Counselor Guide· a Bicycle Guide

Partial book profile

Man's Search for Meaning

A Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist argues that the deepest human drive is the search for meaning, which can be found under any conditions—even the most horrific—through the freedom to choose one's attitude toward suffering.

The full book profile is not available yet.

Get the book →

What it’s about

Part harrowing memoir of survival in Nazi concentration camps and part introduction to a school of psychotherapy called logotherapy, Man's Search for Meaning distills a single load-bearing insight: that everything can be taken from a person except the last of the human freedoms—the freedom to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. Drawing on his experiences in Auschwitz and other camps, and on decades of clinical practice, Viktor Frankl shows that those who found a 'why' to live could bear almost any 'how,' and that meaning is available through work, love, and the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The book reorients readers away from the pursuit of happiness and toward responsibility, self-transcendence, and the concrete tasks life sets before each individual—offering not a formula for comfort but a challenge to live meaningfully.

The through-line

Who it’s for
A person confronting suffering, emptiness, or the question of what makes life worth living, who wants a durable sense of meaning and purpose.
The problem
Life presents unavoidable suffering, loss, uncertainty, and eventually death, along with circumstances one cannot control. The reader feels an inner emptiness, boredom, or despair—an 'existential vacuum'—and doubts whether life has any meaning.
The plan
  1. Recognize that the will to meaning, not pleasure or power, is your deepest drive.
  2. Accept that you cannot always control circumstances, but you can always choose your attitude toward them.
  3. Find meaning through creating work or doing a deed, through experiencing or loving someone, and through the stance you take toward unavoidable suffering.
  4. Stop asking what you expect from life and instead answer what life expects from you by taking responsible action.
  5. Live as if living for the second time, treating each moment as an opportunity to actualize meaning.
The payoff
A life felt to be meaningful and purposeful under any circumstances. · The inner strength to endure suffering with dignity and even transform it into achievement. · Freedom from the existential vacuum, boredom, and despair.

See our guide

Related profiles we’ve built

Featured in these guides

Co-cited books