Man’s Search for Meaning

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By Viktor E. Frankl
Foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald
(1998)

A discussion guide is included in recent printings.

From the horrors of his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps, Frankl achieved an insight into human nature that actually saved his life in the camps and that he later expanded into his psychological school of logotherapy. This insight is that the search for meaning in life is the prime motivational force for human beings—and an absolute essential for their mental health. This Reading excerpts his acclaimed book on the subject, a modern classic that tells the very personal and courageous story of his fight for existence and meaning in the midst of absolute brutality and evil.

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his sufferings as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge that fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

Category: Readings (No. 21)

For many, the evil in the world overshadows the good, obscures it, and even causes its denial. But it is the fact of joy that is the real mystery of our being.

James V. Schall, S.J., On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, xiv