I read the amazing “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl this weekend. There has been lots written already about life in concentration camps but somehow this account proved captivating as I sat reading in a Central London bookstore on Saturday. What is remarkable is his continuing account of the psychological impact of the experience.
Before Frankl begins describing his experiences within the concentration camp, he talks about man’s relationship with himself. Here, it is possible he is talking about the intense discipline one’s mind requires in order to successfully detach. Detach too much and you risk accepting a deterministic mindset, detach too little and you risk living miles away from reality. He also correctly acknowledges that it is only the person in the epidermis or the ghost in the machine that can make honest and valuable judgements on himself.
Setting the stage for the chronological psychological telling of his experience:
Three phases of the inmate’s mental reactions to camp life become apparent: the period following his admission; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation. The engine’s whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition.
Frankl comments on the thoughts circling in their brains as they begin going through the registration at the camp:
In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. On entering camp a change took place in the minds of the men. With the end of uncertainty there came the uncertainty of the end. It was impossible to foresee whether or when, if at all, this form of existence would end.
Once they are all processed, they move into getting used to their new environment:
Cold curiosity predominated even in Auschwitz, somehow detaching the mind from its surroundings, which came to be regarded with a kind of objectivity. I think it was Lessing who once said, “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.”
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? -’Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,”
Before Frankl begins describing his experiences within the concentration camp, he talks about man’s relationship with himself. Here, it is possible he is talking about the intense discipline one’s mind requires in order to successfully detach. Detach too much and you risk accepting a deterministic mindset, detach too little and you risk living miles away from reality. He also correctly acknowledges that it is only the person in the epidermis or the ghost in the machine that can make honest and valuable judgements on himself.
Setting the stage for the chronological psychological telling of his experience:
Three phases of the inmate’s mental reactions to camp life become apparent: the period following his admission; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation. The engine’s whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition.
I will return to the meaning of life in the future.
Resources:
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes – BrainyQuote
Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others | Video on TED.com
Viktor Frankl – Holocaust Survivor and Famous Author/Psychoanalyst
VIKTOR FRANKL INSTITUT. Biography of Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy