001: How To Find Meaning In Suffering - Viktor Frankl

Nov 5, 2023

44:56

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Lessons from reading Man's Search for Meaning, a memoir by Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.

The book chronicles his experience in Nazi concentration camps, his psychological insights into human nature at its worst, what motivates people to live even in the worse conditions, and explores his theory of logotherapy.

Frankl earned his M.D. in 1930 and began working at Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital where he led the treatment of suicidal women, before he was sent to the camps.

During the Holocaust his wife died in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, his father died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto concentration camp, and both his mother and brother died in Auschwitz.

However, it was during his time in the concentration camps that he further developed his theory on the importance of finding meaning in life. He emphasized that discovering meaning is the primary motivation in life. It’s our will to meaning which gives hope in a hopeless world. And if a man loses hope and his will to meaning, then his “strength to carry on… seldom returned.”

00:00:00 - Introduction & excerpt from Man’s Search for Meaning

00:02:37 - Summary of the memoir & logotherapy

00:04:47 - Getting stripped of all belongings

00:05:30 - Finding meaning

00:06:49 - Frankl’s thought on success

00:08:00 - Become worthy of suffering

00:13:35 - Changing perspective

00:14:35 - Urbanites suffer from existential anxiety

00:15:35 - Importance of a full inner life

00:16:57 - Ability to endure horrible conditions

00:18:20 - Nightmares

00:19:20 - 3 ways to find meaning