Victor Frankl’s memoir intimately chronicles the daily experiences of his captivity in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. The camps he was in were not the largest, most notorious camps, but the smaller ones where multitudes of Jews were imprisoned and sent to their deaths. The themes of suffering, death, survival and hope dominate in a gripping recount of this tragic historical event. Frankl’s accounts depict the ways in which he psychologically and spiritually survived in an environment where many people gave up hope. The ones who gave up hope were the first ones to die. In this memoir, he models the theory he created, Logotherapy, in his accounts of daily events in the concentration camps. This book also includes a thorough summary of Logotherapy.

 

This book has made me a better counselor because it highlights the quest for meaning in the human experience. I feel as if I have engaged in a multicultural experience by witnessing, through Frankl’s memoirs, what it is like to exist when your very life is always at stake and basic living conditions are inhumane. Military personnel around the world serve in situations of prolonged, life threatening stress, and survivors of child abuse may also have experienced life as a daily struggle for survival. I take from this book the importance of helping survivors of traumatic stress develop meaning in life in the present moment. Frankl has emphasized to me how clients can benefit by working on their present perceptions of meaning.