better context in appreciating it, so maybe read some other books from survivors, there some very very good and engaging ones…
I am going to answer before reading replies because my reaction will most likely be in the minority.
This book was required reading in my Master’s level counseling program. In class discussion everyone else raved about how much they loved the book. I got side eye from classmates when I said the book was a struggle to read and I did not like it.
I had family members who survived the German camps. That probably impacted my response. My life circumstances at the time also impacted my response. I agree with Frankel that we are responsible for our own reaction to life circumstances. His premise is we each control our attitude about events. At the same time I could understand people in the camp reaching a mental/emotional point of saying “I quit.”
I also didn’t like it. I just didn’t find his philosophy well presented or compelling. I think Schopenhauer does a better job at it with “the Wisdom of Life”, which covers some similar themes but is more robust.
A friend who was a psychology major in college gave me the book (post college). I know why people recommend and I understand the basic premise, but it didn’t have any specific impact on me. Of course I recognize the trauma he went through, but it’s not my experience.Â
The book was written to outline Frankl’s type of psychotherapy called [logotherapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy), which he started developing sometime in 1920s.
I don’t know why you got recommended it by a psychologist either, because it’s not scientifically based, it’s just Frankl’s personal philosophy.
As for the book, while I have a lot of respect and enormous amounts of sympathy for what Frankl went through and for him as a person, as far as the book is concerned, I think too many people adore this book without knowing its background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl#Controversy
Frankl developed a narrative to help him get through the immense trauma he experienced, and if he kept it personal, that would have been fine. But that doesn’t mean that narrative is true, or even helpful to other people.
Some of the issues:
* some of his advice on how to find meaning is worryingly close lose to Nazi ideology ([Work sets you free](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei) which they used to trick and engage in victim blaming of the Jewish prisoners).
* Several critics found that Frankl’s book had a disturbing subtext that Holocaust “survival [was] a matter of mental health.” Again, this could be seen as victim blaming.
* there were discrepancies between the various accounts he gave of his experiences in concentration camps. In *Man’s Search for Meaning* he spends almost half of the book describing “Auschwitz and the psychology of its prisoners” but he “was held close to the train, in the “depot prisoner” area of Auschwitz and for no more than a few days, he was neither registered there, nor assigned a number before being sent on to a subsidiary work camp of Dachau”
* “Victor Frankl was an advocate/”embraced” the key ideas of the Nazi psychotherapy movement (“will and responsibility”) as a form of therapy in the late 1930s. Frankl submitted a paper and contributed to the Göring institute in Vienna connecting the logotherapy focus on “world-view” to the “work of some of the leading Nazi psychotherapists”.”
* He did experiments for Nazis on Jewish victims of suicide who found suicide the only way to escape what Nazis had in store for them, or even a form of their protest. He did it without any consent of the victims, he performed lobotomy and trepanation and inserted amphetamine drugs into their brains, despite not being a surgeon. He defended his actions by saying he was trying to save Jewish lives but Historian Günter Bischof suggests that Frankl requesting to perform lobotomy experiments could be seen as a way to “ingratiate” himself amongst the Nazis because they tried to get rid of the bad press that the suicides created in the intentional community,
* etc.
All in all, I don’t think he was a bad man, even if all that was leveled against him stands (and it probably doesn’t), as it could be excused as a reaction to the horrors he went through.
But the most prevalent view today in psychology is that the best thing for mental health is to appropriately react to the reality and not to try to force oneself to feel what is contrary to the situation, and being at peace that you’re in concentration camp is not a normal psychological reaction. Not to mention it creates the blame for everyone who isn’t thriving while suffering, who can’t handle it, and falls victim to suicide etc.
Those who died were not worse at anything than those that survived. Mostly it was dumb luck and randomness, and I understand why it scares people to feel that powerless, but we have to accept we are sometimes not in control, horrific things happen to us **and** others without any blame, and it can’t be handled by changing our mindset and outlook.
We have to admit it out of the respect for the victims. Both those that died, and those that survived – who almost all suffered from deep psychological trauma and developed mental illnesses.
this book indeed was a lot of shock to myself as well
i still dont know quite how to make of it but
i feel it was about how a sliver of mandatory optimism in face of living hell somehow has served for Frankl’s survival and life afterwards…
sometimes its so hard to fathom how this could have been even written given how utterly, and inexplicably traumazing this must have been…..
its crazy what men can do others but how much men can withstand against and somehow overcome(?) those atrocities
Should I give it a try to this book?
It’s a good book, but I agree with other Redditors; what did your therapist hope you’d get from it?
I did find it a hard read like you did – and actually though it’s inspiring, I wanted more about how he dealt with the stress of what he’d been through.
I could also recommend the holocaust memoir The Choice by Sylvia Eger, where only the first third is about her experiences in Auschwitz; the rest is about afterwards and how she healed herself and came to terms with it all [and ended up as a therapist for others.]And yes, she did thrive, eventually – and indeed, is still alive in her late 90s! Maybe that would be more suitable?
I started reading this when I was doing really poorly. I found it depressing and disturbing and didn’t finish. Probably only read 30 pages.
i re-read it because if he can survive camps and still be an amazing, compassionate person, I can deal with my small bullshit problems and not be an asshole.
I would definitely ask your therapist…even the feeling that it’s irrelevant to your experience are probably good talking points on what is relevant to your experience. And even noticing your reaction to it is good information.
I struggle with creating meaning out of the utter chaos that is reality. This book showed me how meaning works for others but didn’t really show me how to make it myself. It just seemed like people either had it or didn’t. I know that there’s a choice apparently but I haven’t ever been able to find it. It was an important read for me to know that people can survive impossible circumstances….but I’m not sure I’m one of those people.
I think the book is packed with a great deal of insight often poetically stated. I understand that it can be difficult because the setting is unimaginable.Â
Feel free to ask your therapist about their reasons behind recommendong this book to you. Just out of curiosity! Also it’s okay to share with them your honest experience with the read.
I’m a psychological counselor and I work with adults 1:1 in a therapeutic type of way, and have suggested this read to many of my clients, especially if they are going / have gone through immensly difficult times. Some have found it extremely helpful, some not. And that’s okay!
Me myself I have read this book twice in entirety, plus some excerpts even more. Love it!
My interpretation of this book was: none of us can fully control the circumstances we find ourselves in but we can control how we respond to them, though attitude and finding your own personal meaning of life. You can’t go back in time and never get put in a concentration camp, but you can choose to live FOR something going forward. You can choose to reframe your perception of your circumstances and ask how you can turn them into something actionable toward your own goal.
But the weakness I felt with this book is: while yes it is true that we can’t always control how we ended up being dealt a shit hand in life, it can’t always be on an individual to deal with it. I would have liked to see him conclude that when there’s big problems, our meaning of life should be rallying others to help fix it. Our society is too atomized and individualistic. Sometimes you don’t need to think positively, sometimes you need 20 other people to agree and help you.
I felt that the addendum was maybe more impactful from a philosophical standpoint than other interpretations of the text. Frankl says essentially that suffering is inevitable, but that we shoud not choose to suffer when it is unnecessary.
I’m with you. I was recommended it as if it would be of some positive benefit. It was just depressing to me.
The bit about how to find meaning for your suffering (or whatever it was) and the logotherapy business didn’t have any meaningful/useful impact for me. I can’t remember the portion to quote it, but the bit that probably did impact me was his conclusion that most people won’t choose to do the right thing / aren’t inherently good (I have probably mangled that – anyone, pls correct me, I read this book a long time ago, but that’s my best memory of the aspect that was depressing to me).
To me it was, “Great, this person – who would know – had the opportunity to see what human nature, on average, is like, and that was his conclusion”.
It may depend on personal circumstances/temperament; eg, I *do* get bothered by injustice and have been the person willing to take personal risk to say “that isn’t right” to people in roles of authority. In my mind I have probably always figured it was just a small but forceful batch of selfish a-holes that drove any egregious “wrongdoing” in an organization, that most people agreed with me but felt they had too much to lose &/or were afraid to – that it was just my lack of attachment to jobs and lack of dependents that made me free to push back on it. Frankl’s book made it seem like, no, most people are indifferent enough that it won’t bother them, even when the “wrongdoing” is monstrous – that *most* people will quickly adapt to atrocious bullying, torture and killing fellow humans if it is locally normalized / advantageous for them to align with “team bully”. That they will take to it not with guilt or shame, but with diligence and even delight.
So that was depressing. I wanted to argue with him, but *I* wasn’t there to see how humans react when the “that isn’t right” is truly atrocious. I wanted to believe that humans are, on average, better than that. Does it help me to think they’re not?
Maybe there is a benefit from a philosophical perspective. But from a mental health perspective, I don’t think so. It sure isn’t a book I would recommend to myself if I was mentally struggling.
The trauma-affected often have to really work on coming out of a “the world is unsafe/unfriendly” mindset – it helps their physical health, their mental health and their enjoyment of life if they can do so. I personally don’t see the “suffering can be endured with meaning” message trumping “if you found yourself sorted into the wrong bucket tomorrow, most of your peers would have no compunction about committing atrocities upon you” in terms of value to the psyche.
What’s the name of the book can’t find it in the thread
Please do some research on the author…
This book changed me for the better. It gave me hope, put things in perspective and made me even more sure about the type of person I want to become. I guess it depends on what stage in life you’re while reading itÂ
Didn’t care for this one at all. Logos therapy is hardly described other than just emphasizing the need for meaning. I understand this book is quite old at this point, but this felt hardly new or groundbreaking to me. Also some of the parts felt like he was almost blaming the people who did die for not being mentally strong enough.
As a concentration camp memoir it was just OK. There are better ones out there.
There’s also some concerns that he embellished some of the things in the book. Or presented them in a way that is not accurate. There’s other allegations against him as well. I didn’t go down the rabbit hole to know if these are 100% accurate or not, but altogether it’s enough to keep me from recommending this book.
This book was also recommended to me.