* Von Eckartsberg (1932–1993) was a professor of social psychology and hermeneutic phenomenology.

  * Polak (1933–2019) was a psychiatrist and entrepreneur.

  * Elisabeth Lukas, Psychologische Seelsorge. Logotherapie—die Wende zu einer menschenwürdigen Psychologie [Psychological Pastoral Care. Logotherapy—the turning point towards a humane psychology], Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2 editions 1985–1988; new edition: 2 editions 1993–1996. Completely revised new edition under the title Rendezvous mit dem Leben. Ermutigungen für die Zukunft [Rendezvous with Life. Encouragements for the Future], Verlag Kösel, Munich, 3 editions 2000–2006. Reissued under the same title by Verlagsgemeinschaft topos plus, Kevelaer, 2 editions 2015–2016.

  2

  Ways of Finding Meaning

  The following text, “Man Alive—Viktor Frankl,” is the transcript of an interview that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation conducted with Viktor E. Frankl in 1977 on the television show Man Alive.* The interviewer was Roy Bonisteel. In it, Frankl vividly explores the question of meaning, and what role suffering can play, in relation to his concentration camp experiences, although suffering does not necessarily need to play such a role, since it is not a pre-condition for meaning.

  MAN ALIVE—VIKTOR FRANKL

  ROY BONISTEEL: Dr. Frankl, you spent three years in four concentration camps during the war. Can you describe to me how you found meaning in life, how you found life worthwhile after that kind of experience?

  FRANKL: My American publishers circulated the story that I came out of Auschwitz with a new brand of psychotherapy, with a new system or the like. There is a mistake involved: I entered Auschwitz with my first book’s full-length manuscript hidden in my pocket. And in this very manuscript—which later was published in America under the title The Doctor and the Soul—I developed the idea of the unconditional meaningfulness of life. So, the idea that life is meaningful and remains meaningful under any conditions was something I had got prior to my concentration camp experiences. So I might say, this idea, this conviction of the unconditional meaningfulness of life was retained, it survived the camp experience, it is still a conviction, in spite of the suffering and all the dying around us in the concentration camp. And the concentration camp itself was serving, functioning, in a sense, merely as a testing ground to confirm—experientially and experimentally as it were—the justification of my conviction.

  BONISTEEL: So, it confirmed your conviction. But you saw people in there who obviously didn’t have meaning in their lives? Tell me about the ones who survived and the ones who were different—how did it confirm your theory?

  FRANKL: The lesson you could learn in Auschwitz and in other concentration camps, in the final analysis, was: those who were oriented toward a meaning, toward a meaning to be fulfilled by them in the future, were most likely to survive. And this has been confirmed afterwards by American Navy and Army psychiatrists—in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, in North Korean prisoner-of-war camps, recently in North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps. At US International University in San Diego, California, last year during the winter term, when I was serving on the faculty, as it happened, I met those three American officers who had been for the longest period of time in North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps—up to about seven years. And we improvisingly set up a panel; and they really confirmed what I had said in my report on the concentration camp experience, Man’s Search for Meaning, they reconfirmed it in essence: that the orientation towards the future—towards a task, a personal task, waiting for them to be fulfilled in their future; or another person whom they were loving, to be met again, to be reunited with again in the future—this was what was decisively upholding these people. The question was not just survival, but there had to be a why of survival. The question was survival for what; unless there was something or someone, a personal cause for whose sake to survive, survival was scarcely possible.

  BONISTEEL: Most of us have never been in the concentration camp experience. We’ve never had to go through that horror and tragedy and so one would think that today, it would be easier to find meaning in life—and yet, I sense that it’s more difficult, in a sense, today than it was in years past. Do you think that?

  FRANKL: You are absolutely right.

  BONISTEEL: Why is that?

  FRANKL: Because we are living in a society—either in terms of an affluent society or in terms of a welfare state as we in Austria are living in—anyway, these types of societies virtually satisfy, or at least they are out to satisfy and gratify, each and every human need, except for one need—the most basic and fundamental need operant in man: the need for meaning. Consumer societies, they are even creating needs, but the need for meaning—or, as I call it, the will to meaning—remains unfulfilled. It is what I now call the unheard cry for meaning.

  On the one hand, society is frustrating man’s will to meaning; on the other hand, psychology is neglecting this fact. If you go through the current motivation theories, you will find scarcely any reference to what is the most fundamental and basic concern of man: neither pleasure nor happiness, nor power nor prestige, but originally and basically his wish, his desire to find and fulfil a meaning in his life or, for that matter, in each single life situation confronting him. And if there is a meaning to fulfil, if he is aware, if he becomes cognizant of such a meaning, then he is ready to suffer, he is ready to offer sacrifices, he is ready to undergo tension, stress and so forth—without any harm being done to his health.

  But if there is no meaning available, no meaning in his visual field, then he takes his life. I was recently confronted with the statistics from an American university, regarding 60 students who had tried to commit suicide . . .

  BONISTEEL: Very high . . .

  FRANKL: They were screened afterwards psychologically, and it turned out that 85 percent told the doctors the reason for their attempt was that they couldn’t find a meaning in life. And among them, 93 percent were psychologically and physically healthy, in good family relationships, in good economic conditions, and with satisfying academic records and grades and so forth.

  BONISTEEL: This is what I hear. I spend quite a bit of time with young people, in their teenage years, and a lot of them say they’re just simply bored. They’re bored with school, they’re bored with their parents, they’re bored with life, and what—I guess you would say, what is the meaning of life?

  FRANKL: Neither parents nor school teachers are courageous enough to challenge them: don’t arouse tensions, don’t create tensions; don’t put stress on them. But even Hans Selye,* the man in Montreal who created the concept of stress, recently has published a paper in which he says stress is the salt of life; man needs tensions. I would say, more cautiously, that what he needs is a sound amount of tension. Not too much tension, not too little tension, but a dosage, a sound healthy dosage of tension, such as that tension which is established in a polar field in which one pole is represented by a man and the other pole by that unique and specific meaning which is waiting for him to be fulfilled by him, and exclusively by him.

  BONISTEEL: So, we shouldn’t be too upset about all the stresses and anxieties in our life. We shouldn’t . . . well, presume I come and say, “Look, Doctor, how do I deal with all the anxieties and stress of my life?”

  FRANKL: Can you imagine a situation for a human being which is more full of stress than Auschwitz? And yet virtually all neurotic symptomatology disappeared in Auschwitz. And the degree to which suicide took place, in Auschwitz and Dachau, was astonishingly low, according to whoever wrote books—psychiatrists writing books on the psychology and psychopathology of concentration camp life.

  And on the other hand, in the welfare state of Austria, a teacher showed me a list of questions his students were allowed to ask him, written up without any inhibition, without giving their names, absolutely anonymously. And the spectrum of questions ranged from the question, “Does life exist on other planets or not?” up to drug addiction, sexual problems and so forth. And you know what was top ranking on the list, as to the frequency of the questions? Suicide! Among youngsters of 14 to 15 years of age, in a welfare state such as Austria—suicide! There were virtually no stress or tensions, because they are pampered, nobody allows himself to challenge them. What young people need are ideals and challenges, personal tasks and—in the first place—examples, personal examples; but not the cowards, the cowardly people who don’t venture to confront them with anything because they might become angry because they are challenged.

  BONISTEEL: I did an interview last year with Metropolitan Anthony [Bloom, Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church] of London, and he said exactly the same thing as you’re saying. He was a doctor during the war, and he treated survivors of concentration camps. He had had a very rough life. And he said the only time in his life, his personal life, he ever considered suicide was later on, when he became rather well-off and affluent.

  FRANKL: This is well-known. I have compared this to deep-sea fish, which, when they are brought up to the surface of the sea, are “deformalized” as it were. And this is also the greatest danger to divers—they must very slowly be brought up to an area of less tension, of less pressure. It is well-known among neurologists and psychiatrists that placing too-high demands on people is less dangerous than placing too few demands on them. People are today not “overdemanded,” they are “underdemanded.”

  BONISTEEL: Another thing that occurs to me, though, is that we can always find meaning in some of the traditional institutions we have going for us, the church, for example, or the family. And these institutions seem to be diminishing. They have less importance, it seems to me, in our lives today. And this would frustrate our search for meaning, it seems.

  FRANKL: You are right in several respects. First of all, what I have described already 30 years ago, and predicted and foreseen, I might say: the emergence—and today the presence—of what I call the existential vacuum; the feeling of meaninglessness; the feeling of emptiness; a sense of futility which now takes the place of inferiority feelings; the existential frustration which now takes the place of sexual frustrations, in contrast to the times of Sigmund Freud. Now, this mass neurosis, meaninglessness, is to be explained, as I see it, mainly in two directions. First, in contrast to an animal, man is not told by drives and instincts what he simply must do. Furthermore, in contrast to man in former times, today he is no longer told by the traditions and traditionally and universally held values what he should do. Now neither knowing what he must do nor what he should do, he sometimes seems no longer to know what he basically wishes to do. And what is the consequence? Either he just wishes to do what other people are doing—this is conformism; or else he just does what other people wish him to do—and this is totalitarianism.

  Now, this is the origin of the existential vacuum. But you see, since traditions are on the wane, traditions are crumbling—not only in the field of religion, but generally—those people who are most affected by this loss of traditional values are naturally the youngsters. And this can be evidenced. There are four tests, logotherapeutic tests, developed by former students of mine. With these you can measure the degree of meaning orientation, the degree of one’s will to meaning dominating one’s life and, on the other hand, also the existential frustration, the frustration of this will to meaning, one’s feeling of meaninglessness. And it was evidenced by several empirically based, statistically based research projects that youngsters, in fact, are most afflicted by the sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. So, you were right on intuitive grounds, as has been tested by my students.

  BONISTEEL: But in terms of our traditional values and our religious institutions on the wane, as we say—can one find meaning in life without a faith in God?

  FRANKL: You see, I said before, there is an unconditional meaningfulness of life. I’ve not yet had an opportunity to buttress . . .

  BONISTEEL: Go ahead.

  FRANKL: . . . this, my personal conviction. But, anticipatingly, I would like to say that meaning can be found by each and every person—also by a person who is not religious. I would concede personally that it is easier to find meaning in life if you are a religious person. But, on the other hand, I would have to add, to push forward immediately by adding, that you cannot command, you cannot order anyone to believe.

  BONISTEEL: I see . . .

  FRANKL: Belief, or faith, must grow within yourself—organically. You have to let it grow; you just shouldn’t contribute to the repression of faith. But in principle each and every person can find a meaning in life. And this again has been empirically corroborated. I have at home a list of 17 authors, people who have written their dissertations on this subject—among them two, as it happens, from the University of Ottawa. And to sum up what has been evidenced empirically by tests and statistics, as I said before, is that meaning can be found by each and every person, irrespective of his age; irrespective of his sex; irrespective of his educational background; irrespective of his IQ; irrespective of his personal character structure or psychological make-up; even irrespective of environment—just think of Auschwitz, of prisons, and of people who are very successful and get bored. And finally, it turned out that meaning is available to man in principle, irrespective of whether or not he is religious—and if he is religious, to which denomination he belongs. And remarkable enough: the last findings I mentioned—for them, we are indebted to priests who were empirically making research in psychological university departments.

  BONISTEEL: Let’s explore just for a moment how we find that meaning. Let’s say that I’m just an average sort of chap, I have never been through the concentration camp, so I haven’t been tested through suffering. For example, I live a very comfortable life; perhaps I don’t have a belief in God, maybe I’m bored with my job, maybe I’m bored with my family. But you say I can still find meaning in my life. And it’s important I find it. Where do I find it? What do I latch on to? I mean, I’m just suggesting we may have viewers who are going through this.

  FRANKL: I have already elaborated on this many times: there are three main avenues, as it were, leading up to meaning fulfilment. The first way, the first road on which you may arrive at meaning to find and to fulfil, is through work, through creating a work or doing a deed. Second, through love, through experiencing someone in his very uniqueness—and this means loving. Love is more than just sex; on the contrary, human sex is more than mere sex—precisely to the extent to which it serves as a bodily incarnation, I may say, a mode of expression, the physical mode of expression of one’s love, of a personal togetherness, of getting hold of another person in his very uniqueness—and seizing the uniqueness of another person is equivalent to, is the very definition of love. And you may enrich your inner life also through experiencing something—culture, nature, art or whatever; through research, through experiencing something or encountering someone in his very uniqueness—in other words, through love. Work and love are the main avenues leading up to meaning. But, if need be, if you are confronted with a fate you no longer can change, if you are confronted, say, with an incurable disease, with an inoperable cancer, even then you may find a meaning. You may even find the deepest possible, the highest conceivable, meaning, because you then have an opportunity to bear witness to the human potential at its best, the most human of all human capacities, which is to turn a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn your predicament into an achievement on the human level. In other words, life is potentially meaningful literally up to one’s last breath, to the last moment. Even in extremis and in ultimis, as the theologians would put it. This means: in extreme life situations—just think of Auschwitz—and up to the last moment. Let me quote no more or less than the title of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s latest book, Death: The Final Stage of Growth.

  So, life is potentially meaningful under any condition. The American Journal of Psychiatry once wrote up a review on a book of mine; and there, you will find this sentence: “Dr. Frankl’s message is the belief, the unconditional faith, in the unconditional meaningfulness of life.” Right, but it’s more than faith. When I was 15 years of age, I got this glimpse, this insight, just intuitively. But, lately, it has been corroborated on firm and solid empirical grounds, through factorial analysis of many thousands of questionnaires, of subjects being screened psychologically, the data being computerized and so forth. So, this is not something philosophical, suspended in the air. These are solid facts, and these are burning problems, problems burning under the fingernails of our youngsters.

  BONISTEEL: So, we can find meaning in three ways, through work, love . . .

  FRANKL: . . . and potentially in suffering. But only in suffering if need be—you remember, I said “if need be.” To shoulder one’s cross unnecessarily, to endure suffering which is unnecessary—this doesn’t yield any meaning. If you can change a situation, you will have to. If a cancer can be treated with surgery, you have to undergo or perform surgery. But after all, man is a mortal being. We have to die, and before dying, we have ineluctably to suffer sometimes—as a medical doctor, I must confess this.

  So, there is certainly no one who is spared unchangeable situations. It could be, perhaps for a couple of months, unemployment—and still, life retains a meaning. In the thirties, at the time of the worldwide economic crisis, I dealt extensively with youngsters caught in unemployment situations, and I found out that unemployment itself is not what was weighing heavily on their souls, but it was the mistake they had fallen prey to: the mistake that having no job means having no meaning, means being useless! And the moment I had these youngsters turn to some organizations—such as Father Tom’s Youth Corps and so forth [in order to work as volunteers, for example]—they had a meaning to fulfil, even without getting one cent, and the depression was gone! In other words, what we need, you see, is not bread alone. And what the unemployed need is not welfare alone, they need a meaning—and a meaning can be found everywhere, in the smallest hut.