Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl
Born	Viktor Emil Frankl 26 March 1905 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	2 September 1997 (aged 92) Vienna, Austria
Resting place	Zentralfriedhof, Vienna, Austria, Old Jewish Section
Nationality	Austrian
Education	Doctorate in Medicine, 1925, Doctorate in Philosophy, 1948
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Occupation	Neurologist, psychiatrist
Known for	Logotherapy; Existential analysis
Spouse(s)	Tilly Grosser, m. 1941; Eleonore Katharina Schwindt, m. 1947
Children	Gabriele Frankl-Vesely
Parent(s)	Gabriel Frankl and Elsa Frankl

Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997)^[1]^[2] was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. He survived Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Kaufering and Türkheim. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy“. His best-selling book Man’s Search for Meaning (published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism, and originally published in 1946 as Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, meaning Nevertheless, Say “Yes” to Life: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living. Man’s Search for Meaning has sold over 12 million copies and has been translated into 24 different languages.^[3] Frankl became one of the key figures in existential therapy and a prominent source of inspiration for humanistic psychologists.^[4]

Frankl has been the subject of criticism from several holocaust analysts^[5]^[6] who questioned the levels of Nazi accommodation that the ideology of logotherapy has and Frankl personally willingly pursued in the time periods before Frankl’s internment, when Frankl voluntarily requested to perform unskilled lobotomy experiments approved by the Nazis on Jews,^[7] to the time period of his internment, in what is hinted upon in Frankl’s own autobiographical account and later under the investigative light of biographical research.^[8]^[9]

Life before 1945

Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants (Beamtenfamilie). His interest in psychology surfaced early. For the final exam (Matura) in Gymnasium, he wrote a paper on the psychology of philosophical thinking. After graduation from Gymnasium in 1923, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna. In practice he specialized in neurology and psychiatry, concentrating on the topics of depression and suicide. His early development was influenced by his contacts with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, although he would diverge from their teachings.^[3]^[4]

Physician, therapist

During part of 1924 he became the president of the Sozialistische Mittelschüler Österreich, a Social Democratic youth movement for high school students throughout Austria.^[1]^:59

Between 1928 and 1930, while still a medical student, he organized and offered a special program to counsel high school students free of charge. The program involved the participation of psychologists such as Charlotte Bühler, and it paid special attention to students at the time when they received their report cards. In 1931, not a single Viennese student committed suicide. The success of this program grabbed the attention of the likes of Wilhelm Reich who invited him to Berlin.^[2]^[10]^{[promotional source?]}^[11]^{[non-primary source needed]}

From 1933 to 1937, Frankl completed his residency in neurology and psychiatry at the Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital in Vienna. He was responsible for the so-called Selbstmörderpavillon, or “suicide pavilion”. Here, he treated more than 3000 women who had suicidal tendencies.^[2]^{[unreliable medical source?]} In 1937, he established an independent private practice in neurology and psychiatry at Alser Strasse 32/12 in Vienna.^[2]

Beginning with the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, he was prohibited from treating “Aryan” patients due to his Jewish identity. In 1940 he started working at the Rothschild Hospital, where he headed its neurological department. This hospital was the only one in Vienna to which Jews were still admitted. His medical opinions (including deliberately false diagnoses^[12]^{[better source needed]}) saved several patients^{[example needed]} from being euthanised via the Nazi euthanasia program.^{[citation needed]} In December 1941 he married Tilly Grosser.^[2]^[4]

Prisoner, therapist

On 25 September 1942, Frankl, his wife, and his parents were deported to the Nazi Theresienstadt Ghetto in Occupied Czechoslovakia. This Ghetto which housed many of the Jewish middle class, as a “model community” was set up by the Schutzstaffel (SS) with the expressed purpose of fooling Red Cross representatives about the ongoing slave labor, the Holocaust, and, later, the Nazi plan to murder all Jews.^[13] There, within the Cultural life of the Theresienstadt ghetto, Frankl worked as a general practitioner in a clinic and wrote and gave lectures. When his skills in psychiatry were noticed by the Nazis, he was assigned to the psychiatric care ward in Block B IV, establishing a camp service of “psychohygiene” or mental health care. He organized a unit to help camp newcomers to overcome shockand grief. Later he set up a suicide watch, assisted by Regina Jonas.^[2]^[14]

On 29 July 1943, Frankl organized a closed event for the Scientific Society in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and with the help of the equally controversial Judenrat/Jewish collaborator Leo Baeck,^[15]^[16] Frankl offered a series of lectures, including “Sleep and Sleep Disturbances”, “Body and Soul”, “Medical Care of the Soul”, “Psychology of Mountaineering”, “How to keep my nerves healthy?”, “Medical ministry”, “Existential Problems in Psychotherapy”, and “Social Psychotherapy”.^[14] Biographers state that Frankl’s father Gabriel, starved to death at Theresienstadt,^[17] by Frankl’s account he died of pulmonary edema and pneumonia.^[2]^[4]^[14]

On 19 October 1944, Frankl, his wife Tilly, Regina Jonas and many others from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, were transported to the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland, where he was processed.^{[citation needed]} On 25 October, Frankl is listed as arriving in the southern German Kaufering III, of XI labor camp,^[17] which held up to 2,000 male prisoners in earthen huts, who upon its opening in June of that year, the prisoners were required to construct a transport route to connect underground aircraft factories, laying the infrastructure for the mass production of the world’s first jet-powered Messerschmitt Me 262 bomber destroyer, the Nazi response, to regain vital air supremacy, under the growingly unopposed effectiveness of Allied bombing upon the Nazi armament industry.^[18]^[19]^[20]According to Frankl, his feats of physical initiative at this work camp were such that they did not go unnoticed and he was gifted “premium coupons” in late 1944.^[17] According to Frankl’s autobiography, when infected with the ubiquitous typhoid,^[2]^[4] he was allowed to leave the work camp and was offered a move to the so-called rest camp of Türkheim, prison records list his departure from Kaufering as 8 March 1945.^[17] Frankl states that in Turkheim he was placed in charge of fifty men with typhus, it was here he rose to the position of “senior block warden” and began writing his book anew, until 27 April 1945, when the camp was liberated by American soldiers.^[17]

Frankl’s mother Elsa and brother Walter were murdered at Auschwitz. Frankl’s wife was similarly transported out of Auschwitz and moved to Bergen-Belsen, a facility that housed a considerable number of women and minors, including Anne Frank, where they were forced to work in the shoe recycling labor camp; she would similarly be murdered, from the brutal conditions sometime close to the time of its liberation in 1945.^[17] The only survivor of the Holocaust among Frankl’s immediate family was his sister, Stella, who had emigrated from Austria to Australia.^[2]^[4]

Life after 1945

Liberated after several months in concentration camps, Frankl returned to Vienna, where he dictated to stenographer-typists his well known work, “the flood gates had opened”, completing the book, by 1946.^[17] Frankl then published his world-famous book entitled, Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe Erlebt das Konzentrationslager (“Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp”), known in English by the title Man’s Search for Meaning (1959 title: From Death-Camp to Existentialism).^[21] In this book, he described the life of an ordinary concentration camp inmate from the objective perspective of a psychiatrist.^[4]^[22] Frankl believed that people are primarily driven by a “striving to find meaning in one’s life,” and that it is this sense of meaning that enables people to overcome painful experiences.

After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that, therefore, even suffering is meaningful. This conclusion served as a basis for his logotherapy and existential analysis, which Frankl had described before World War II. He said, “What is to give light must endure burning.”^[23]

Frankl’s concentration camp experiences shaped both his therapeutic approach and philosophical outlook, as reflected in his seminal publications.

He often said that even within the narrow boundaries of the concentration camps he found only two races of Men to exist: decent ones and unprincipled ones. These were to be found in all classes, ethnicities, and groups. “Under such conditions, who could blame them for trying to dope themselves?” “These were the men who were employed in the gas chambers and crematoriums, and who knew very well that one day they would have to leave their enforced role of executioner and become victims themselves.”^[22]

In 1946, he was appointed to run the Vienna Polyclinic of Neurology. He remained there until 1971. In 1947 he married his second wife Eleonore Katharina Schwindt. She was a practicing Catholic and the couple respected each other’s religious backgrounds, going to both church and synagogue, and celebrating Christmas and Hanukah. They had one daughter, Gabriele, who went on to become a child psychologist.^[2]^[4]^[24]

In 1948, Frankl earned a Ph.D. in philosophy. His dissertation, The Unconscious God, is an examination of the relation of psychology and religion.^[25]

Grave of Viktor Frankl in Vienna

In 1955, he was awarded a professorship of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna, and as visiting professor, he resided at Harvard University (1961), at Southern Methodist University, Dallas (1966), and at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh (1972). Frankl published 39 books, which were translated into as many as 49 languages.^[26]^{[promotional source?]} He lectured and taught seminars all over the world and received 29 honorary doctoral degrees.^[24]

The American Psychiatric Association awarded Frankl the 1985 Oskar Pfister Award for important contributions to religion and psychiatry.^[27]

Frankl died of heart failure on 2 September 1997. He was survived by his wife Eleonore, one daughter, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.^[28]

Controversy

In The Missing Pieces of the Puzzle: A Reflection on the Odd Career of Viktor Frankl, Timothy Pytell of California State University, San Bernardino,^[29] conveys the numerous discrepancies and omissions in Frankl’s “Auschwitz survivor” account and later autobiography, which many of his contemporaries, such as Thomas Szasz, similarly have raised.^[8] In Frankl’s Search for meaning the book devotes approximately half its contents to describing Auschwitz and the psychology of its prisoners, suggesting a long stay at the death camp, however his wording is contradictory and to Pytell, “profoundly deceptive”, when rather the impression of staying for months, Frankl was held close to the train, in the “depot prisoner” area of Auschwitz and for no more than a few days, he was neither registered there, nor assigned a number before being sent on to a subsidiary work camp of Dachau, known as Kaufering III, the true setting of much of what is described in his book.^[30]^[20]^[31]

On Frankl’s doctrine that one must instill meaning in the events in one’s life that work and suffering to find meaning, will ultimately lead to fulfillment and happiness. In 1982 the highly cited scholar and holocaust analyst Lawrence L. Langer, who while also critical of Frankl’s distortions on the true experience of those at Auschwitz,^[32] and Frankl’s amoral focus on “meaning” that could just as equally be applied to Nazis “finding meaning in making the world free from Jews”,^[33] would go on to write “if this [logotherapy] doctrine had been more succinctly worded, the Nazis might have substituted it for the cruel mockery of Arbeit Macht Frei“[“work sets free”, read by those entering Auschwitz].^[34] With, in professor Pytell’s view, Langer also penetrating through Frankl’s disturbed subtext that Holocaust “survival [was] a matter of mental health.” Noting Frankl’s tone as almost self-congratulatory and promotional throughout, that “it comes as no surprise to the reader, as he closes the volume, that the real hero of Man’s Search for Meaning is not man, but Viktor Frankl” by the continuation of the very same distortions of reality and the fantasy of world-view meaning-making, that were so disturbingly, precisely what had preturbed civilization into the holocaust-genocide of this era and others, to begin with.^[35]

Pytell later would remark on the particularly sharp insight of Langer’s reading of Frankl’s holocaust testimony, noting that with Langer’s criticism published in 1982 before Pytell’s biography, the former had thus drawn the controversial parallels, or accommodations in ideology without the knowledge that Victor Frankl was an advocate/”embraced”^[36] the key ideas of the Nazi psychotherapy movement (“will and responsibility”^[37]) as a form of therapy in the late 1930s. When at that time Frankl would submit a paper and contributed to the Göring institute in Vienna 1937 and again in early 1938 connecting the logotherapy focus on “world-view” to the “work of some of the leading Nazi psychotherapists”,^[38] both at a time before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.^[39]^[40]

The origins of logotherapy, as described by Frankl, were therefore a major issue of continuity that Biographer Pytell argues were potentially problematic for Frankl because he had laid out the main elements of logotherapy while working for/contributing to the Nazi-affiliated Göring Institute. Principally Frankl’s 1937 paper, that was published by the institute.^[40] This association, as a source of controversy, that logotherapy was palatable to National Socialism is the reason Pytell suggests, Frankl took two different stances on how the concentration-camp experience affected the course of his psychotherapy theory. Namely, that within the original English edition of Frankl’s most well known book, Man’s Search for Meaning, the suggestion is made and still largely held that logotherapy was itself derived from his camp experience, with the claim as it appears in the original edition, that this form of psychotherapy was “not concocted in the philosopher’s armchair nor at the analyst’s couch; it took shape in the hard school of air-raid shelters and bomb craters; in concentration camps and prisoner of war camps.” Frankl’s statements however to this effect would be deleted from later editions, though in the 1963 edition, a similar statement again appeared on the back of the book jacket of Man’s Search for Meaning.

Frankl over the years would with these widely read statements and others, switch between the claim that logotherapy took shape in the camps to the claim that the camps merely were a testing ground of his already preconceived theories. An uncovering of the matter would occur in 1977 with Frankl revealing on this controversy, though compounding another, stating “People think I came out of Auschwitz with a brand-new psychotherapy. This is not the case.”^[17]

In the post war years, Frankl’s attitude towards not pursuing justice nor assigning collective guilt to the Austrian people for collaborating with or acquiescing in the face of Nazism, led to “frayed” relationships between Frankl, many Viennese and the larger American Jewish community, such that in 1978 when attempting to give a lecture at the institute of Adult Jewish Studies in New York, Frankl was confronted with an outburst of boos from the audience and was called a “nazi pig”.^[39]

In 1988 Frankl would further “stir up sentiment against him” by being photographed next to and in accepting the Great Silver Medal with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria as a holocaust survivor, from President Waldheim, a controversial president of Austria who concurrent with the medal ceremony, was gripped by revelations that he had lied about his WWII military record and was under investigation for complicity in Nazi War crimes. Frankl’s acceptance of the medal was viewed by a large segment of the international Jewish community as a betrayal and by a disparate group of commentators, that its timing was politically motivated, an attempt to rehabilitate Waldheim’s reputation on the world stage.^[41]

None of Frankl’s obituaries mention the unqualified and unskilled brain lobotomy and trepanation medical experiments approved by the Nazis that Frankl performed on Jews who had committed suicide with an overdose of sedatives, in resistance to their impending arrest, imprisonment and enforced labour in the concentration camp system. Operating without any training as a surgeon, Frankl would publish some of the details on his experiments, the methods of insertion of his chosen amphetamine drugs into the brains of these individuals, resulting in at times an alleged partial resuscitation, in 1942, prior to his own internment at Theresienstadt ghetto in September later in that year. Historian Günter Bischof of Harvard University, suggests Frankl’s voluntary request to perform lobotomy experiments could be seen as a way to “ingratiate” himself amongst the Nazis, as the latter were not appreciative of suicide being on arrest records.^[17]^[9]^[32]

Legacy

Frankl’s logotherapy and existential analysis is considered the third Viennese School of Psychotherapy,^[26]^{[promotional source?]} among the broad category that comprises existentialists.^[42] For Irvin Yalom, Frankl, “who has devoted his career to a study of an existential approach to therapy, has apparently concluded that the lack of meaning is the paramount existential stress. To him, existential neurosis is synonymous with a crisis of meaninglessness”.^[42]

He has coined the term noogenic neurosis, and illustrated it with the example of Sunday neurosis. It refers to a form of anxiety resulting from an awareness in some people of the emptiness of their lives once the working week is over.^[43] Some complain of a void and a vague discontent.^[42] This arises from an existential vacuum, or feeling of meaninglessness, which is a common phenomenon and is characterised by the subjective state of boredom, apathy, and emptiness. One feels cynical, lacks direction, and questions the point of most of life’s activities.^[42]

People without a meaning in their life are exposed to aggression, depression and addiction.^[22]

Viktor Frankl once recommended that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast of the United States be complemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast:

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.^[44]^[45]

Decorations and awards

1956: Promotion Award for Public Education of the Ministry of Education, Austria
1962: Cardinal Innitzer Prize, Austria
1969: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class^[46]
1976: Prize of the Danubia Foundation
1980: Honorary Ring of Vienna, Austria
1981: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art^[47]
1985: Oskar Pfister Award, USA
1986: Honorary doctorate from the University of Vienna, Austria, and Honorary member of the association Bürgervereinigung Landsberg im 20. Jahrhundert
1988: Great Silver Medal with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria^[48]
1995: Hans Prinzhorn Medal
1995: Honorary Citizen of the City of Vienna
1995: Great Gold Medal with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria^[49]
1995: Grand Decoration of the Austrian Chamber of Physicians^{[citation needed]}
Grand Merit Cross with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern)^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

His books in English are:

Man’s Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Logotherapy, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8070-1427-1 (Originally published in 1946)
The Doctor and the Soul, (originally titled Ärztliche Seelsorge), Random House, 1955.
On the Theory and Therapy of Mental Disorders. An Introduction to Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, Translated by James M. DuBois. Brunner-Routledge, London-New York, 2004. ISBN 0-415-95029-5
Psychotherapy and Existentialism. Selected Papers on Logotherapy, Simon & Schuster,New York, 1967. ISBN 0-671-20056-9
The Will to Meaning. Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy, New American Library, New York, 1988 ISBN 0-452-01034-9
The Unheard Cry for Meaning. Psychotherapy and Humanism, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2011 ISBN 978-1-4516-6438-6
Viktor Frankl Recollections: An Autobiography.; Basic Books, Cambridge, MA 2000. ISBN 978-0-7382-0355-3.
Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning. (A revised and extended edition of The Unconscious God; with a Foreword by Swanee Hunt). Perseus Book Publishing, New York, 1997; ISBN 0-306-45620-6. Paperback edition: Perseus Book Group; New York, July 2000; ISBN 0-7382-0354-8.

References …

External links[edit]

Timothy Pytell (2015) Viktor Frankl’s Search for Meaning, Berghahn Books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Photo portrait of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Born	July 31, 1909 Tobelbad (now Haselsdorf-Tobelbad), Austria-Hungary
Died	May 26, 1999 (aged 89) Lans, Austria

Jordan Peterson
Peterson at the University of Toronto March 2017
Born	Jordan Bernt Peterson June 12, 1962 (age 55) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Residence	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Education	Political science (B.A., 1982) Psychology (B.A., 1984) Clinical psychology (Ph.D., 1991)
Alma mater	University of Alberta McGill University
Spouse(s)	Tammy Roberts (m. 1989)
Children	2
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	McGill University (1985–1993) Harvard University (1993–1998) University of Toronto (1998–present)^[1]
Thesis	Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism (1991)
Doctoral advisor	Robert O. Pihl
Influences	Jung, Freud, Piaget, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn
Website	jordanbpeterson.com
Signature

Jordan Peterson
Peterson at the University of Toronto, 2017
Born	Jordan Bernt Peterson June 12, 1962 (age 55) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Residence	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Citizenship	Canadian
Education	Political science (B.A., 1982) Psychology (B.A., 1984) Clinical psychology (Ph.D., 1991)
Alma mater	University of Alberta McGill University
Spouse(s)	Tammy Roberts (m. 1989)
Children	2
Website	jordanbpeterson.com
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	McGill University (1985–1993) Harvard University (1993–1998) University of Toronto (1998–present)^[1]
Thesis	Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism (1991)
Doctoral advisor	Robert O. Pihl

Sub-Stage	Age	Description
1 Simple reflexes	Birth-6 weeks	“Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors”.^[24] Three primary reflexes are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth, following moving or interesting objects with the eyes, and closing of the hand when an object makes contact with the palm (palmar grasp). Over the first six weeks of life, these reflexes begin to become voluntary actions. For example, the palmar reflex becomes intentional grasping.^[25]
2 First habits and primary circular reactions phase	6 weeks-4 months	“Coordination of sensation and two types of schema: habits (reflex) and primary circular reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance). The main focus is still on the infant’s body”.^[24] As an example of this type of reaction, an infant might repeat the motion of passing their hand before their face. Also at this phase, passive reactions, caused by classical or operant conditioning, can begin.^[25]
3 Secondary circular reactions phase	4–8 months	Development of habits. “Infants become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results”.^[24] This stage is associated primarily with the development of coordination between vision and prehension. Three new abilities occur at this stage: intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions, and differentiations between ends and means. At this stage, infants will intentionally grasp the air in the direction of a desired object, often to the amusement of friends and family. Secondary circular reactions, or the repetition of an action involving an external object begin; for example, moving a switch to turn on a light repeatedly. The differentiation between means and ends also occurs. This is perhaps one of the most important stages of a child’s growth as it signifies the dawn of logic.^[25]
4 Coordination of secondary circular reactions stages	8–12 months	“Coordination of vision and touch—hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemas and intentionality“.^[24] This stage is associated primarily with the development of logic and the coordination between means and ends. This is an extremely important stage of development, holding what Piaget calls the “first proper intelligence“. Also, this stage marks the beginning of goal orientation, the deliberate planning of steps to meet an objective.^[25]
5 Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity	12–18 months	“Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment with new behavior”.^[24] This stage is associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals. Piaget describes the child at this juncture as the “young scientist,” conducting pseudo-experiments to discover new methods of meeting challenges.^[25]
6 Internalization of schemas	18–24 months	“Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations”.^[24] This stage is associated primarily with the beginnings of insight, or true creativity. This marks the passage into the preoperational stage.

Viktor Frankl

Born	Viktor Emil Frankl 26 March 1905 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	2 September 1997 (aged 92) Vienna, Austria
Resting place	Zentralfriedhof, Vienna, Austria, Old Jewish Section
Nationality	Austrian
Education	Doctorate in Medicine, 1925, Doctorate in Philosophy, 1948
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Occupation	Neurologist, psychiatrist
Known for	Logotherapy Existential analysis
Spouse(s)	Tilly Grosser, m. 1941 Eleonore Katharina Schwindt, m. 1947
Children	Gabriele Frankl-Vesely
Parent(s)	Gabriel Frankl and Elsa Frankl

Jean Piaget
Piaget at the University of Michigan, c. 1968
Born	Jean William Fritz Piaget 9 August 1896 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Died	16 September 1980 (aged 84) Geneva, Switzerland
Alma mater	University of Neuchâtel
Known for	Constructivism, genetic epistemology, theory of cognitive development, object permanence, egocentrism
Scientific career
Fields	Developmental psychology, epistemology
Influences	Immanuel Kant, Henri Bergson,^[1]Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet, Théodore Simon, James Mark Baldwin^[2]
Influenced	Bärbel Inhelder,^[3] Jerome Bruner,^[4] Kenneth Kaye,^{[citation needed]} Lawrence Kohlberg,^[5] Robert Kegan,^[6]Howard Gardner,^[7] Thomas Kuhn,^[8] Seymour Papert,^[9] Lev Vygotsky^[10]^[11]

Erik Homberger Erikson
Erik Erikson
Born	Erik Salomonsen^[1] 15 June 1902 Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany^[2]
Died	12 May 1994 (aged 91) Harwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.^[2]
Citizenship	American, German
Known for	Theory on social development
Spouse(s)	Joan Serson Erikson (1930–1994; his death; 4 children)
Scientific career
Fields	Developmental psychologist
Institutions	Yale University University of California, Berkeley University of Pittsburgh Harvard Medical School
Notable students	Richard Sennett
Influences	Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud
Influenced	James Marcia

David Horowitz
Horowitz in February 2011
Born	David Joel Horowitz January 10, 1939 (age 78) Forest Hills, Queens, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Conservative activist, writer
Nationality	United States
Education	MA, University of California at Berkeley BA, Columbia University
Spouse	Elissa Krauthamer (1959–19??; 4 children); Sam Moorman (divorced); Shay Marlowe (1990–?; divorced); April Mullvain Horowitz (current)
Children	Jonathan Daniel Ben Horowitz Anne Pilat Sarah Rose Horowitz (deceased)^[1]

Neal Stephenson
Stephenson at Science Foo Camp 2008
Born	Neal Town Stephenson October 31, 1959 (age 56) Fort Meade, Maryland, United States
Pen name	Stephen Bury (with J. Frederick George)
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	American
Period	1984–present
Genre	Speculative fiction, historical fiction, essays
Literary movement	Cyberpunk, postcyberpunk,maximalism
Website
nealstephenson.com

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Viktor Frankl on Meaning

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Viktor Frankl

Frankl’s Background

Logotherapy

Meaning

Responsibility

Individuality

Techniques

The case of the sweating doctor

Dereflection

Discernment of Meaning

Conclusion

Bibliography

Recommended reading:

In This Article

A Brief History of Viktor Frankl

Understanding Logotherapy

Fundamentals of Logotherapy

Logotherapy in Practice

Criticisms

Evidence

Logotherapy in Everyday Life

A Word From Verywell

Viktor Frankl

Contents

Life before 1945

Physician, therapist

Prisoner, therapist

Life after 1945

Controversy

Legacy

Decorations and awards

Bibliography

See also

References …

External links[edit]

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress featuring Steven Pinker

STEVEN PINKER: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW

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Enlightenment Now | Steven Pinker | RSA Replay

Dr. Steven Pinker, Harvard University – Collective Impact

The Personal Philosophy of Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker & Charlie Rose – “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

Prof. Steven Pinker – The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity

A History of Violence: Steven Pinker at TEDxNewEngland

The Great Debate: ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE (OFFICIAL) – (Part 1/2)

The Great Debate: ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE (OFFICIAL) – (Part 2/2)

Steven Pinker on Human Nature

Understanding Human Nature with Steven Pinker – Conversations with History

Steven Pinker – The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker – The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker: Human nature and the blank slate

Steven Pinker – The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Uncut Interviews

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