When getting back into psychology, I asked one of my good friends who she would suggest I read. Back when I took psychology, Freud was still taught as credible, and we barely even talked about Jung, yet anyone else beyond that. My friend is currently writing her thesis for her masters in psychology, and her suggestions to catch me up with modern psychology were numerous. One book came up as most important, and that was Viktor E. Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
This book is separated in three parts. The first section is his experience surviving through the concentration camps in WWII. The life he lived as a jew in Germany, in Auschwitz, and how he and others survived. He uses that experience to form, or build, upon his theory of psychology called Logotherapy. The next section, he gives detailed definitions, examples, and explains why he believes these things, and draws from his aforementioned experience in the camps. The third section is a speech, and argument, for logotherapy and how it should grow.
Despite being only 175 pages long, with large type on small pages, this book was definitely a much harder read. Often while recalling life in the concentration camp, he mentions how hard it is for people to understand. He is wrong. It is impossible for me to put myself in his shoes. It is impossible for me to image trying to survive on a piece of rotting bread and “soup” that is actually just boiled water. It is impossible for me to conceive of trying to do manual labor for 18 hours a day with no nourishment, no loved ones or family, while being beaten by my guards. Hell, I can’t even imagine having a guard watching me work all day long, yelling at me if I waste any amount of time. All of this is beyond me, and that is not even including having to watch smoke pour from a stack, and knowing that the smoke could be someone I love. Reading this section was long and arduous, and it made picking up the book difficult.
But it led to something good. Reading that section served a purpose, and that is what the book is about. How people can survive horrible suffering. They do it by having meaning in their life. My understanding of logotherapy is its a process to help one realize what their meaning is. The other two primary theories at the time of his writing was that all things were sexual in nature, as purported by Freud, and solving a problem was to figure out what happened to them as a child, and the other was power based, that all problems were a conflict to gain power in some fashion. Both of those theories look to “Cure” the problem, in a way to remove it like a cancer.
Logotherapy does not seek to remove suffering, but to give suffering reason. People who feel like they have meaning in life are happier people, no matter their condition. A person in a cruel situation can be happier than a person with all the things in the world, if the person has meaning. He was able to survive his situation, partially because he was lucky, but because he had purpose in his life. His purpose was to finish his manuscript. Other people’s meaning came from their family, their loved one, to accomplish a great deed afterwards, anything that gave them a reason to continue was a thing they used to continue and not quit on life. He talked about a lot of people in the concentration camps just quitting, people who literally just laid down and died. They no longer felt like they had a purpose, and such their pain was unnecessary, and there was an obvious way out. He uses this as an example for modern day ways of quitting on life as well, such as drug addiction or suicide.
He talks about how you can give meaning to your suffering. If you are suffering needlessly, than that is masochistic, but if it is a situation you can’t avoid you can find the best of it. If you can find a reason for your suffering, you can overcome it. Its not that the suffering goes away, but that it becomes bearable. And by giving it purpose, you become stronger. It is one’s outlook on life that truly affects their happiness, and not the situation surrounding them (albeit, those situations obviously affect things).
One thing I strongly agreed with Frankl about was that the Western world has taught people that they have to be happy. That if you aren’t happy, you are doing something wrong. This makes many people who do not feel happy like they are suffering for nothing. There is very little telling them its okay to be in pain, or that the pain will bring about anything good. Because of this, when people are in pain, it’s made worse. It adds a hopeless feeling, a feeling of failure, on top of the misery they are inflicted with. But through giving the suffering meaning, the pain has a point, it is not useless, and the individual is not a failure, and thus they only have to deal with the pain itself. Logotherapy isn’t about removing the pain, but using the pain to make something better out of it.
I’ll relate a story of my own. I haven’t been in a concentration camp, so I can’t bring up such a horrible story. The easiest story to relate to though is a break up. After a breakup, my ex had managed to find another much quicker than me, and seeing / knowing she was with someone else hurt me at the time. Still, I stuck with her, and having stayed through with her I got to experience the painful knowledge of his presence more. But, for the most part it was bearable because I knew her friendship was worth it. I would even ask how the relationship was going. I was resolved that keeping someone that had been one of the most important people in my life for 8 years by that point was worth keeping around for the next chapter in my life, and it gave my pain meaning. My worst suffering, the times I broke down, was when I felt that the meaning of my pain had been ripped away. When I felt, whether it be real or not, that our friendship would not survive, that I was being tossed to the side. I was willing to be in pain because the friendship was worth it, but if there was no friendship, then that meant my pain had no meaning...and that was when I was at my worst. My reaction was a scramble to reaffirm that what I was going through had merit. And once my worries had been assuaged, for the most part I was better. Another story could be a college student trying to get through college. If they feel that their attempts has merit, they will push on through, but if they feel that their attempts are for nothing, they will most likely drop out. Another would be my grandfather, who stayed alive until all his things were put in order, and shortly after that he passed. He had finished what he accomplished, so he no longer needed to be in pain. (For those concerned, she is still my best friend, and the pain I felt was worth it).
By giving something meaning, you aren’t fighting against it but using it to create something better. That brings us to another point of his of overcoming some conditions. He had a specific example of insomnia, which as an insomniac, I could relate to. If you see insomnia as something wrong that needs to be removed, you fight it. You go against it, and lay in your bed, crunching your eyes closed trying to sleep, and it never comes. The fight is futile, and you know that, and you can’t overcome it. The suggestion he gives, and now a common suggestion for insomniacs, is to give your suffering meaning. If you can’t sleep, do something active. At times, simply being free from the pressure of having to sleep allows one to pass out, or more that the stress of trying to sleep kept you from sleeping. It doesn’t always work, as some of my insomnia is actually chemical, in which case my being productive makes my inability to sleep be more enjoyable, more bearable. I am not suffering needlessly. And he makes a big point about that, it’s still important to remove unnecessary suffering.... but if it you must suffer, there are ways to make it manageable. To make it a growing experience.
Due to the nature of this writing, and the premise of it, the book had times where it felt cultish. Since this was him breaking down something that he wrote 20 volumes into a single, and small book, that could be easily digested, much of the research and numbers are not included. A lot of the stories are personal stories or anecdotal. He includes 20 pages of suggested readings, of research you can look up, and just add ins to get more information, but without that it does feel a little “prescribe to my method and I’ll make you all better! By my book! Drink this kool-aid!” But, seeing as he is an actual respected psychologist with many peered reviewed publications, it is just a problem with trying to write something scientific without including a large amount of statistical analysis.
One of my favorite quote from the book is: “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment” (pg 154). While I may not get to choose whether I suffer or not, I can choose how I deal with my suffering, and what I allow my pain to change me into.
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