Embracing hope, p.1
Embracing Hope, page 1
ALSO BY VIKTOR E. FRANKL
Man’s Search for Meaning
Yes to Life in Spite of Everything
CONTENTS
Foreword by Alexander Vesely-Frankl
Introduction by Dr. Tobias Esch
Note from the Publisher
ONE Meaning and Responsibility in the Face of Transience
Conquering Transience
TWO Ways of Finding Meaning
Man Alive—Viktor Frankl
THREE The Crisis of Meaning and the Zeitgeist
Collective Neuroses
FOUR Freedom and Responsibility
Existential Analysis and the Problems of Our Times
About Viktor E. Frankl
Further Works by Viktor E. Frankl
About the Viktor Frankl Institute
FOREWORD
My grandfather Viktor Frankl was a cheerful and loving man, dedicated to his role as a medical doctor. He possessed a genuine curiosity about people and their stories, finding joy in the little things life had to offer. However, he could display moments of grumpiness and impatience, particularly if bothered by trivial matters, especially before his first cup of coffee or if anyone disturbed the meticulously arranged papers on his desktop. Nevertheless, on the rare occasion his temper flared, he was quick to apologize.
In addition to his endearing qualities, he had a knack for injecting humor into situations by sharing silly jokes. He had a penchant for spoiling his grandchildren with trips to the fairground, firmly believing that the responsibility of imparting discipline did not fall within the purview of a grandparent. Moreover, seeking his advice was a privilege I enjoyed daily, without the need for an appointment. Observing him, one might have assumed he had encountered few bad days in his life. To me, he embodied the archetype of what one envisions in a grandfather.
When I was nineteen years old, my sister and I received an invitation to deliver the opening message at a conference on logotherapy, his meaning-centered approach to mental health, which he had developed during his early days as a doctor. At eighty-eight years old and grappling with a deteriorating heart condition, he was advised against flying. In light of this, my sister and I took on the responsibility, intending to read a greeting message and engage with the audience.
On the flight to Toronto, eagerly anticipating the upcoming event, I delved into Man’s Search for Meaning for the first time, in which he recounted his experiences in the Holocaust. On that day, the realization hit me: my grandfather had traversed hell and returned. This revelation sparked a cascade of questions in my mind, starting with this: How could someone who had been dehumanized, beaten, nearly starved to death, and permanently separated from loved ones remain the humorous, life-affirming person I knew?
Contemplating his journey, I wondered about the thoughts that occupied his mind when he had to relinquish everything that had sustained him: the hope of reuniting with his wife, mother, and brother. How did he resist becoming a shattered, embittered man? Returning to a war-ravaged Vienna, he described the situation as more challenging than his time in the actual camps. There, he wrote in Man’s Search, the primary goal was clear: survive for the chance to be reunited with loved ones. Now, he faced the void of losing his “why”—that driving force of life. In those days, many who endured similar fates succumbed to overwhelming loss by ending their own lives, a choice he too contemplated. Instead, he clung to the only meaningful tasks he could conceive: resuming his work as a doctor and as a writer, as well as aiding those in need by remaining true to his motto: “It’s not about what we expect from life, but what life expects from us.”
As a nineteen-year-old, I felt my own problems of failed exams and relationship breakups paled in significance compared to my grandfather’s unimaginable tribulations and profound experiences. After all, what were my minor setbacks in comparison with his? How fortunate I was not to have to grapple with far more substantial challenges.
In the early 1950s, he received his first invitation to lecture before a group of US psychiatrists. After the presentation, the host approached him with a curious observation: “Dr. Frankl, did you notice that the people seemed a little distant, even cold?” To this, my grandfather replied in the affirmative. The host then probed, “Aren’t you wondering why that is the case?” Frankl offered his assumption, “Well, I assume the majority of the audience are psychoanalysts, and my methods differ significantly from their ideas.” However, the host countered, “That is true, but it’s not the reason.” Puzzled, my grandfather inquired, “So what is it?” The host explained, “You see, doctor, you went through terrible suffering, surviving Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Türkheim, almost dying and losing almost everyone you loved. You suffered gravely and you have overcome it. They didn’t. The reason is envy.”
This revelation startled my grandfather, prompting him to reflect. He then articulated something he would often express thereafter, a sentiment only someone with that kind of history could utter: “Everyone has their own Auschwitz.” By this, he conveyed the idea that suffering is not comparable between individuals. Regardless of how small one’s worst moment may seem in comparison to another’s, it remains the most challenging experience in that person’s life. Life inherently includes suffering, manifested in various ways. Sooner or later, each of us undergoes periods of suffering beyond our control, whether linked to the loss of cherished things, illness, or the death of a beloved person. Sometimes, suffering arises from guilt, a consequence of a wrong decision and the ensuing accountability. Regardless of the unique causes and experiences of suffering, the overall impact is similar.
My grandfather imparted to me the insight that there are various ways to confront the pain of inevitable suffering. Finding meaning in adversity, such as viewing a negative experience as a lesson in life, transforms the endured pain into something purposeful. His own painful encounters with suffering enabled him to become more adept at offering assistance or solace to those in despair—those who, like him, struggled to perceive meaning in their lives.
Many inquire about how I learned from my grandfather, how he taught me. Remarkably, he did not rely on verbal instruction; instead, he embodied his teachings. Through simple observation, I, like anyone close to him, learned. He placed unwavering trust in my capacity to make choices, just as he trusted his own. I often pondered how, after all he endured, he maintained such profound faith in others. Who could have faulted him for harboring a lack of trust in fellow human beings? The answer lies in his perspective on human nature. According to him, no one is entirely good or evil; as human beings, we embody both capacities and possess the freedom to choose between them.
Following the voice of conscience, he believed, might not be the easiest path, often leading in a direction distinct from the majority. During World War II, while many who were not declared enemies opted to blindly conform, there were also those exceptional few who, upon recognizing the grave injustices and atrocities surrounding them, stood up for what their conscience dictated. In most cases, they paid the highest price. One may contemplate whether humankind has evolved since then. What injustices and cruelties persist in today’s world, accepted or ignored by the majority? Who are the individuals listening to their conscience, resisting the urge to merely “fit in”? These questions remain poignant and relevant reflections on the nature of humanity.
In 1988, a significant event marked the fiftieth anniversary of Austria’s annexation into Nazi Germany, and my grandfather was invited to speak. Addressing the gathering, he reflected on the “race-madness” of the Nazis, who categorized human beings based on ethnicity. With pointed emphasis, he stated that, in his lifetime, he had encountered only two distinct “races” of humans—a term he enclosed in quotation marks. According to his perspective, within every nation, political party, or group, one could find two “races” of people: the decent and the indecent. He maintained that decent individuals, constituting a perpetual minority, would likely remain so. Consequently, the potential for another Holocaust existed universally and at any given time.
Responding to a reporter’s question about his seemingly pessimistic view of human nature, Frankl clarified that his statement was neither pessimistic nor optimistic but rather “activistic.” Emphasizing the importance of each person striving to be among the minority of “decent” individuals, he asserted that decency or indecency is purely a matter of personal choice. Rejecting divisive categorizations based on ethnicity, age, gender, or religion, he underscored the unity of one humankind. Peace, he contended, could prevail when individuals recognized this and came together in a shared commitment to a common meaning.
Reflecting on the twenty-three years I spent in close proximity to one of the great minds of the twentieth century, I am grateful for the opportunity to have witnessed and learned from him—to see how life consistently presents opportunities to discover and fulfill meaning. Whether through our contributions to the world, the creations we manifest, the experiences we undergo, such as love, or the attitudes we adopt during challenging times, life poses new questions and confronts us with opportunities and challenges, both significant and trivial. Our responses to these moments shape our journey—whether we perceive ourselves merely as victims of life’s circumstances or as co-creators, whether we take blessings for granted or express gratitude for what we possess.
Frankl’s decision to persevere after 1945, driven largely by the desire to share his insights into the human condition, has allowed readers like you, and readers all over the world, to benefit from them. I am glad my grand father had much time after the war to put his thoughts on paper, enabling the rediscovery and translation of new texts, including those you are about to read. In my view, his insights have endured the test of time and remain as relevant today as ever. Confronted with that notion, he would likely just have smiled and quipped: “I guess my work can never be out of fashion because it was never in fashion.”
—ALEXANDER VESELY-FRANKL
Vienna, January 2024
INTRODUCTION
People have been fascinated by Viktor E. Frankl for decades, me included. In the United States, where I worked as a scientist for several years, his works were “must-reads.” The Library of Congress (the de facto national library of the USA) lists his book Man’s Search for Meaning as one of the ten most influential books in history. Scientists and academics, commentators and artists, politicians and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, regularly mention his works as being some of the most important books that we should all read in our lives. I believe the same may be true of this book in the future.
Viktor E. Frankl was one of the outstanding figures of the twentieth century. Born in Vienna in 1905, he first obtained a doctorate in medicine and later neurology (becoming a professor at Vienna University, with guest professorships at Harvard, among others) and made a lasting and multifaceted impression on almost the entire twentieth century, far beyond the realm of medicine. In doing so, in his personal actions and creativity, he conquered the darker sides, as well as the less dark aspects of his century, as well as expounding on what was to become his life’s work: The search for meaning, for what makes us truly human. The question of how freedom of spirit and of action can prevail even under extreme conditions. How free will and genuine dignity, including the responsibility that is bound up with them—even how a confrontation with suffering and with one’s own mortality—can be transcended to attain inner growth and meaning.
Frankl describes us human beings as successful “conquerors of transience.” And as early as 1946, assigns to us a “planetary responsibility.” He was way ahead of his time, and today would most certainly be a popular talk-show guest, social media star or influencer.
Viktor E. Frankl grew up as part of the Jewish community in Austria and later lost almost his entire family in the Holocaust. When, as a result of the liberation, he finally returned to Vienna—after he had endured four different Nazi concentration camps (including Theresienstadt and Auschwitz)—there was no longer anyone left to welcome him. All the people he loved had been gassed or tortured to death, including his wife, his parents and his brother.
Why go on living? As Frankl himself described, he decided at that point that he would not kill himself for the time being. At the very least, he wanted to “reconstruct” his first book, Ärztliche Seelsorge (The Doctor and the Soul), which he had written before the Second World War, and which was then published in 1946. In other words, he wanted to re-evaluate the experiences he had lived through. This is how his highly influential work . . . trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen (Man’s Search for Meaning) subsequently came into being. This is different from the way the story is usually told—namely, that he did not ask himself the big question about humankind’s search for meaning until during his periods of incarceration in the concentration camps, and therefore that the most important work of his life was “wrenched” out of him by the horror he experienced. In fact, Frankl later confirmed that he had conceived all his ideas beforehand and had already written down much of the material. In this way, in his own words, he had made himself into a “proof of concept”—he was living proof: he saw his own suffering, and his growth as a result of this suffering, as confirmation of the hypotheses that he had developed before the Holocaust.
FRANKL’S WORK—TIMELESS, CONSTANTLY INSPIRING
The texts in this book are unique and fascinating. They span a period of forty years and provide a good overview of Frankl’s oeuvre. They also give a direct insight into his original thinking, his character and the way he was able to transform his own experiences into meaning. It is striking how early and how completely his hypotheses were formulated in all their clarity, which has allowed them to stay more or less stable over the decades, right up to today. His ideas have been developed but have not been fundamentally called into question.
At the same time, when reading this book, we discover, perhaps with some astonishment, just how far ahead of his time Frankl was; or, if we change our perspective, how we human beings hardly seem to have evolved or changed since then. In other words: today, Frankl’s work seems more relevant and more important than ever.
This book contains four texts, including a 1955 article from the medical journal Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (“Collective Neuroses”); a 1977 transcribed interview with Frankl from the Canadian TV program Man Alive (“Man Alive—Viktor Frankl”); a lecture from the Franco-Austrian university meeting of 1946 (“Existential Analysis and the Problems of Our Times”); and a lecture that Frankl gave at Dornbirn, Austria, in 1984 (“Conquering Transience”). Although much has been written, reported and spoken about Frankl, the above texts contain surprising new material, as well as exciting references to cutting-edge research questions and transdisciplinary trends in science.
Hence, it appears that Frankl is still at the forefront of his field, and his views are to this day often breathtaking.
VIEWING FRANKL’S WORK FROM TODAY’S PERSPECTIVE
I would like to highlight three aspects that particularly engaged and inspired me while reading these four pieces. They illustrate the topical nature of Frankl’s work, as well as its relationship to contemporary science.
First, how do we deal with our own mortality? In the knowledge that death means the end—in other words, under the threat of nothingness, in the inevitable and final emptiness that awaits and surrounds us—how can we still find meaning?
In this context, Frankl evokes Aristotle’s concept of eudaemonia: the fact that human beings achieve their life’s work through their own innate way of leading their lives or indeed by simply existing—this in itself creates meaning. In other words, as we get older, we may experience an increasing sense of “reward,” in the form of feelings of gratitude and fulfilment. Based on my own research as a neuroscientist, I would like to add that, as we go through life, our brain’s own internal reward system increasingly rewards us with feelings of contentment and joy.
To illustrate his point, Frankl also used the image of a hayloft or barn into which, as the annual farming cycle draws to a close—at the time of the harvest festival and thanksgiving but ultimately over the course of our whole life—we store the fruits of our labor. Outside, we perhaps see only the harvested fields and the forlorn stubble from the cut crops, but on the inside, abundance reigns. Here Frankl brings in the idea of the successful “conquest of transience.” Thus, people become the producers of their own past. Life comes toward us from the front and passes through us—in a sense, we are constantly plowing along its path—so that true meaning lies not before us, but around us and behind us. What we have created—our legacy—is our enduring manifestation, the true realization of ourselves, which no one can ever take away from us. In this sense, we are winners through the very act of living, which is how we continuously create meaning and significance.
This view also reminds me of the contemporary philosopher Wilhelm Schmid, who counteracted a fear of death (more precisely, a fear of meaninglessness and emptiness) by concluding that individually we can derive meaning and significance from the very fact that we are alive—that we embody a unique possibility chosen from the endless possibilities of life.
At this point, in our own model, the neurobiology of happiness, we have described what we call “Type C happiness”—a deep sense of joy and contentment, a feeling of arriving or having arrived, of no longer wanting things or having to do things. This occurs when people look at their lives with gratitude and a sense of connectedness—connected with themselves as well as with future generations. When you can detect a legacy or an “inner knowledge” and you feel responsible for preserving it, when your focus is no longer on becoming but on having and handing on, that is when inner peace reigns and emptiness or nothingness no longer seem to bother us (well, hardly).
