I recently finished reading a small book of essays by the renowned psychiatrist and author, Viktor Frankl. It’s called Yes to Life In Spite of Everything and contains three essays by Frankl that were written just months after his release from three years in Nazi concentration camps.

Frankl is best known for his internationally best-selling memoir about his time in the camps, Man’s Search for Meaning. I initially read that book in high school, and it had a strong effect on me. I was amazed and inspired that someone could live through the inhuman conditions perpetrated by the Nazis and still have a positive view of life. I’ve re-read the book three or four times since my youth, and each reading has succeeded in reinspiring me.

Yes to Life contains Frankl’s early essays that were published in English for the first time in 2020, brilliantly introduced by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and chief spokesperson for the therapeutic movement that book inspired. In his Introduction, Goleman expresses his deep concern about the  current wave of doubt and pessimism being experienced by millions of young people in the face of seemingly unsolvable, catastrophic world problems like climate change, large-scale technological warfare (including the possibility of nuclear war), a resurgence of political authoritarianism, and unconscionable economic inequality brought on by unfettered capitalism. How does a person find meaning in the face of these staggering challenges?

Frankl’s approach to finding meaning is rooted in the very nature of human awareness. As a practicing psychiatrist in pre-war Vienna, Frankl subscribed to Sigmund Freud’s exposition of two principal sources of meaning: work and love.  In finding creative work in our lives, paid or unpaid, a person engages in an enterprise that is greater than the individual ego, and which gives satisfaction and fulfillment in its own terms. Learning how to love and be loved is the other main source of meaning that the Viennese school of psychiatry espoused. Loving another person requires a transcending of our own self-interest in our regard for, and wishing the best for, our beloved.

But early on, Frankl added another realization as to what gives life meaning. Even in the absence of creative work and loving relationships, Frankl maintained that a human being always has the possibility of finding meaning in the simple, existential freedom of choosing how to relate to outside circumstances.

Frankl’s early work on what became known as “logotherapy” was fully tested by his own challenges in surviving the camps. There he was forced to evaluate his hypothesis on a daily basis. Although he was radically brought down from his highly regarded professional status, although he was cruelly separated from his pregnant wife and aging parents, Frankl still found ways to choose meaning by remembering his freedom, in every moment, to choose his own reaction to the direst of circumstances. Man’s Search for Meaning documents the daily horrors and dehumanizing forces in the camps, as well as Frankl’s ability to keep hope alive. He did this over and over by remembering his always available potential for choosing how he responded to outward circumstances.

The three essays in Yes To life provide the theoretical underpinnings of logotherapy in straightforward language that a layperson can easily understand. Reading it has reminded me of an always available way to approach challenges to my own mental health. It’s helping me to face the same existential challenges that young people are having with the current environmental mess that their elders have created.

I’m grateful for the freedom that retirement allows me, but I’m also invested in how humanity can move forward to meet the enormous challenges facing us on planet Earth right now. Part of my “skin in the game” comes via my love and concern for our children and grandchildren. I know that when I become pessimistic in my attitude, what I have to offer my family and the world decreases in strength and effectiveness. I’m blessed in my daily life to have self-chosen, creative work projects and a happy marriage. When those blessings aren’t enough to sustain me, Frankl’s logotherapy has become my “goto” fallback. I remind myself that I can choose my attitude in response to whatever challenges life throws me.

I’ve suffered with depression for some periods in my life, and one thought has usually helped me (along with therapy and meditation) to find a way out. I think of Viktor Frankl in those horrible concentration camps for three years and how he kept “saying yes to life in spite of everything”. He was able to do this by affirming a fundamental existential truth of human awareness: the ever-present freedom to choose our attitude. If Viktor Frankl could find meaning there, then what’s my excuse?

John Bayerl, 6/24/2024