Man's Search For Meaning

Read "Man's Search For Meaning", a book written by Viktor Frankl, a famous Austrian psychiatrist. I found this book not only to be revealing horrifying truths but also to be hopeful in a realistic way. A major part of the book describes the psyche of the inmates of Nazi concentration camps, as the author himself had been imprisoned in these concentration camps. From the author's experiences, I found the book's gist to be that those camp inmates who had a bigger purpose and meaning to their lives, ended up staying alive till the very end for that purpose gave them a hope to cling onto till the very end despite the tortures and humiliation by the Nazis; but those inmates who lost all hopes didn't survive till the end, they lost the reason to live for thus they became pessimistic and nihilistic regarding their existence. The most surprising part of the book which I found out was that the lives of majority of the inmates after liberation wasn't as rosy as it was expected of a free life, even after liberation those inmates had become bitter, purposeless and disillusioned. The reason for this being test they had lost meaning. Meaning is that term which is the central theme of this book. This book gives answer to a very fundamental question which is " What is the meaning to life?" The remaining end part of this book explains logotherapy, an existential therapy developed by Frankl. It focuses more on making a patient cure himself by helping him find meaning to his existence. I personally loved "Man's Search For Meaning" , I only wish for more of such books to be out there.