Man's Search for Meaning

%% G5XUMS5G ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "“Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it." (p. 10 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 7ENPMQ6M ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "To return to the convoy about to depart. There was neither time nor desire to consider moral or ethical issues. Every man was controlled by one thought only: to keep himself alive for the family waiting for him at home, and to save his friends. With no hesitation, therefore, he would arrange for another prisoner, another “number,” to take his place in the transport." (p. 14 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% YBZY2USK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles—whatever one may choose to call them—we know: the best of us did not return." (p. 14 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% I6DOOIBF ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "When one examines the vast amount of material which has been amassed as the result of many prisoners’ observations and experiences, 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." (p. 16 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% UNCTCUSZ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The symptom that characterizes the first phase is shock." (p. 16 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% XWE3SGYD ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "initial silence was interrupted by shouted commands. We were to hear those rough, shrill tones from then on, over and over again in all the camps. Their sound was almost like the last cry of a victim, and yet there was a difference. It had a rasping hoarseness, as if it came from the throat of a man who had to keep shouting like that, a man who was being murdered again and again. The carriage doors were flung open and a small detachment of prisoners stormed inside. They wore striped uniforms, their heads were shaved, but they looked well fed. They spoke in every possible European tongue, and all with a certain amount of humor, which sounded grotesque under the circumstances. Like a drowning man clutching a straw, my inborn optimism (which has often controlled my feelings even in the most desperate situations) clung to this thought: These prisoners look quite well, they seem to be in good spirits and even laugh. Who knows? I might manage to share their favorable position.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. We, too, clung to shreds of hope and believed to the last moment that it would not be so bad. Just the sight of the red cheeks and round faces of those prisoners was a great encouragement. Little did we know then that they formed a specially chosen elite, who for years had been the receiving squad for new transports as they rolled into the station day after day. They took charge of the new arrivals and their luggage, including scarce items and smuggled jewelry." (p. 17 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 57DI2VAJ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Apart from the already described reactions, the newly arrived prisoner experienced the tortures of other most painful emotions, all of which he tried to deaden." (p. 24 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% BHRWNC4Q ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The prisoner passed from the first to the second phase; the phase of relative apathy, in which he achieved a kind of emotional death." (p. 24 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% NKQVQE3P ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "favorite practice to detail a new arrival to a work group whose job was to clean the latrines and remove the sewage. If, as usually happened, some of the excrement splashed into his face during its transport over bumpy fields, any sign of disgust by the prisoner or any attempt to wipe off the filth would only be punished with a blow from a Capo. And thus the mortification of normal reactions was hastened.At first the prisoner looked away if he saw the punishment parades of another group; he could not bear to see fellow prisoners march up and down for hours in the mire, their movements directed by blows. Days or weeks later things changed. Early in the morning, when it was still dark, the prisoner stood in front of the gate with his detachment, ready to march. He heard a scream and saw how a comrade was knocked down, pulled to his feet again, and knocked down once more—and why? He was feverish but had reported to sick-bay at an improper time. He was being punished for this irregular attempt to be relieved of his duties.But the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. By then his feelings were blunted, and he watched unmoved." (p. 24 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% NSFDGX6E ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Apathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care any more, were the symptoms arising during the second stage of the prisoner’s psychological reac- tions, and which eventually made him insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. By means of this insensibility the prisoner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protective shell." (p. 26 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% OCWEYSUQ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one’s own life and that of the other fellow." (p. 29 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% MPA3YPCR ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "“vae victis”—woe to the vanquished." (p. 34 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% GKHVYHGA ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "suffering is omnipresent. To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative." (p. 39 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 5D5JWYJF ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—" (p. 43 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 3GRR3KMV ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Conspicuity" (p. 44 | 19-10-2024) Note: (n.) The state or quality of being clear or bright; brightness; conspicuousness. %%end%%

%% UKB3JBIP ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The prisoners saw themselves completely dependent on the moods of the guards—playthings of fate—and this made them even less human than the circumstances warranted." (p. 46 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% BTRGOA2R ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "He related to me how he, as camp policeman, had searched for a piece of human flesh that was missing from a pile of corpses. He confiscated it from a pot in which he found it cooking. Cannibalism had broken out. I had left just in time." (p. 47 | 19-10-2024) Note: ... ccannibalism %%end%%

%% HOJ5UBDL ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Our friends who had thought they were traveling to freedom that night had been taken in the trucks to this camp, and there they were locked in the huts and burned to death. Their partially charred bodies were recognizable on the photograph. I thought again of Death in Teheran." (p. 51 | 19-10-2024) Note: death in teheran %%end%%

%% W7KTN6S2 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "While I was working as a doctor in the typhus block, I also had to take the place of the senior block warden who was ill. Therefore, I was responsible to the camp authority for keeping the hut clean—if “clean” can be used to describe such a condition. The pretense at inspection to which the hut was frequently submitted was more for the purpose of torture than of hygiene. More food and a few drugs would have helped, but the only concern of the inspectors was whether a piece of straw was left in the center corridor, or whether the dirty, ragged and verminous blankets of the patients were tucked in neatly at their feet." (p. 52 | 19-10-2024) Note: absurdity %%end%%

%% 32VJG6CK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors—be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?" (p. 53 | 19-10-2024) Note: 2/2 introduction to his central idea. inspite of everything there is still a choice %%end%%

%% FG446VXH ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "In attempting this psychological presentation and a psychopathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give" (p. 53 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% TW3LCGLD ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action." (p. 53 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% EGXKICR5 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors—be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer suffcient proof that 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. 53 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% VVWLRU2E ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "stress.We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer suffcient proof that 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.And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insuffcient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone." (p. 53 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% YAEHUK5S ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful." (p. 54 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% KLYGKVQG ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces." (p. 54 | 19-10-2024) Note: There can be meaning in suffering .... %%end%%

%% NXY4HBCC ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "It is true that only a few peo- ple are capable of reaching such high moral standards. Of the prisoners only a few kept their full inner liberty and obtained those values which their suffering afforded, but even one such example is suffcient proof that man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate." (p. 55 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% VDR5VBBL ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most diffcult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a diffcult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not." (p. 55 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% RZYBIE4Q ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "A well-known research psychologist has pointed out that life in a concentration camp could be called a “provisional existence.” We can add to this by defining it as a “provisional existence of unknown limit." (p. 56 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% UHZRUNGT ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "A man who could not see the end of his “provisional existence” was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time—inner time—which is a result of their unemployed state. Prisoners, too, suffered from this strange “time-experience.” In camp, a small time unit, a day, for example, filled with hourly tortures and fatigue, appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly." (p. 57 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% E5H2YNLR ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "—without a future and without a goal." (p. 57 | 19-10-2024) Note: psychisch lijden al een donkere wolk zonder einde en zonder je een andere toekomst voor te kunnen stellen %%end%%

%% 4M6Z4CZK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "He regarded it as over and done, as if he had already died." (p. 57 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% PWT5IUZU ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. In a different connection, we have already spoken of the tendency there was to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist." (p. 57 | 19-10-2024) Note: robbing the present of its reality makes you overlook opportunities for the future %%end%%

%% 3IEJZYMC ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Instead of taking the camp’s diffculties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence." (p. 58 | 19-10-2024) Note: life is testing you ad allowing you to show spiritual growth %%end%%

%% K6CZTXUG ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Any attempt at fighting the camp’s psychopathological influence on the prisoner by psychotherapeutic or psychohygienic methods had to aim at giving him inner strength by pointing out to him a future goal to which he could look forward." (p. 58 | 19-10-2024) Note: show people there is a future %%end%%

%% IJDFHWH3 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future—sub specie aeternitatis." (p. 58 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% VFS6ISRI ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "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." (p. 59 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% ENIM3EKP ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly, in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment—not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. Usually it began with the prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash or to go out on the parade grounds. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect. He just lay there, hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness, he refused to be taken to the sick-bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up. There he remained, lying in his own excreta, and nothing bothered him any more." (p. 59 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% XQCRLCF3 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "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,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners." (p. 60 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% PJ4HAF3W ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand." (p. 61 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% HGWCLGBI ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden." (p. 62 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% FCEMJZOQ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Rilke spoke of “getting through suffering” as others would talk of “getting through work." (p. 62 | 19-10-2024) Note: "je moet door het lijden heen" %%end%%

%% 3DQQ3TIP ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "I remember two cases of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument —they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books which still needed to be finished." (p. 62 | 19-10-2024) Note: helpful for helpin ppl find a reason or a future to live for %%end%%

%% BPVSYP6Y ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude." (p. 63 | 19-10-2024) Note: jij bent onvervangbaar %%end%%

%% NBTB2FOW ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "And I quoted from Nietzsche: “Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.” (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.)" (p. 64 | 19-10-2024) Note: lol %%end%%

%% 5RETQ2XZ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "But I have to confess here that only too rarely had I the inner strength to make contact with my companions in suffering and that I must have missed many opportunities for doing so." (p. 65 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 76BTK3W7 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s influences, and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards. I remember how one day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved me to tears at that time. It was the human “something” which this man also gave to me—the word and look which accompanied the gift.From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of “pure race”—and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards." (p. 67 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% FEBHRB7X ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly." (p. 68 | 19-10-2024) Note: after liberation %%end%%

%% IZBPKXFZ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Just as the physical health of the caisson worker would be endangered if he left his diver’s chamber suddenly (where he is under enormous atmospheric pressure), so the man who has suddenly been liberated from mental pressure can suffer damage to his moral and spiritual health." (p. 69 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% WMP2E7QY ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "During this psychological phase one observed that people with natures of a more primitive kind could not escape the influences of the brutality which had surrounded them in camp life. Now, being free, they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed for them was that they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects, of willful force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences." (p. 69 | 19-10-2024) Note: trauma response, may be the cause or mechanism of antisocial or anger issues %%end%%

%% E6AMK5CR ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Apart from the moral deformity resulting from the sudden release of mental pressure, there were two other fundamental experiences which threatened to damage the character of the liberated prisoner: bitterness and disillusionment when he returned to his former life." (p. 70 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% W2ZWXYVY ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man." (p. 74 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% S5W6YNJK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Of course, there may be some cases in which an individual’s concern with values is really a camouflage of hidden inner conflicts; but, if so, they represent the exceptions from the rule rather than the rule itself. In these cases we have actually to deal with pseudovalues, and as such they have to be unmasked. Unmasking, however, should stop as soon as one is confronted with what is authentic and genuine in man, e.g., man’s desire for a life that is as meaningful as possible. If it does not stop then, the only thing that the “unmasking psychologist” really unmasks is his own “hidden motive”—namely, his unconscious need to debase and depreciate what is genuine, what is genuinely human, in man." (p. 75 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% SC77XANY ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The term “existential” may be used in three ways: to refer to (1) existence itself, i.e., the specifically human mode of being; (2) the meaning of existence; and (3) the striving to find a concrete meaning in personal existence, that is to say, the will to meaning." (p. 75 | 19-10-2024) Note: Good definition of existential. Also, when phrased this way, there appear to be similarities between logotherapy and existential therapy as devised by Yalom. I wonder whether he was inspired by Frankl. %%end%%

%% 5B5H7X6W ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Noögenic neuroses do not emerge from conflicts between drives and instincts but rather from existential problems." (p. 75 | 19-10-2024) Note: that means ordinry neuroses, in the psychoanalytic sense, do appear from conflicts between drives and instincts? %%end%%

%% LXCDDS66 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development." (p. 76 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% SZ25BH5B ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflicting claims of id, ego and superego, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment." (p. 77 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% MWUOHK2L ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”" (p. 77 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% WZ5I5HF6 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, “homeostasis,” i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task." (p. 78 | 19-10-2024) Note: Not a fan of homeostasis %%end%%

%% 2STPDCVW ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism)" (p. 78 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% XZIJJQCD ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?”" (p. 80 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 5X3423WL ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." (p. 80 | 19-10-2024) Note: it's like life asks you what the meaning of YOUR life is going to be. it's up to you. %%end%%

%% UU73Y37D ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "That is why a logotherapist is the least tempted of all psychotherapists to impose value judgments on his patients, for he will never permit the patient to pass to the doctor the responsibility of judging." (p. 81 | 19-10-2024) Note: very similar to how we point people at their own responsibility nowadays. %%end%%

%% 32AFSDGI ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system." (p. 81 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% XVTMPFG5 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self- transcendence." (p. 81 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% HTRIDCRO ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three dif- ferent ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The first, the way of achievement or accomplishment, is quite obvious. The second and third need further elaboration." (p. 81 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% HQ3N76PP ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning." (p. 83 | 19-10-2024) Note: but wat if suffering has no meaning, or is he saying that it alwas does? %%end%%

%% QVDHSXHF ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "More and more, a psychiatrist is approached today by patients who confront him with human problems rather than neurotic symptoms. Some of the people who nowadays call on a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest or rabbi in former days. Now they often refuse to be handed over to a clergyman and instead confront the doctor with questions such as, “What is the meaning of my life?”" (p. 84 | 19-10-2024) Note: Already in 1946... %%end%%

%% IXERSS3B ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "I observed that procreation is not the only meaning of life, for then life in itself would become meaningless, and something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation." (p. 86 | 19-10-2024) Note: say hi to evolution %%end%%

%% LKL2TSMG ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "“Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered." (p. 88 | 19-10-2024) Note: when looking at a young person %%end%%

%% RAHR3F7Y ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "tranquilized away by its psychodynamic interpretation; on the other hand, a neurotic fear, such as agoraphobia, cannot be cured by philosophical understanding. However, logotherapy has developed a special technique to handle such cases, too. To understand what is going on whenever this technique is used, we take as a starting point a condition which is frequently observed in neurotic individuals, namely, anticipatory anxiety. It is characteristic of this fear that it produces precisely that of which the patient is afraid. An individual, for example, who is afraid of blushing when he enters a large room and faces many people will actually be more prone to blush under these circumstances. In this context, one might amend the saying “The wish is father to the thought” to “The fear is mother of the event.”Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes. This excessive intention, or “hyper-intention,” as I call it, can be observed particularly in cases of sexual neurosis. The more a man tries to demonstrate his sexual potency or a woman her ability to experience orgasm, the less they are able to succeed. Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.In addition to excessive intention as described above, excessive attention, or “hyper-reflection,” as it is called in logotherapy, may also be pathogenic (that is, lead to sickness)" (p. 88 | 19-10-2024) Note: excessive intention and hyper attention on pleasure or an end prduct make it impossible to attain the thing %%end%%

%% C6FKNY74 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "This was enough to incapacitate the patient for the peak experience of sexual pleasure, since the orgasm was made an object of intention, and an object of attention as well, instead of remaining an unintended effect of unreflected dedication and surrender to the partner." (p. 89 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 3KESCCVQ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes." (p. 89 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% HSNZJNF2 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "“The neu- rotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure." (p. 90 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 776GVZMH ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Paradoxical intention can also be applied in cases of sleep disturbance. The fear of sleeplessness12 results in a hyper- intention to fall asleep, which, in turn, incapacitates the patient to do so. To overcome this particular fear, I usually advise the patient not to try to sleep but rather to try to do just the opposite, that is, to stay awake as long as possible. In other words, the hyper-intention to fall asleep, arising from the anticipatory anxiety of not being able to do so, must be replaced by the paradoxical intention not to fall asleep, which soon will be followed by sleep." (p. 91 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% KEYCMDD6 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "paradoxical intention is effective regardless of the etiological basis of the case concerned. This confirms a statement once made by Edith Weisskopf-Joelson: “Although traditional psychotherapy has insisted that therapeutic practices have to be based on findings on etiology, it is possible that certain factors might cause neuroses during early childhood and that entirely different factors might relieve neuroses during adulthood.”14As for the actual causation of neuroses, apart from constitutional elements, whether somatic or psychic in nature, such feedback mechanisms as anticipatory anxiety seem to be a major pathogenic factor. A given symptom is responded to by a phobia, the phobia triggers the symptom, and the symptom, in turn, reinforces the phobia. A similar chain of events, however, can be observed in obsessive-compulsive cases in which the patient fights the ideas which haunt him.15 Thereby, however, he increases their power to disturb him, since pressure precipitates counterpressure. Again the symptom is reinforced! On the other hand, as soon as the patient stops fighting his obsessions and instead tries to ridicule them by dealing with them in an ironical way—by applying paradoxical intention—the vicious circle is cut, the symptom diminishes and finally atrophies." (p. 92 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 2FKDJGHI ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "First of all, there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man’s “nothingbutness,” the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to believe anyway, namely, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free.To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions." (p. 93 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% 6MRQCBBK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment." (p. 93 | 19-10-2024) Note: i guess fostering the illusion of free will is the best approach for most patients %%end%%

%% XJYFRLW3 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "There is nothing conceivable which would so condition a man as to leave him without the slightest freedom." (p. 95 | 19-10-2024) Note: this can be used as an extension of stoicism %%end%%

%% A324XZRK ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo. Without it I should not think it worthwhile to be a psychiatrist. For whose sake? Just for the sake of a damaged brain machine which cannot be repaired? If the patient were not definitely more, euthanasia would be justified." (p. 95 | 19-10-2024) Note: not sure if this is very moral %%end%%

%% 67YFHWKT ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "If you want anyone to laugh you have to provide him with a reason, e.g., you have to tell him a joke. In no way is it possible to evoke real laughter by urging him, or having him urge himself, to laugh." (p. 99 | 19-10-2024) Note: similar to happiness %%end%%

%% AV7STAII ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Today it is not only logotherapists who claim that the feeling of meaninglessness plays an ever increasing role in the etiology of neurosis. As Irvin D. Yalom of Stanford University states in Existential Psychotherapy: “Of forty consecutive patients applying for therapy at a psychiatric outpatient clinic … twelve (30 percent) had some major problem involving meaning (as adjudged from self-ratings, therapists, or independent judges)" (p. 100 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% Y25N3VDM ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "And I could show that this neurosis really originated in a twofold erroneous identification: being jobless was equated with being useless, and being useless was equated with having a meaningless life." (p. 100 | 19-10-2024) Note: this gives off one trick pony vibes. like oh its a meaning problem, again. what a surprise %%end%%

%% XD32DS2G ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Therefore, I will not be elaborating here on the meaning of one’s life as a whole, although I do not deny that such a long-range meaning does exist. To invoke an analogy, consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life?" (p. 102 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% CVCKDEOW ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "The perception of meaning differs from the classical concept of Gestalt perception insofar as the latter implies the sudden awareness of a “figure” on a “ground,” whereas the perception of meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation." (p. 103 | 19-10-2024) Note: a gestalt seems to be not unlike that moment during problem solving when you know you hae a solution but you have yet it "think it out" (but you know its there) %%end%%

%% DHIU4MSS ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "And how does a human being go about finding meaning? As Charlotte Bühler has stated: “All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about as against those who have not.”5" (p. 103 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% DHTLRHH7 ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "meaning is available in spite of—nay, even through—suffering, provided, as noted in Part Two of this book, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude." (p. 105 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% ITJ6HYAV ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "Totally explaining one’s crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired. Even criminals themselves abhor this treatment and prefer to be held responsible for their deeds." (p. 105 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% YEAO3JXW ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "An American woman once confronted me with the reproach, “How can you still write some of your books in German, Adolf Hitler’s language?” In response, I asked her if she had knives in her kitchen, and when she answered that she did, I acted dismayed and shocked, exclaiming, “How can you still use knives after so many killers have used them to stab and murder their victims?” She stopped objecting to my writing books in German." (p. 106 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% S46N5DSI ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past wherein it has been safely delivered and deposited. In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured." (p. 107 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% QQQVOMPJ ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness." (p. 108 | 19-10-2024) Note: there IS wisdom in ae beyond things that can be expressed in language. Much knowledge is preverbal %%end%%

%% X7SVUG2E ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "therapists should see their task in immunizing the trainee against nihilism rather than inoculating him with the cynicism that is a defense mechanism against their own nihilism." (p. 108 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%

%% TAZUGE2B ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "I argued not only for the rehumanization of psychotherapy but also for what I called “the degurufication of logotherapy.” My interest does not lie in raising parrots that just rehash “their master’s voice,” but rather in passing the torch to “independent and inventive, innovative and creative spirits." (p. 109 | 19-10-2024) Note: I like that a lot %%end%%

%% F6HFHCOY ts: 2024-10-19T10:48:41Z %% "For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.So, let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense:Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake." (p. 109 | 19-10-2024) %%end%%