THE LIFE OF
VIKTOR FRANKL
VIKTOR E. FRANKL:
LIFE BETWEEN THE YEARS
1905 - 1997
Viktor Emil Frankl was born on March 26th 1905 to Jewish couple Elsa Frankl (Prague) and Gabriel Frankl (Southern Moravia). Viktor was the middle child of three children. His Father worked as the Director in the Ministry of Social services (Lent, 2004).
World War One (1914-1918) saw his family poverty stricken, and on some desperate occasions the children were forced in begging to farmers (Lent, 2004). He began studying in secondary school (Gymnasium) in 1915. This is where his interest in psychology took off, and he read the “Nature Philosophers”.
He began to attend lectures on Applied Psychology and learning about Psychoanalysis (Lent, 2004). He gave his first lecture on “The meaning of life” and also became an official member of The Young Socialist Workers (Sozialistische Mittelschule Österreich) in 1921 (Lent, 2004).
By 1923 he had graduated from secondary school (Gymnasium), gained early publication for his work in the Daily Newspapers youth section and established communication with Sigmund Freud (Lent, 2004). After Graduating he went on to study medicine at the University of Vienna, later he would go on to specialise in Neurology and Psychiatry (Lent, 2004).
In 1925 he met Freud in person for the first time, however at this time he was becoming more closely involved with Alfred Adler. While giving lectures in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Berlin in 1926, he used the term logotherapy for the first time (Lent, 2004).
His relationship soured with Alfred Adler as he became more interested with the works of Rudolph Allers and Oswald Schwarz on Psychosomatic Medicine and Max Schelers book "Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values". This resulted in Frankl unintentionally ceasing to be a part of Alfred Adler’s inner circle (Lent, 2004). Between 1928 and 1929 he opened free counselling centres in Vienna and six other major cities in Europe for struggling adolescents.
In this project he was assisted by psychologists such as Charolette Buhler and Erin Wexberg. Julius Tandler provided him with financial support for the project. In 1930 he provided a special counselling service for students at the conclusion of the school year (Lent, 2004). This resulted in not one single suicide among the students of Vienna. This extraordinary result gained Frankl international recognition. He received invites all over Europe to give lectures about psychological hygiene (Lent, 2004).
He opened a practice as a Doctor of Neurology and Psychiatry in 1937 (Lent, 2004). Hitler’s German troops invaded Austria in 1938. Frankl became director of the Neurological Department of the Rothschild Hospital, a clinic for Jewish patients (1940). He received a visa for the United States but decided not to use it as he did not want to leave his aging parents. In 1941 he married his first wife Tilly Grosser shortly after she fell pregnant.
LIFE BEFORE 1945
Between the years of 1942 and 1945, Frankl was in four concentration camps. Those who entered concentration camps as prisoners were removed of their documents and given a number. This is all they were seen as during their time in the camps. Frankl was given the number 119,104 (Boeree, 2006).
The first camp Frankl was in was Theresienstadt in Bohemia. This is where he worked as a general practitioner until he was discovered as a psychologist. He was then moved to block B IV where he provided ‘psychohygiene’ and mental health care to prisoners.
For new prisoners, Frankl set up a special service to help them come to terms with their new situation and surroundings. In the mental hospital Frankl worked in, he was in charge of those who were suicidal. He would try to dissuade those who had suicidal thoughts. In this he was quite successful with suicide rates dropping from 254 in 1942 to 164 in 1943 (Pytell, 2003). Frankl was moved to Auschwitz in 1944 where his manuscript for Ärztliche Seelsorge, or The Doctor and the Soul was taken from him. Throughout his time in the camps, Frankl tried to memorize the manuscript and wrote it on stolen pieces of paper (Boeree, 2006).
Not long passed before he was moved to Kaufering where he worked as a slave laborer for five months (Famous Psychologists, n.d.). He then moved to Türkheim, where he worked as a doctor before becoming ill with typhoid fever. Both Kaufering and Türkheim were subsidiary camps of Dachau (Viktor Frankl-Institut, N/A). On April 27, 1945 Frankl was liberated by the Americans (Viktor Frankl-Institut, N/A).
LIFE IN CAMP
After his time in the camps, Frankl returned to Vienna where he learned about the fate of his family. It was not long after his return that Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning, which he completed in 9 days. In this Frankl wrote about life in a concentration camp as viewed by a psychologist. This would go on to become his most famous book.
The Library of Congress and Book-of-the-Month Club voted Man's Search for Meaning as one of the 10 most influential books (Smith, 2013). In this book he tries to find meaning in suffering. His findings would go on to support his therapeutic approach Logotherapy. In Man's Search for Meaning he is quoted as saying: “But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy." (Smith, 2013).
From 1946 to 1971, Frankl was the head physician in the Vienna Polyclinic of Neurology (Famous Psychologists, n.d.). Frankl remarried in 1947. He and his wife, Eleonore Katharina Schwindt, had a daughter Gabriele. Gabriele would later on become a child psychologist. Frankl received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1948. His dissertation was on The Unconscious God.
Frankl was awarded a professorship of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna in 1955. Frankl was a visiting professor at Harvard University, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. Throughout his life he was awarded 29 honorary doctoral degrees and published 39 books. Frankl contributed a lot to the world including Logotherapy. It was on 2 September 1997 that Viktor Frankl died of heart failure.