Summary of Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
Key Takeaways & Analysis
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Summary of Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
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Narrated by:
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Serena Travis
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By:
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Sumoreads
About this listen
Please note: This is a summary, analysis, and review of the book and not the original book.
Viktor E. Frankl's haunting and in-depth book, Man's Search for Meaning, draws on his own experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to help form Logotherapy, a new school of psychological thought on the meaning of life.
This Sumoreads summary and analysis offers supplementary material to Man's Search for Meaning to help you distill the key takeaways, review the book's content, and further understand the writing style and overall themes from an editorial perspective. Whether you'd like to deepen your understanding, refresh your memory, or simply decide whether or not this book is for you, Sumoreads summary and analysis is here to help. Absorb everything you need to know quickly!
What does this Sumoreads summary and analysis include?
- An executive summary of the original book
- Editorial review
- Key takeaways and analysis from each chapter
- A short bio of the author
Original book summary overview:
Victor Frankl's 1955 work Man's Search for Meaning is considered a modern-day classic - and with good reason. A clinical psychologist with a doctorate in philosophy, Frankl recounts his harrowing experience in concentration camps in World War II. Even within the concentration camp, Frankl argues, a person can find meaning in their life, and correspondingly, a reason to go on.
Before you buy: The purpose of this Sumoreads summary and analysis is to help you decide if it's worth the time, money, and effort listening to the original book (if you haven't already). Sumoreads has pulled out the essence - but only to help you ascertain the value of the book for yourself. This analysis is meant as a supplement to, and not a replacement for, Man's Search for Meaning.
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- By: Rollo May
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement. A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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May takes on the Creative Act
- By Lowball on 01-16-19
By: Rollo May
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The Denial of Death
- By: Ernest Becker
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,831
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,478
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,455
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie: man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than 30 years after its writing.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not for the closed-minded
- By Yhatze on 05-27-17
By: Ernest Becker
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Deep Thought
- 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best philosophy intro ever
- By Fabian on 04-14-18
By: Gary Cox
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On Augustine
- By: Rowan Williams
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story5 out of 5 stars 21
Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge), Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new audiobook, he turns his attention to St Augustine. St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory ( The City of God) and, through his Confessions, to the understanding of human psychology.
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5 out of 5 stars
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thoughtful take.
- By Michael McGuire on 04-17-22
By: Rowan Williams
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Jung
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Anthony Stevens
- Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 626
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 393
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 383
Anthony Stevens argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing Western society.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very nice - will not be disappointed
- By Edgar on 12-15-05
By: Anthony Stevens
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50 Self-Help Classics
- By: Tom Butler-Bowdon
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4 out of 5 stars 114
Discover the books that have already changed the lives of millions. This award-winning, unabridged guide to the "literature of possibility" surveys 50 of the all-time classics, giving you their key ideas, insights, and applications, everything you need to know to start benefiting from these legendary works.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Surprisingly Interesting
- By Cathy on 10-15-06
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Civilization and Its Discontents, Totem and Taboo
- By: Sigmund Freud
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is remembered as the father of psychoanalysis. Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) is one of his key works, written three decades after his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams. In it he considers the conflict between the needs of the individual acting both egotistically and altruistically in the pursuit of happiness and the myriad demands of civilised society and the ensuing tensions this clash of needs and demands generates.
By: Sigmund Freud
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The Meaning of Happiness
- The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East
- By: Alan Watts
- Narrated by: Kern Schmidt
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 165
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes from accepting both the outer world around us and the inner world inside us,
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Concepts Hard to Follow Along
- By Ryan on 04-13-20
By: Alan Watts
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Stay
- A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
- By: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Narrated by: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4 out of 5 stars 130
Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative but oddly dispassionate
- By Scott on 01-07-14
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The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
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50 Spiritual Classics
- By: Tom Butler-Bowdon
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 216
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Discover the books that have already changed the lives of millions. This unabridged guide to the literature of the spirit surveys 50 of the all-time classics, giving you their key ideas, insights, and applications - everything you need to know to start benefiting from these legendary works.
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3 out of 5 stars
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useful as review or starting point
- By connie on 01-03-09
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The Life of the Mind
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.
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2 out of 5 stars
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English only please
- By angela cozea on 11-20-19
By: Hannah Arendt
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Escape from Freedom
- By: Erich Fromm
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 406
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 334
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 330
lf a man cannot stand freedom, he will probably turn fascist. This, in the fewest possible words, is the essential argument in this modem classic, Escape from Freedom. The author, Erich Fromm, is a distinguished psychologist, late of Berlin and Heidelberg, now of New York City.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Why is this not required reading in high school?
- By Xander on 09-07-16
By: Erich Fromm
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On Becoming a Person
- A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
- By: Carl R. Rogers, Peter D. Kramer MD - introduction
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 308
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 301
The late Carl Rogers, founder of the humanistic psychology movement, revolutionized psychotherapy with his concept of "client-centered therapy." His influence has spanned decades, but that influence has become so much a part of mainstream psychology that the ingenious nature of his work has almost been forgotten. With a new introduction by Peter Kramer, this landmark book is a classic in its field and a must-listen for anyone interested in clinical psychology or personal growth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An introduction to the core humanistic issues
- By Amazon Customer on 04-08-18
By: Carl R. Rogers, and others
What listeners say about Summary of Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Richard
- 05-06-20
it's a summary
it is a summary of the book. it brings up good talking points. I now want to read the entire book.
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