A newly discovered classic: a collection of inspirational lectures on embracing life from worldwide bestseller Viktor Frankl.

Just months after his liberation from Auschwitz renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl delivered a series of talks revealing the foundations of his life-affirming philosophy. The psychologist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience and his conviction that every crisis contains opportunity.

Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl's words resonate as strongly today as they did in 1946. Despite the unspeakable horrors in the camp, Frankl learnt from his fellow inmates that it is always possible to say ‘yes to life’ – a profound and timeless lesson for us all.

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.'Viktor Frankl-is one of the moral heroes of the 20th century. His insights into human freedom, dignity and the search for meaning are deeply humanising, and have the power to transform lives.'Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks'

Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'One of the most remarkable books I have ever read' Susan Jeffers One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.

Born in 1905 in the center of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viktor Frankl was a witness to the great political, philosophical, and scientific upheavals of the twentieth century. In these stirring recollections, Frankl describes how as a young doctor of neurology in prewar Vienna his disagreements with Freud and Adler led to the development of "the third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," known as logotherapy; recounts his harrowing trials in four concentration camps during the War; and reflects on the celebrity brought by the publication of "Man's Search for Meaning" in 1945.

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, "Man's Search for Meaning" had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey for the Library of Congress that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found "Man's Search for Meaning" among the ten most influential books in America.
Beacon Press, the original English-language publisher of "Man's Search for Meaning, " is issuing this new paperback edition with a new Foreword, biographical Afterword, jacket, price, and classroom materials to reach new generations of readers.

A rediscovered masterpiece by the 16 million copy bestselling author of Man’s Search For Meaning

Just months after his liberation from Auschwitz renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl delivered a series of talks revealing the foundations of his life-affirming philosophy. The psychologist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience and his conviction that every crisis contains opportunity.

Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl's words resonate as strongly today as they did in 1946. Despite the unspeakable horrors in the camp, Frankl learnt from his fellow inmates that it is always possible to say ‘yes to life’ – a profound and timeless lesson for us all.

With an introduction by Daniel Goleman.

A new gift edition of a modern classic, with supplemental photographs, speeches, letters, and essays
The Library of Congress called it "one of the ten most influential books in America," the" New York Times" pronounced it "an enduring work of survival literature," and "O, The Oprah Magazine" praised it as "one of the most significant books of the twentieth century." "Man's Search for Meaning" has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Viktor Frankl's classic tribute to coping with suffering and finding one's purpose continues to give readers solace and inspiration.
This attractive new hardcover gift edition will appeal to long-time admirers and first-time readers alike. Through photographs and supplemental writings, readers see the professional and personal sides of this beloved thinker. In a letter written upon his release from the camps, Frankl describes his pain upon learning that his parents and wife perished; in an essay, he gives hope to readers living in uncertain times; in a eulogy to his deceased colleagues, he speaks of man's capacity for evil and for good; and in a speech, he memorializes the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps. With these writings, readers can gain a fuller understanding of Frankl's enduring lessons on perseverance and strength.

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.
When "Man's Search for Meaning" was first published in 1959, it was hailed by Carl Rogers as "one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last fifty years." Now, more than forty years and 4 million copies later, this tribute to hope in the face of unimaginable loss has emerged as a true classic. "Man's Search for Meaning"--at once a memoir, a self-help book, and a psychology manual-is the story of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's struggle for survival during his three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Yet rather than "a tale concerned with the great horrors," Frankl focuses in on the "hard fight for existence" waged by "the great army of unknown and unrecorded."
Viktor Frankl's training as a psychiatrist allowed him a remarkable perspective on the psychology of survival. In these inspired pages, he asserts that the "the will to meaning" is the basic motivation for human life. This simple and yet profound statement became the basis of his psychological theory, logotherapy, and forever changed the way we understand our humanity in the face of suffering. As Nietzsche put it, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Frankl's seminal work offers us all an avenue to greater meaning and purpose in our own lives-a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the act of living.

Even in the degradation and misery of Dachau concentration camp, Viktor Frankl retained the belief that the most important freedom of all is the freedom to determine one's own spiritual well-being. He wrote the international bestseller Man's Search for Meaning as a result of that experience, while in The Doctor and the Soul, Dr Frankl revolutionised psychotherapy with his theory of Logotherapy. Viktor Frankl's work has been described as "the most important contributions in the field of psychotherapy since the days of Freud, Adler and Jung." In The Doctor and the Soul, Dr Frankl maintains that the individual's most important need is to find meaning in life and the frustration of this need results in neurosis, suffering and despair. A doctor's work lies in finding personal meaning in a patient's life, no matter how dismal the circumstances of the life.

Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl converted the horrors he experienced in a German concentration camp into the pioneering philosophy he called logotherapy. Unlike Freud's "will to pleasure" and Adler's "will to power," Frankl based logotherapy on three things: the freedom of will, the will to meaning, and the meaning of life. By presenting three methodological concepts, Frankl shows how we can all reinvigorate our experiences and tie them to will and power.
Originally published in 1988 and compiling Frankl's speeches on logotherapy, "The Will to Meaning" is regarded as a seminal work of behavior therapy.

Edited and typeset, this is largely a reprint of the 1987 classic. Contains the essence of the logotherapeutic writings of Viktor Frankl, who noted that many readers report that they understand some parts of logotherapy for the first time after reading this book. Fabry wrote in the introduction: Many older therapies place responsibility for our difficulties on our early upbringing. Logotherapy is "education to responsibility." Outside influences are important but not all-determining. Within limitations we have a say about who we are and who we want to become. We need never let ourselves be reduced to helpless victims. Consequently, logotherapy-unlike therapies that aim at equilibrium by adjusting patients to society-does not see a tensionless life as a therapeutic goal. Tension is part of living as a human being in a human society. To remain healthy, the unhealthy tensions of body and psyche are to be avoided. But the healthy tension of the spirit strengthens our spiritual muscles. The healthiest tension is between what we are and what we have the vision of growing toward, or, to use Frankl's favorite phrase, "the tension between being and meaning" (Psychotherapy and Existentialism, p. 10). The struggle for meaning is not easy. Life does not owe us pleasure; it does offer us meaning. Mental health does not come to those who demand happiness but to those who find meanings; to them happiness comes as a side product. "It must ensue" noted Frankl. "It cannot be pursued" (Unconscious God, p. 85). Logotherapy maintains and restores mental health by providing a sound view of the human being and the world as we know it. It draws on the huge reservoir of health stored in our specifically human dimension-our creativity, our capacity to love, our reaching out to others, our desire to be useful, our ability to orient to goals, and our will to meaning. Logophilosophy emphasizes what is right with us, what we like about ourselves, our accomplishments, and our peak experiences. It also considers the qualities we dislike so we may change them, our failures so we can learn from them, our abysses so we may lift ourselves up, knowing that peaks exist and can be reached.

'Viktor Frankl gives us the gift of looking at everything in life as an opportunity' Edith Eger, bestselling author of The Choice

Rediscovered masterpiece by the 16 million copy bestselling author of Man’s Search For Meaning

Just months after his liberation from Auschwitz renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl delivered a series of talks revealing the foundations of his life-affirming philosophy. The psychologist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience and his conviction that every crisis contains opportunity.

Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl's words resonate as strongly today as they did in 1946. Despite the unspeakable horrors in the camp, Frankl learnt from his fellow inmates that it is always possible to say ‘yes to life’ – a profound and timeless lesson for us all.

With an introduction by Daniel Goleman.

Viktor Frankl is known to millions as the author of Man's Search for Meaning, his harrowing Holocaust memoir. In this book, he goes more deeply into the ways of thinking that enabled him to survive imprisonment in a concentration camp and to find meaning in life in spite of all the odds. Here, he expands upon his groundbreaking ideas and searches for answers about life, death, faith and suffering. Believing that there is much more to our existence than meets the eye, he says: 'No one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.' In Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, Frankl explores our sometimes unconscious desire for inspiration or revelation. He explains how we can create meaning for ourselves and, ultimately, he reveals how life has more to offer us than we could ever imagine.

Viktor Frankl is known to millions of readers as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometime unconscious human desire for inspiration or revelation, and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.

Emphasizing spiritual values and the quest for meaning in life in its approach to the neurotic behavior, by the founder of logotherapy.