Man's Search for Meaning
By: Viktor E. Frankl ; part one translated by Ilse Lasch ; foreword by Harold S. Kushner ; afterword by William J. Winslade
Edition: 1st printing
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Boston, USA
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 165
ISBN-13: 9780807014271
Copyright date: 2006
Subjects: Psychologists; Prisons; Personal narratives; Existentialism; Logotherapy; Psychological aspects; Psychotherapy; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Biography
Work titles: Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager
Description: Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. In the decades since its first publication in 1959, Man's Search for Meaning has become a classic, with more than twelve million copies in print around the world. A 1991 Library of Congress survey that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. At once a memoir, a meditation, a treatise, and a history, it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.
(back cover)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Foreword / Harold S. Kushner; title: Preface to the 1992 edition; title: Experiences in a concentration camp; title: Logotherapy in a nutshell; title: Postscript 1984: The case for a tragic optimism; title: Afterword / William J. Winslade.