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Viktor Frankl
1905–1997 · Logotherapy, existential psychiatry
Meaning as something found and chosen, not supplied.
Historical context
An Austrian psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps and built a therapeutic approach around the human search for meaning.
Core ideas
- A space exists between stimulus and response.
- Meaning can be found in work, in love, and in the attitude taken toward unavoidable suffering.
- Despair is suffering without meaning.
Critiques & misreadings
- Meaning-focused frameworks can be misused to minimise real, treatable conditions.
- Survivorship accounts describe possibility, not obligation.
Modern application
Name what a difficult season is asking of you — without pretending the difficulty is a gift.
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