Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy

Few books in recent decades have had the continuing impact of Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning — the classic best seller now considered to be one of the most important contributions to psychiatry since the writing of Freud. In it, Dr. Frankl gives a moving account of his life amid the horrors of the Nazi death camps, chronicling the harrowing experience that led to his discovery of his theory of logotherapy. A profound revelation born out of Dr. Frankl’s years as a prisoner in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, logotherapy is a modern and positive approach to the mentally or spiritually disturbed personality. Stressing man’s freedom to transcend suffering and find a meaning to his life regardless of his circumstances, it is a theory which, since its conception, has exercised a tremendous influence upon the entire field of psychiatry and psychology. Here, Dr. Frankl not only describes the genesis and development of logotherapy but also explains its basic concepts, and in this revised and enlarged edition, has included a new chapter, entitled “The Case for a Tragic Optimism,” in which he updates theoretical conclusions of the book. The result is an invaluable work by one of the world’s preeminent psychiatrists.