Viktor Frankl's account of survival in four Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz, paired with a clinical exposition of logotherapy — his school of psychotherapy organised around the proposition that the primary human drive is not pleasure (Freud) or power (Adler) but the search for meaning. The first half is memoir; the second is the theory drawn from it.
First published in German in 1946 as …trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen, it appeared in English in 1959 as From Death-Camp to Existentialism and was retitled Man's Search for Meaning in the 1962 expanded edition. The Beacon Press paperback now in print runs roughly 165 pages and adds a postscript on the case for tragic optimism.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
p. 75 · Part One, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp"
First lines
This book does not claim to be an account of facts and events but of personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again.
Contents
Preface to the 1992 Edition
Part One: Experiences in a Concentration Camp
Part Two: Logotherapy in a Nutshell
Postscript 1984: The Case for a Tragic Optimism
Reception
Repeatedly listed among the most influential books of the 20th century — a Library of Congress "most influential" selection, named by Holocaust historians as one of the essential primary survivor accounts, and consistently in the top tier of psychology bestsellers since publication. Sales estimates exceed 16 million copies. Logotherapy itself is more contested inside academic psychology than the book's reputation suggests; meta-analyses are mixed and the discipline's institutional presence has waned. The memoir's standing is independent of and stronger than the therapy's.
Frequently asked
What is Man's Search for Meaning about?
It is Viktor Frankl's 1946 account of surviving four Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz, paired with a clinical exposition of logotherapy — his school of psychotherapy built on the proposition that the primary human drive is the search for meaning rather than pleasure or power.
How is the book structured?
In two parts. Part One is the memoir of camp life; Part Two is the theoretical exposition of logotherapy drawn from it. The Beacon Press edition currently in print adds a 1984 postscript, "The Case for a Tragic Optimism".
How widely has the book sold?
Sales estimates exceed 16 million copies across more than fifty languages. A 1991 Library of Congress / Book-of-the-Month Club survey named it among the ten most influential books in the United States.