Rating: 
Summary: Superb
Review: Frankl's imperative is:
"Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"
Nothing more needs to be said.
Rating:
Summary: Meaning for life found in a Concentration Camp
Review: I've read numerous books on philosophy and psychology, but of all the books I've read, I would say that this book should be compulsory reading for everyone. Not only does he explore the basic psychological motivation and purpose of our existence, he does it in an unusual way, by describing his own experiences at Auschwitz under Nazi occupation.
By giving insight into human behaviour in its most vulnerable and exposed state, he provides us with an insight into our own psyches.
It's also a reminder of the extraordinary evil that men can do with very little incentive. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: concentration camps?
Review: Bob
Book ReviewMans Search for Meaning by: Viktor Frankl This book is broken down into two parts. The first of which is a real life experience about being in a concentration camp in World War II. The second analyzing what went on and how he used his knowledge to help himself and others. He breaks down how many people acted and reacted to the gruesomeness of what he saw in the camps. He says that there are three stages of the mind in the concentration camp. The first being when you first get there, second being when you get into the work schedule, the third being when you get released. The first revolves around realizing that life is over, as you know it to be. The second is just a repetition of doing and putting up with what the German soldiers and Capo do to them. The third revolves to being numb to happiness and not being able to be happy because everything and everyone you knew was gone. This reaction was caused by being in a deep depression or posttraumatic stress disorder. He describes helping people to find hope for something, a will to live. In the second part of the book he describes that the meaning of life for anyone person changes at any point in time. That we need to find our own meaning and that he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. I loved the first part of the book about his personal experiences but failed to understand most of the second half of the book. I would recommend this book to everyone who is looking for a meaning in life.
Rating:
Summary: a great book, i love it
Review: Just hearing about his time in Concentration Camp was very inspiring and amazing. Even in those conditions, those who found meaning and future in their suffering were able to live. I like how he puts it, If you break your neck, don't let it break you. CASE FOR: I was very impressed with a lot of the information he provided, my favorite is on success. The whole book unfolds beautifully. He touches up fear, love, sexuality and clears up some of the distorted views, explaining why we miss certain targets in life. CASE AGAINST: his answer to man's meaning is no true meaning at all. He provided example of a man who thought he was going to be released on a certain date, and so he lived for that date. But when it didn't happen, he got sick and died. So he was saying how we need a meaning, a goal in life. He was pointing how we each have an earthly meaning to fulfill. But that example contradicts him and proves how foolish it is to put a meaning in earthly things, here today and gone tomorrow. And when they disappear, so does your meaning to life. Yes, man creates a meaning to life, but just like everything else man builds, it is temporary and deadly
Rating:
Summary: I learned that every bad experience can be overcome
Review: I read this book during the weekend. I had to write a report on it for psychology class in college, and the book was presented in such a way that I could not put it down. It's a good book for detailed account and experience for one person at the concentration camp, and it also helps teach that at some point no matter how bad an experience one undergoes, you have to learn from it and move on. I have to admit that I think this book changed me since the time I read it 10 years ago. I have become more adaptive to negative and extreneous situations. It's the only book in college that I really completely read and enjoyed. I commend Dr. Frankl for writting this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Psychotherapy Thoughts: Circa 1946, then 1984
Review: I realize that this book probably has historical significance for the field of psychotherapy. Parts One (Concentration Camp) and Two (Logotherapy) were originally published in Austria in 1946. The author, apparently a distinguished psychiatrist, spent three years in Nazi concentration camps when he was in his late 30s. His education was circa 1920s-30s, at the University of Vienna (Freudian influences certainly abounded at that time.) From a 2003 (and a layperson's) perspective, this book touches upon many ideas, and not in a particularly concise or unified way. These ideas, from my perspective, are often the embryonic stages and "seeds" of thought often more specifically and fully expressed in future and current psychology. Interestingly, he questions pure Freudian theory--maybe this was fairly novel in 1946. Self actualization, self-transcendence, finding an authentic self are ideas later espoused by Maslow, Dr. Phil MacGraw, and other psychologists. Perhaps the book would have been more effective for me if I had read it in 1946, but I wasn't born yet. I believe the best audience for it in 2003 are psychologists/psychiatrists--there are ideas/"seeds" for graduate students to expound upon and develop. I much prefer The Diary of Ann Frank, or The Pianist, in terms of artfulness and my developing empathy for the characters, than Frankl's somewhat detached professional espousal of Holocaust atrocities. A dated, sometimes rambling discourse. The 1984 postscript seems "cobbled onto" the original. There are 40 pages of bibliography that append the book-is this included for his
professional audience? Not uninteresting, but not worth revisiting.
Rating:
Summary: Everything You Need Know About This Book: Absolute Genius.
Review: Read the other lengthy reviews for detail.
Rating:
Summary: The deepest
Review: The most moving books I've read have been this book, The power of now, Love, The Little Guide To Happiness, and believe it or not, Oh the places you'll go. Now, this one. Excellent.
Rating:
Summary: WOW, heavy and important and peaceful......
Review: I was given this book by a psych. that knew Dr. Frankl's son. It was so 'heavy' that I read it over and over and over. Not ony were the quotes so deep that I still quote them to others in 'need' to this day. I keep my old book in my emergency kit - it's very important to me in times of crisis - including our annual wildfire evacuations. Perhaps it's because I AM Jewish, but, I really understood, found depth in life and understanding. It also calmed my anxieties on death to a certain extent as well, something I have a hard time dealing with, mortality. What a brillant man, to not only survive a true living hell, but to rise above and become such a great person, author, doctor!! May heaven have that special place for him where he can now find all his loved ones. amber, 41
Colorado
Rating:
Summary: Might be the most important book you ever read.
Review: If you were assigned to read this book in school years ago, maybe you can't remember what all the fuss is about. At last count, 152 Amazon reviewers gave this book an average of 5 stars. It is undoubtably on the short list for "Books that Changed My Live" for countless people. I suggest that the real wisdom to be found in this book comes not on the first reading, but upon re-reading (luckily, the book is short and moves quickly, too). All of the self-help books out there, from Deepak Chopra to Stephen Covey to Dr. Phil, are mere twaddle compared to this book. There is more truth and wisdom in one sentence of Frankl than in many volumes of other books. Do yourself a favor and buy this book (and pass a copy on to a friend afterward). You will immediately see positive changes in your life. And don't be dissuaded by the context, believe it or not, this is a life-affirming book that happens to take place in a concentration camp.
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