Resenhas - Man's Search for Meaning

kenaum 03/02/2011

Uma resposta para o "sentido da vida"
O livro é simplesmente fantástico! A visão do dia-a-dia da vida de um prisioneiro em um campo de concentração, sob a ótica de um psiquiatra é uma preciosidade.

Na segunda parte do livro, a introdução sobre a logoterapia (terapia do "sentido") dá uma visão fácil de entender sobre a filosofia dele, com algumas respostas bacanas sobre o sentido da vida.

Belisiario 26/03/2020

What Matters
The book offers you a reality check as a bonus at the very beginning. Just like that.

The author hit us with such a wanton punch displaying how dreadfully perverse the human behavior can get and, how despite all the evil and the seemingly lack of meaning induced by the Nazi barbarism upon other human around him, can make one stand up ready for another knock down day after day in search for that fragment of inner fire that can, in turn, enlighten the spirit, in hope for a less abhorrent reality that he ends up growing accustomed to it throughout the days he experienced in the concentration camp.

Apart from the intern point of view, Viktor writes from an external view offering the readers sometimes with light comments and sometimes adhering to his professional expertise and explaining how and why one should/could/would act the way one did. Furthermore, we are gifted with a somewhat understanding of Logotherapy (= a concept based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life).

It should be one of those books everyone should read at least once in a life time to absorb the most of it before having the audacity of complaining because of futile stuff life can put in one’s way. Experiencing the author’s experience makes you want to procure that slap in the face when faced with obstacles throws at you once in a fortnight.

Finally, we are living a troublesome experience regarding Coronavirus and we have the chance to edify ourselves and the ones we care the most for what truly matters in life. And what really matters is up to you to determine. Not X nor Y. To give is to receive.

Toodles!

Moitta 19/10/2022

Minhas notas do livro
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent. To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.

The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course.

Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insuffcient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

To the others of us, the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: “Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.

I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such trivial things. I forced my thoughts to turn to another subject. Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past. Both I and my troubles became the object of an interesting psychoscientific study undertaken by myself.

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual.

No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. Only very few realized that.

Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.

If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients’ mental health, they should not be afraid to create a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one’s life.

Moreover, there are various masks and guises under which the existential vacuum appears. Sometimes the frustrated will to meaning is vicariously compensated for by a will to power, including the most primitive form of the will to power, the will to money. In other cases, the place of frustrated will to meaning is taken by the will to pleasure. That is why existential frustration often eventuates in sexual compensation. We can observe in such cases that the sexual libido becomes rampant in the existential vacuum.

I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.

To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one’s opponent.

As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence.

According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.

But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering—provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable.

How should I have interpreted such a “coincidence” other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?

In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

“The best,” however, is that which in Latin is called optimum—hence the reason I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for: (1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to “be happy.” But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.” Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation. This need for a reason is similar in another specifically human phenomenon—laughter. If you want anyone to laugh you have to provide him with a reason, e.g., you have to tell him a joke. In no way is it possible to evoke real laughter by urging him, or having him urge himself, to laugh.

As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning. To be sure, some do not even have the means.

Therefore, I will not be elaborating here on the meaning of one’s life as a whole, although I do not deny that such a long-range meaning does exist. To invoke an analogy, consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life? Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?

the perception of meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation.

As logotherapy teaches, there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. Edith Weisskopf-Joelson observed in this context that the logotherapeutic “notion that experiencing can be as valuable as achieving is therapeutic because it compensates for our one-sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.”

hope that logotherapy “may help counteract certain unhealthy trends in the present-day culture of the United States, where the incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading” so that “he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.”

Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist that meaning is available in spite of—nay, even through—suffering, provided, as noted in Part Two of this book, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude. Long had not chosen to break his neck, but he did decide not to let himself be broken by what had happened to him.

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.

“It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.”

It is important to note that Frankl’s imprisonment was not the only impetus for Man’s Search for Meaning. Before his deportation, he had already begun to formulate an argument that the quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.

“man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life.”

He sees freedom and responsibility as two sides of the same coin.

Frankl’s wisdom here is worth emphasizing: it is a question of the attitude one takes toward life’s challenges and opportunities, both large and small. A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness.

Frankl offers readers who are searching for answers to life’s dilemmas a critical mandate: he does not tell people what to do, but why they must do it.

“I do not forget any good deed done to me, and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

Frankl is credited with establishing logotherapy as a psychiatric technique that uses existential analysis to help patients resolve their emotional conflicts. He stimulated many therapists to look beyond patients’ past or present problems to help them choose productive futures by making personal choices and taking responsibility for them.

He joked that in contrast to Freud’s and Adler’s “depth psychology,” which emphasizes delving into an individual’s past and his or her unconscious instincts and desires, he practiced “height psychology,” which focuses on a person’s future and his or her conscious decisions and actions.

His goal was to provoke people into realizing that they could and should exercise their capacity for choice to achieve their own goals.

“The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.”

Nath @biscoito.esperto 15/09/2024

Lido entre 27/08/24 e 11/09/24.
"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation".

Viktor Frankl foi um psicólogo austríaco que criou a logoterapia, um tipo de terapia focada em ajudar o paciente a encontrar um sentido para sua vida. Sobrevivente de vários campos de concentração durante o holocausto, Frankl acreditava que a vida de uma pessoa podia ter sentido mesmo em meio ao sofrimento.

Na primeira parte do livro ele conta o que observou nos campos de concentração: a forma como até os prisioneiros mais fracos, doentes e torturados eram capazes de seguir em frente ㅡ desde que tivessem um motivo para continuar lutando pela vida.

Na segunda parte do livro o autor faz uma breve introdução aos principais aspectos da logoterapia. Frankl usa uma frase de Nietzsche para definir sua teoria:

“Quem tem porque viver, suporta quase qualquer como.”

Obrigado @servinoreads por ter criado o clube de leitura que me permitiu ler este livro em conjunto e debatê-lo com tantas pessoas legais!

Fabrício Franco 14/02/2024

Da resiliência
?Do que eu li: uma obra que nos conduz através das profundezas da experiência humana, apresentada pelo renomado psiquiatra Viktor Frankl. Publicado pela primeira vez em 1946, o livro continua relevante ao discutir o sentido da vida e a resiliência diante da adversidade.?
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Frankl, um sobrevivente dos horrores dos campos de concentração n@?1.§?@§, tece sua narrativa em torno da ideia central de que, mesmo em condições de extrema adversidade, podemos encontrar significado e propósito. ?
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Uma das frases emblemáticas do autor é: "entre o estímulo e a resposta há um espaço. Nesse espaço está o nosso poder de escolher a nossa ação." Essa reflexão ressalta nossa capacidade de exercer livre arbítrio, mesmo em situações extremas.?
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O autor enfatiza a adaptabilidade diante de circunstâncias incontroláveis e, ainda, destaca a necessidade fundamental de encontrar significado e conexão em nossas experiências.?
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Um testemunho inspirador da resiliência do espírito humano e um convite para refletir sobre o sentido da vida, o livro nos lembra da importância de encontrar luz mesmo nas situações mais desafiadoras.?