Viktor Frankl

Biography

Viktor Frankl was born 26 March 1905 in Vienna, Austria,
to Gabriel and Elsa (Lion) Frankl. Gabriel was a civil servant.

Frankl’s interest in psychology developed early. During
his youth he began corresponding with Sigmund Freud.

After earning his medical degree from the University
of Vienna in 1930, Frankl began treating suicidal women with various forms
of depression.

In December of 1941, Frankl married Mathilde Grosser.
Mathilde would die in 1945, as World War II was ending.

World War II

As Hitler was beginning military actions, Frankl was
appointed director of neurology at the Rothschild Hospital, a “Jewish”
facility, in Vienna. Sadly, it was only a few months before Frankl and
most of his family were deported to various concentration camps. Frankl,
deported in 1942, was held by the Nazis in four camps, including the infamous
Auschwitz and Dachau.

Both a doctor and natural leader, Frankl took it as his
duty to help other inmates dealing with both medical and emotional needs.
Frankl worked with suicidal prisoners, in particular. The Jewish prohibition
against suicide, as well as a desire to resist Nazi oppression, helped
many of these prisoners deal with horrendous conditions.

Before his deportation, Frankl had started writing a
book to explain his observations on mental illness. His wife, Mathilde,
had sewn the text’s notes and outline into the lining of Frankl’s coat
to sneak the work past Nazi guards. Unfortunately, the guards confiscated
his coat and Frankl’s original notes were forever lost. During his internment,
Frankl used scraps of paper to write a new version of the text.

During the war, Frankl’s parents, brother, and Mathilde
were killed. Mathilde had been pregnant when the Nazis killed her.

Despite his suffering, Frankl completed the text he had
composed in the camps. The finished work was Man’s Search for Meaning:
An Introduction to Logotherapy. After World War II the text would be published in more than two-dozen langauges, with more than seventy printings, making the work on of the most influential psychology texts ever published.

After the War

Following World War II, Frankl married Eleonore Katharina
Schwindt on 18 July 1947. The couple had one daughter, Gabrielle.

Frankl returned to the University of Vienna as a professor
of neurology and psychiatry. He would remain a professor at the university
until he was 85 years old. He did take several leaves to serve as a visiting
professor at Harvard, Southern Methodist, Duquesne, and Standford Universities.
He lectured throughout the world during his teaching career. Frankl was
also the director of the department of neurology at Vienna Polyclinic (Poliklinik)
Hospital from 1946 until 1970.

Driven to live life to its fullest potential, Frankl
enjoyed mountain climbing and even obtained a pilot’s license in his sixties.

Frankl died of cardiac arrest on 2 September 1997, in
Vienna, Austria.

Chronology

1905 March 26	Born in Vienna, Austria.
1930	Obtains M.D. from University of Vienna.
1940 – 1942	Director of Dept. of Neurology, Rothschild Hospital, Vienna.
1941 December	Marries Mathilde Grosser.
1945	Wife Mathilde dies.
1946 – 1970	Director, Dept. of Neurology, Poliklinik Hospital.
1947	Professor of neurology and psychiatry, University of Vienna.
1947 July 18	Marries Eleonore Katharina Schwindt.
1949	Obtains Ph.D. from University of Vienna.
1950	Serves as president of the Austrian Medical Society of Psychotherapy.
1961	Visiting professor at Harvard and Southern Methodist Universities.
1966	Returns to Southern Methodist University as a visiting professor.
1971 – 1972	Visiting professot at Stanford University.
1972	Visiting professor at Duquesne University.
1997 September 2	Dies of heart disease in Vienna.

 

Works

• Aerztliche Seelsorge, Text: 1947 (earlier editions also existed)
  trans. The Doctor and the Soul: An Introduction to Logotherapy, 1955
  rev. ed. as The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, 1965
• Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager, Memoir: 1946
  trans. From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path
  to a New Therapy, 1959
  rev. ed. as Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, 1963, 1984
• Der umbewusste Gott, Text: 1966
  trans. The Unconscious God: Psychotherapy and Theology, 1975
• Psychotherapy and Existentialism: Selected Papers on Logotherapy (with James C. Crumbaugh, Hans O. Gerz, and Leonard T. Maholick), Text: 1967, rev. ed. 1973
• The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications to Logotherapy, Text: 1969, 1976
• Meaninglessness: Today’s Dilemma, Audio: 1971
• The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychtherapy and Humanism, Text: 1978
• Recollections: An Autobiography, Memoir: 1997
• Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, Text, 1997

Commentaries

<!–

he discusses the importance of finding personal
meaning in life, no
matter how bad one’s circumstances are, as he had had to find personal
meaning during his tenure in concentration camps. According to the New
York Times: “Viktor Frankl’s mother, father, brother and pregnant
wife
were all killed in the camps. He lost everything, he said, that could
be taken from a man or woman, except one thing: `the last of the human
freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.'” He also wrote that it was important “to
keep practicing the art of living, even in a concentration camp.”

Frankl was a noted Austrian psychologist who
developed the approach known as logotherapy, which encouraged patients
to find personal meaning in their lives. Like the theories of noted
psychologists Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, Frankl’s teachings
gained prominence as the Third Vienna School of Psychotherapy.

–>

The following information is excerpted from the New Dictionary
of Existentialism (1971), by professor St. Elmo Nauman, Jr., a work no longer in print.

Logotherapy – (from DE) In Existential psychology, the term for Dr. Viktor Frankl’s therapy. The theory states that the spiritual aspects of the distressed individuals require treatment rather than the physical symptoms. Thus it is names Logotherapy, from the Greek word “logos,” which is “word,” “meanings,” or “spiritual.”

“Logos” being the meaning — and, beyond that, something pertaining to the noetic, and not the psychic, dimension of man. — Frankl, From
Death Camp to Existentialism

According to logotherapy, the striving to a meaning in one’s own life
is the primary motivational force in man. — Frankl, Man’s Search
for Meaning

It is, of course, not the aim of logotherapy to take the place of
existing psycho-therapy, but only to complement it… which includes
the spiritual dimension. — Frankl, Doctor of the Soul

Thus, logotherapy is a personalistic psychotherapy which does not concern
itself primarily with symptoms, but rather tries to bring about a change
in orientation with respect to the symptoms. The therapeutic aim of logotherapy
is to make the individual aware of him purpose in life and to bring him
to a fuller understanding of it.

Logotherapy is based on the observation that uncertainty about life’s
meaning is one of the most important causes of emotional problems in
the world today.

Quotes

Coming Soon…

Bibliography

Frankl, Viktor Emil; Recollections: An Autobiography (Cambridge, Mass: Perseus, 2000)

Frankl, Viktor Emil; Man’s Search
for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963, 1984)

Frankl, Viktor Emil; The Doctor
and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. [3rd, expanded ed] (New York: Vintage Books, 1986)

Gould, William Blair; Viktor E. Frankl: Life
with Meaning (Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole, 1993)