Viktor E Frankl is a Psychiatrist, and more significantly, an Auschwitz survivor, three years in concentration camps. He writes as much through this experience, as academic expertise, and his theory in psychiatry and psychotherapy is said to be the biggest since Freud.
The earlier title of the book was From Death camp to Existentialism, and he divides the book as such. The first half is his experience in the camps and the second the psychiatric theory that he propitiates.
I've kind of stayed away from anything Auschwitz for a long time, and for that reason this book has been on my want-to-read-but-can't list for a few years now. Guess I'm growing up....
It made me realize one thing yet again..... that what you resist, grows.... and makes it that much more difficult to handle.
In fact he talks of this very thing in the book too. He calls it Paradoxical Intention. It consists of a reversal of attitude, where a fear is to be replaced by a paradoxical wish. Like if you have insomnia, he says keep yourself awake, don't focus on not being able to sleep; that takes the wind out of the sails of the anxiety. Interesting stuff. Tucking it away for use and repeated use. I think it could actually enable a higher awakening of consciousness if you could use it to surface subconscious blockages. Worth a try.
Moving on.....when one talks of something as grandiose sounding as Search for Meaning, it is assumed that there is one universal truth out there, like a 'The Answer'.
But no, he actually fits it in at a very individualistic level, yet with all encompassing possibilities. Each individual to find his own meaning, but that it's possible for anyone to do.
He talks of the widespread existential vacuum today, like almost an offshoot of evolution. For easy understanding look at it as a psychiatric Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Initially meaning came out of survival, when mans animal instincts were dominant. Then it was religion which held sway. Then tradition and societal expectation.
Today it's about Choice. No instinct and no tradition tells man what to do.
In order to fit, man will either wish to do what other people do (conformism) or what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). But beyond this is where you hit the existential vacuum, where you search for your own meaning.
He talks of the widespread existential vacuum today, like almost an offshoot of evolution. For easy understanding look at it as a psychiatric Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Initially meaning came out of survival, when mans animal instincts were dominant. Then it was religion which held sway. Then tradition and societal expectation.
Today it's about Choice. No instinct and no tradition tells man what to do.
In order to fit, man will either wish to do what other people do (conformism) or what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). But beyond this is where you hit the existential vacuum, where you search for your own meaning.
A statistical survey apparently revealed that amongst Europeans, 25 percent showed a more or less marked degree of existential vacuum, while among Americans, it was not 25, but 60 percent.
"A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions."
And in this he completely disproves Freud. If a lot of Freud was about generalization of human nature and the belief that at a base level, stripped of higher needs any man would behave the same, Victor states just the opposite. That it's about each ones own attitude.
More specifically and simplistically put, he speaks of three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed which he states is an obvious and basic one.
The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. This one brings out how experiencing can be as valuable as achieving because it compensates for the one sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.
The third is significant in that it enables meaning to even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation. He says meaning is possible even through suffering, provided the suffering is unavoidable. He states that if it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove it's cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If on the other hand he cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.
He says, to be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. He often quotes Nietzsche: '"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how'
It's in that sense highly empowering.
And in this he completely disproves Freud. If a lot of Freud was about generalization of human nature and the belief that at a base level, stripped of higher needs any man would behave the same, Victor states just the opposite. That it's about each ones own attitude.
More specifically and simplistically put, he speaks of three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed which he states is an obvious and basic one.
The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. This one brings out how experiencing can be as valuable as achieving because it compensates for the one sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.
The third is significant in that it enables meaning to even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation. He says meaning is possible even through suffering, provided the suffering is unavoidable. He states that if it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove it's cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If on the other hand he cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.
He says, to be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. He often quotes Nietzsche: '"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how'
It's in that sense highly empowering.
No comments:
Post a Comment