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Viktor Emil FranklAustrian psychiatrist, psychologist and neurologist
Date of Birth: 26.03.1905
Country:  Austria |
Content:
Victor Emil Frankl: A Biography
Victor Emil Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist, and neurologist, as well as a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. He is the creator of logotherapy, an existential psychoanalytic method that became the foundation of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy. Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants. From a young age, he showed an interest in psychology, dedicating his high school thesis to the psychology of philosophical thinking.
After completing high school in 1923, Frankl studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where he later specialized in neurology and psychiatry. He deeply studied the psychology of depression and suicide. His early experiences were influenced by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, but Frankl would later move away from their perspectives. In 1924, Frankl became the president of the Sozialistische Mittelschüler Österreich (Socialist Middle School Students of Austria). During his time in this role, he created a specialized support program for students during their examination period. Not a single case of suicide was recorded among Vienna's students during Frankl's tenure. The success of the program caught the attention of Wilhelm Reich, who invited Frankl to Berlin. From 1933 to 1937, Frankl headed the Selbstmörderpavillon, a suicide prevention department of one of Vienna's clinics. Over 30,000 women at risk of suicide became Frankl's patients. However, when the Nazis came to power in 1938, Frankl was forbidden from treating Aryan patients due to his Jewish heritage. He started a private practice and in 1940, he became the head of the neurology department at the Rothschild Hospital, where he also worked as a neurosurgeon. At that time, it was the only hospital that admitted Jewish patients. Thanks to Frankl's efforts, several patients were saved from the Nazi euthanasia program.
In 1941, Frankl married Tilly Grosser. On September 25, 1942, Frankl, his wife, and parents were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In the camp, Frankl worked as a doctor, but when his knowledge of psychiatry became known, he was asked to create a specialized service to help newly arrived prisoners overcome the initial shock and provide support during the early stages of adaptation. Later, Frankl also created a suicide prevention department. In order to maintain his dignity in the harshest conditions of camp life, Frankl presented himself before an audience and delivered lectures on his psychotherapeutic experience in the concentration camp. He believed that an objective view of the suffering one experiences helps in survival. Frankl and his colleagues, including Leo Beck and Regina Jonas, made every effort to help the prisoners overcome despair and prevent suicide. Frankl worked in the psychiatric department, headed the neurology clinic, and created a psychohygiene service for patients and those who lost the will to live. He lectured on sleep disorders, the soul and body, medical support for the soul, the psychology of mountaineering and the mountain ranges of the Northern Alps, the health of the nervous system, existential problems in psychotherapy, and social psychotherapy. On July 29, 1943, Frankl organized a closed session of a scientific society.
On October 19, 1944, Frankl was transferred to Auschwitz, where he spent a few days before being sent to Türkheim, one of the camps in the Dachau system, where he arrived on October 25, 1944. He spent the next six months as a slave laborer. His wife was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was killed. Frankl's father died in Theresienstadt from pulmonary edema, and his mother was killed in Auschwitz. On April 27, 1945, Frankl was liberated by American forces. The only surviving member of Frankl's family was his sister, who emigrated to Australia. After three years in concentration camps, Frankl returned to Vienna. In 1945, he completed his internationally renowned book, "Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy." The book described his personal experience of survival in the concentration camp from the perspective of a psychiatrist.
Shortly after the war, Frankl expressed his idea of reconciliation. In 1946, he became the head of the Vienna Neurological Clinic, a position he held until 1971. In 1947, he married Eleonore Katharina Schwindt. His second wife was Catholic, and they both respected each other's religious traditions, attending both church and synagogue, and celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. They had a daughter named Gabrielle, who later became a child psychologist. In 1955, Frankl became a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna and also gave lectures at Harvard University.
In the post-war years, Frankl published over 32 books, many of which were translated into 10-20 languages. He also traveled to numerous countries, giving lectures and seminars, and received 29 honorary doctorates.
Frankl passed away on September 2, 1997, due to heart failure.
Currently, members of Frankl's family are still alive, including his wife Eleonore, his daughter Gabrielle Frankl-Vesely, his grandchildren Katarina and Alexander, and his great-granddaughter Anna Victoria. In his seminal work, "Man's Search for Meaning" (originally published in 1946 as "Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager" and later published in 1959 under the title "From Death-Camp to Existentialism"), Frankl describes his personal experience of survival in a concentration camp and presents his psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all aspects of life, even the most harrowing, thereby creating a motivation for continued living. Frankl is considered one of the main founders of existential therapy, and his works have been a source of inspiration for humanistic psychology.
Frankl's therapeutic method is classified as existential therapy. Having dedicated his career to studying the existential approach, Frankl concluded that the lack of meaning is the main stressor for individuals. Frankl equated existential neurosis with a crisis of life's meaninglessness.
There is an opinion that it was Frankl who coined the term "Sunday neurosis," which characterizes a depressed state and a sense of emptiness that people often experience after the workweek ends. Frankl noted that such a state arises from what he called an existential vacuum, which is characterized by feelings of boredom, apathy, and emptiness. Individuals experience doubt, loss of purpose, and meaninglessness in their activities.
