Books That Inspire 2006
 
Man's Search for Meaning
Victor Frankl


Psychotherapist Victor Frankl revised his theory of “logotherapy” while he was a POW in Auschwitz and tripped to #119,104. Having lost his immediate family to the Nazi extermination, and in the midst of unspeakable loss and horror, Dr. Frankl was challenged to live the existential theory he had developed and recorded in numerous books. Frankl’s revised theory arose from his cruel experience with the question, “Does suffering have meaning?” His resounding and profound response is “Yes.” To read Frankl’s book is to take part in the creative consciousness of the universe and to stand with awe as a witness of the human capacity for compassion in the face of horror. When I read this book in my 20s, Dr. Frankl’s account of holding to meaning in the face of wholesale horror revealed to me a depth of power and meaning in the human experience that no person, religious teaching, lived experience, or book had brought me before. Today, 56 years after its publication, Frankl’s book remains a significant contribution to human though in its powerful call for human compassion.
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Betty Robbins
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