My community, as well as several states in the USA, has suffered two devastating hurricanes recently.  Thousands of homes and cars were destroyed, leaving people at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control. Once electricity and water became available, they were left with months of cleanup.

For those involved, this is / was a traumatic experience much like for those in war zones.  Although these localized experiences pale in comparison to what was experienced by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps as described by Victor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning), I see some similarities in the emotional responses of people exposed to border conflicts and natural disasters around the world, as exemplified by the devastation in my community.  A psychiatrist by trade, Dr Victor Frankl relates how mental, and physical recovery can be attained or, at least, approached. So, I share some of his insights for the benefit of my friends and those around the world who are experiencing overwhelming trauma.

Spiritual Life

Despite the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hearty makeup often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature.

Frankl was transfixed by the truth as it is set into song by so many poets and 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. He 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. He came to understand how a person who has nothing left in the world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of their beloved.

In a position of utter desolation, when they cannot express themselfs in positive action, when the only achievement may consist in enduring sufferings in the right way—an honorable way —such a position one can, through loving contemplation of the image carried of their beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in his life Frankl was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

Frankl and other survivors felt that, even though they knew not the fate of their loved ones, the contemplation of their image and their mental conversations with them were vivid and satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.”

Intensification of inner life helps the sufferer find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and the spiritual poverty of their existence. Often it is an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives a person the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond themself.

Beauty and Humor

As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be surprise enough for an outsider, but you may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint trace of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes.

Imagination

Imagination can be a source of strength.  Frankl imagined himself standing on the platform of a well-lit warm and pleasant lecture room.  In front of him sat an attentive audience in comfortable upholstered seats. He was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp. All that oppressed him at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method he succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and observed them as if they were already in the past. Both he and his troubles became the object of an interesting psycho-scientific study undertaken by himself. As Spinoza said, “emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it”.

The Will to Live

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” (Nietzsche) Woe to him who saw no more sense to his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.

In the camps what was really needed was a fundamental change in attitude towards life. Frankl had to learn and had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us. They needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of themselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. The 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 person to person, 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 formed our destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No person and no destiny can be compared with any other person or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which we find ourselfs may require us to shape our own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes we may be required simply to accept fate, to bear our 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.

When a person finds that it is their destiny to suffer, they will have to accept suffering as their task, their single and unique task. The need is to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering one is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. 

For Frankel and other prisoners, these thoughts were not speculations far removed from reality. They were the only thoughts that could be of help to them. They kept them from despair, even when there seemed to be no chance of coming out of it alive. Long ago they had passed the stage of asking what was meaningful in life, a naive query which understands life as the attaining of some aim through the active creation of something of value. For them, the meaning of life embraced the wider cycles of life and death, of suffering and of dying.

Once the meaning of suffering had been revealed to them, they refused to maintain or alleviate the camp’s tortures by ignoring them or harboring false illusions and entertaining artificial optimism. Suffering had become a task on which they did not want to turn their backs. They had realized its hidden opportunities for achievement, the opportunities which caused the poet Rilke to write, “how much suffering there is to get through!” Rilke spoke of “getting through suffering” as others would talk of “getting through work.” There was plenty of suffering for them to get through. Therefore, it was necessary to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. Only very few realized that.

Harold Kushner’s Summary

Terrible as it was, Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz reinforced what was already one of his key ideas. Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in the work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. At one point, Frankl writes that a person “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.” He concedes that only a few prisoners of the Nazis were able to do the former, “but even one such example is sufficient proof that man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”

Finally, Frankl’s most enduring insight; forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to your life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. 

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Reference

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E Frankl have seen nearly 100 printings in English in addition to having been published in 21 other languages.