?"This is a scholarly, commendable biography and intellectual history. Lay readers will be challenged; psychologists and historians will be grateful."— Library Journal, starred review First published ...in 1946, Viktor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author's philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl's life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the "third Viennese school" amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life. From the introduction: At the same time, Frankl's testimony, second only to the Diary of Anne Frank in popularity, has raised the ire of experts on the Holocaust. For example, in the 1990s the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington purportedly refused to sell Man's Search for Meaning in the gift shop…. During the late 1960s and early 1970s Frankl became very popular in America. Frankl's survival of the Holocaust, his reassurance that life is meaningful, and his personal conviction that God exists served to make him a forerunner of the self-help genre.
This book accomplishes two distinct tasks. First, it develops the psychological theory of Dr. Viktor E. Frankl as a literary hermeneutic. Second, it applies the hermeneutic by reading the book of ...Job. Key issues emerge through three movements. The first movement addresses Frankl's concept of the feeling of meaninglessness and his rejection of reductionism and nihilism. The second movement addresses the dual nature of meaning; an association is revealed between Frankl's understanding of meaning and the Joban understanding of wisdom. The third movement involves an exploration of Frankl's ideas of ultimate meaning and self-transcendence. As a Holocaust survivor, Frankl had a personal stake in the effectiveness of his approach. He lived the suffering about which he wrote. Because of this, reading the book of Job with a hermeneutic based on Frankl's ideas will present readers with opportunities to discover unique meanings and serve to clarify their attitudes toward pain, guilt, and death. As meaning is discovered through participation with the text, we will see that Job's final response can become a site for transcending suffering
Logotherapy Soggie, Neil A
2016., 2016, 2016-08-30
eBook
Following World War II, Viktor Frankl revolutionized the field of psychotherapy with the inception of logotherapy. With Logotherapy: Viktor Frankl, Life and Work, Soggie offers a compelling and ...comprehensive introduction to both the man and his contribution to psychotherapy. Through the examination of Frankl’s life as a boy to his days in a concentration camp and his post-war work, Soggie paints a rich portrait of Frankl and the origins of logotherapy. Complete with in-depth explanations of logotherapy’s key concepts, including dimensionalism, love, responsibility, and freedom of the will, this book serves as a great complement to Frankl’s own works and a valuable resource to practitioners and therapists in training alike.
Prisoners of our thoughts Pattakos, Alex; Dundon, Elaine; Covey, Stephen R
2017., 2017, 2017-01-30, 2017-01-09
eBook
7 Principles for Finding Meaning in Life & Work World-renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is one of the most important books of modern times. Frankl's extraordinary ...personal story of finding meaning amid the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps has inspired millions. Frankl vividly showed that you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude—you don't have to be a prisoner of your thoughts. Dr. Alex Pattakos—who was urged by Frankl to write Prisoners of Our Thoughts —and Elaine Dundon, a personal and organizational innovation thought leader, show how Frankl's wisdom can help readers find meaning in every moment of their lives. Drawing on the entire body of Frankl's work, they identify seven "core principles" and demonstrate how they can be applied to everyday life and work. This revised and expanded third edition features new stories, practical exercises, applications, and insights from the authors' new work in MEANINGology®. Three new chapters outline how we all can benefit by putting meaning at the core of our lives, work, and society. And a new chapter on Viktor Frankl's legacy illustrates how his work continues to influence so many around the world.
This book is a seminal contribution to applied and clinical logotherapy and existential analysis from a philosopher who is also a practitioner. It covers twelve essential topics and themes, drawing ...on Dr Viktor Frankl's Viennese School of philosophical psychology, from therapeutic techniques, such as dereflection, paradoxical intention, and Socratic dialogue, to the mass neurotic triad of aggression, addiction, and depression. It also discusses the cultural malaise of anger, anxiety, and boredom, and the theory and therapy of mental disorders such as neuroses and psychoses, criminality, and suicidality. This unique publication, which is both theoretical and practical, is intended primarily for psychotherapists, philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists, but will also appeal to parents, teachers, students, and indeed anyone who wishes to live a life of meaning and mental health.
