Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

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. Shamefacedly some confessed occasionally that they had wept, like the comrade who answered my question of how he had gotten over his edema, by confessing, "I have wept it out of my system." The

The basis for any predictions would be represented by biological, psychological or sociological conditions. Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

Tension is not something to be avoided indiscriminately. Man does not need homeostasis at any cost, but rather a sound amount of tension such as that which is aroused by the demanding quality inherent in the meaning for human existence.

Frankl is credited with establishing logotherapy as a psychiatric technique that uses existential analysis to help patients resolve their emotional conflicts. He stimulated many therapists to look beyond patients' past or present problems to help them choose productive futures by making personal choices and taking responsibility for them.

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.

man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

through a reorientation toward the meaning

human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity. From

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

Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death." This

His approach to psychotherapy stressed the importance of helping people to reach new heights of personal meaning through self-transcendence: the application of positive effort, technique, acceptance of limitations, and wise decisions. His goal was to provoke people into realizing that they could and should exercise their capacity for choice to achieve their own goals.

meaning in life in three different 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.

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 you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. There is a scene in Arthur Miller's

Pronto, el prisionero construía, gracias a la insensibilidad, un muy necesario escudo protector.

Finally, Frankl's most enduring insight, one that I have called on often in my own life and in countless counseling situations: Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

Quienes conocen la estrecha relación entre el estado de ánimo de una persona —su valor y su esperanza, o la falta de ambos— y la capacidad de su sistema inmunológico comprenderán que la pérdida repentina de esperanza puede desencadenar un desenlace mortal. La

that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.

they offer sufficient 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

A man counted only because he had a prison number. One literally became a number: dead or alive—that was unimportant; the life of a "number" was completely irrelevant.

Cuando un hombre descubre que su destino es sufrir, ha de aceptarlo porque el sufrimiento se convierte en su única y singular tarea. Es más, tendrá que llegar a la conciencia de que ese destino doloroso le otorga el valor de persona única e irrepetible. Nadie puede redimirlo de su sufrimiento ni sufrir por él. Sin embargo, es en su actitud frente al dolor donde reside la posibilidad de conseguir un logro excepcional.

Pero es cierto que, al aplicar la logoterapia, el paciente ha de enfrentarse con el sentido de su vida y confrontar luego su conducta con ese sentido. Por consiguiente, se trata de una definición válida de la logoterapia, en cuanto el neurótico pretende eludir su responsabilidad vital; y despertar su conciencia al sentido de la vida es el fundamento para sobreponerse a la neurosis.

Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben." (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering