Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

This is one of the books that's very difficult to summarize because every single word is as important as the next one. This is one of the most influential reads in the psychological world selling over 12 million copies world wide. It was written by a German psychiatrist who was imprisoned at one of the concentration Nazi camps during the World War 2. The book is devided into 2 parts, the first part he describes his agonizing inhuman experiences from physical torture, epidemics, starvation and death. In the second part of the book he described a method of psychoanalysis which he called LOGOTHERAPY(logos from the word meaning). His psychiatric knowledge combined with his experiences at Auschwitz allowed him to have a deep insight to what really drives a man when he is forced to live through the worst and how he can find meaning despite all of it. Viktor mentions that the worst suffering in a concentration camp was caused by 'provisional existence' caused by not knowing when the suffering was going to end. By envisioning a better future, fixing his thoughts on his loving wife and holding on to his unfinished book, Viktor managed to rise above the situation, above all momentary afflictions and observed them as they were already in the past, this allowed him to survive even the deadly Typhus. "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how".

Viktor asserts that it doesn't matter what we expect from life but rather what life expects from US. Viktor goes on further by highlighting how many people suffer from an "existential vacuum", an inner emptiness that manifests itself through boredom, will to power, money, sexual pleasures and drug addictions. According to LOGOTHERAPY, meaning can be attained through SELF TRANSCENDENCE, pointing towards something or someone other than oneself. This can be attained by doing a deed, encountering someone (loving) and by the attitude we take towards suffering. When you love someone you are able to see their greatest potential and by making them aware that potential can be actualized. The author described what is known as "anticipatory anxiety" which is a fear that produces exactly what one is afraid of like sexual nuerosis. He says that pleasure should be a side effect or by-product and it is spoiled when it's made a goal. This can be cured by shifting the attention away from oneself or through what Viktor called the paradoxical intention. The cure is always self transcendence as people there days have a lot to live by but not a lot to love for. One needs to read this book for themselves because it's just full of content that's impossible fit on one page. It's definitely a must read and it redefined for me the meaning of suffering and the definition of pleasure. I highly recommend this and I'll probably read it again multiple times.