The meaning of Man's Search For Meaning - Essay Example

The "meaning" of Man's Search For Meaning Through ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, psychiatrist andneurologist Victor Frankl argues that every man possesses an intrinsic yet originally unconscious inclination to set out on a quest for his life’s meaning. Since this search at first is not recognized or discerned in its significance, V. Frankl proposes an intervention by a counselor to facilitate an individual with treatment known as logotherapy, according to an existentialist doctrine that ‘meaning’ of life is one’s own driving force in living, so he can be guided to acquire the ‘will to meaning’.

By citing concrete instances of his excruciating encounters of ruthlessness and inhumanity in the concentration camp, Victor had been able to identify how psychological reactions by way of depersonalization can lead to extreme depression or disillusionment especially when the person is chiefly bounded by the earlier perceptions of a society set before him. Based upon his response to personal experience however, Victor managed to transform or deflect from such course of influence and opted to move borders of narrow psychological realization onto the freedom of choice which eventually brought him to an acquaintance of spiritual faith in understanding that there certainly is a reason for every existing occurrence.

This principle granted him an access to relief from distress as it literally took place that, beyond any necessary contempt for the oppressors, he even claimed justification for the human roles played during their deplorable situation. As such, on stating ‘After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright’ he meant to dissolve the idea behind the prevailing inequality and injustice. Human functions are unique and each man is made of his own set of weaknesses.

Similarly, it is to rationalize that no one stands with true superiority or inferiority when a man, in a way, reflects the other in an association where people derive an effect of deed or capacity from one another so Victor’s reference to ‘that being’ in speaking of a man makes no ample distinction from the rest of his kind. V. Frankl suggests in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ that it is possible for a man to reach an extent of gaining control over circumstances once the ‘meaning’ is found and as he chooses to dwell in constant faith and not be impacted by the external conditions.

A man of faith who through logotherapy fully understands and appreciates the essence in the established ‘meaning’ hence, would not easily fall into self-pity, fits of rage, anxiety, or any other forms of adverse human nature. He need not be confined within psychotherapeutic settings with utilization of scientific tools for as long as his inner hold of himself works to sustain the current wisdom and strength contained in the valued meaning of life or the person’s worth while in the world.

At a point, V. Frankl confesses to thinking and yearning to figure how his wife in distant segregation was doing. Around that time, he should have had sufficient grip on the ‘meaning’ for him to allow deeper comprehension of reasons or purpose for being separated from his loved one which now, by a renewed viewpoint, had barely anything to do with the iniquities of the ones comprising the Nazis or the ‘Capo’. Without blaming or bearing caustic judgment at all against the general hostilities of the wicked people, philosophies, and doings, V.

Frankl unearthed having conceived: ‘The salvation of man is through love and in love.’ The propensity to determine that there is something higher or far more essential to the life, happenings, and discoveries in this world had remained in the convictions of V. Frankl during those times at the death camp. With the profound belief in the power of ‘meaning’, one learns to positively cope by shifting paradigm or reversing perspective about a desperate situation. This way, even if the physical body is enslaved and under painful torture or infliction, the mind is liberated from the torments causing anxiety and every other source of fear comes to nothing because the ‘meaning’ is opulently larger in focus.