Man’s Search for Meaning

Viktor Frankl’s 1946 book combines an account of his imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps with an introduction to logotherapy, his approach to finding meaning in life.

Logotherapy: A form of psychotherapy developed by Viktor Frankl that centers on the search for meaning. The book presents this approach through Frankl’s account of camp life.
Auschwitz concentration camp: The largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex, located in occupied Poland. Frankl was imprisoned in Auschwitz before transfer to other camps.
Psychoanalysis: A theory and therapeutic method that explores unconscious mental processes and conflicts. Frankl contrasts its emphasis on pleasure with logotherapy’s focus on meaning.
Viktor Frankl: An Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who founded logotherapy and wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. His life and clinical ideas supply the memoir’s two intertwined subjects.
Man’s Search for Meaning in popular culture: The book’s reception and influence beyond clinical psychology and Holocaust studies. Its lasting readership made Frankl’s ideas widely known outside professional settings.
Existential vacuum: A sense of emptiness associated with frustration of the human search for meaning. Frankl uses this idea to describe distress beyond the circumstances of imprisonment.
Theresienstadt Ghetto: A Nazi ghetto and concentration camp in the present-day Czech Republic. Frankl’s family was deported to Theresienstadt, part of the history behind his account.
Individual psychology: Alfred Adler’s psychological approach, emphasizing striving, social interest, and feelings of inferiority. Frankl’s account distinguishes his meaning-centered approach from Adler’s theory of striving.
1946: A year in the Gregorian calendar. The book first appeared in German in 1946, shortly after Frankl’s liberation.
Post-traumatic growth: Positive psychological change that some people report after struggling with highly challenging life events. Frankl’s account is often connected to growth through adversity, though it does not claim suffering guarantees growth.

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Life (human existence)Broader topic: It examines how meaning and suffering intersect within a life under extreme conditions.