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What Does Man's Search For Meaning Mean

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Man's Search for Meaning Paper In his novel “Man's Search for Meaning” Victor Frankl relates his experiences of being imprisoned in multiple concentration camps during the Second World War. He also gives a brief overview of his existential therapy logotherapy. Frankl was a psychiatrist trained in Freud’s theories before he was imprisoned in the concentration camps under the Nazi regime. Their he started observing his own and fellow prisoners behaviour and continued working on his theory that developed into logotherapy. Logotherapy concerns itself with a human's need to find meaning within their lives. Frankl believes it is vital for a human to find meaning in their life. He would often observe that those people that lost their meaning in life, while imprisoned in the concentration camps, would wither away due to their lost will to life (Frankl, 1984). …show more content…

This would require the person to concentrate on their future. However many of Freud's theory is based on a person's past experiences. This does not apply to Frankl's understanding of human nature and their will to find meaning within their lives. He also believes that every humans has their own personal meaning in life and that therefore not one universal truth exists about the meaning in people's lives. This also was not compatible with Freud’s theory since he tried to understand the collective reason for human behaviour. Therefore Frankl developed his own theory to match the observations he made and his believe on human

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