The development of the discipline would never have reached its current state if it had not been for the incredible life Frankl managed to lead. A former professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Vienna, Frankl was a German Jew who found himself in not one but three Nazi prison camps during the Holocaust. Witnessing the death of his pregnant wife, their children, and numerous relatives, the camps were proving grounds in a way, a place where Frankl's theories underwent trial by fire. Frankl soon came to see that the only meaning for him inside the prison camps, faced with so much death and horror on a daily basis, was helping fellow prisoners restore their psychological health. The dimension some would call the human spirit is a major resource in the healing process, and it is extremely important that we acknowledge that part of ourselves.
Life has meaning under all circumstances, even miserable ones.
When Barnes discovered logotherapy, he saw innumerable ways that the philosophy could be both applied to his own life and the potential contained within any individual looking for opportunities for growth and understanding. Barnes met Frankl in 1984, and the two formed a fast professional and personal relationship. Barnes is president of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, a prestigious international organization devoted to the study and application of Frankl's works. Logotherapy directs us to examine numerous attributes that make up that inner spirit, such as our will to find meaning, our goal orientations, our capacity for choice, love, imagination, abstract thought, creativity, faith, self-discovery and transcendence. The healthy striving between what a person is now and what they can become is what makes logotherapy work, Barnes said.