scholarly journals Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl)

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khushali Adhiya-Shah
Keyword(s):  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Victor Frankl

Book Review: Counseling and the Search for Meaning

1990 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-370
Author(s):  
Diana S. Richmond Garland
Keyword(s):  
Search For Meaning

Book Review: The Search for Meaning

1962 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-411
Author(s):  
Samuel Southard
Keyword(s):  
Search For Meaning

scholarly journals Searching for Meaning with Victor Frankl and Walker Percy

2020 ◽  
pp. 002436392094831
Author(s):  
Ethan M. Schimmoeller ◽  
Timothy W. Rothhaar
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Walker Percy ◽  
Search For Meaning ◽  
Goals Of Care ◽  
Clinical Encounters ◽  
Spiritual Crisis ◽  
Victor Frankl

Patients present to physicians searching for more than scientific names to call their maladies. They rather enter examination rooms with value-laden narratives of illness, suffering, hopes, and worries. One potentially helpful paradigm, inspired in part by existentialism, is to see patients on a search for meaning. This perspective is particularly important in the seemingly meaningless ruins of modernity. Here, we will summarize Victor Frankl’s account of logotherapy found in his much-circulated book Man’s Search for Meaning and assess the limitations imposed by his religious agnosticism. At best he can offer patients a finite, impersonal meaning this side of the grave. Following Kierkegaard’s depiction of the religious sphere of existence, American novelist Walker Percy will be shown to supplement logotherapy with a theological mooring. The spiritual crisis of the modern world is treatable only by Christian faith supplying ultimate meaning. Taken together, Frankl and Percy show how Catholic physicians can be guides in their patients’ personal searches for meaning. This paradigm may prove chiefly beneficial in goals of care conversations, encountering “aesthetic” patients living only for pleasure, and engaging patients amidst tragedy-ridden circumstances. Although only Christian faith will ultimately satisfy the search for meaning, we first of all need encouragement to take responsibility for seeking meaning, and confidence that even the most hopeless situation can become meaningful. Summary: Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning can enlighten clinical encounters for physicians to see patients on a search for meaning, particularly amidst suffering and tragedy in a post-modern world lacking transcendence. As shown in Walker Percy’s literature, however, ultimate meaning can only be found in Christian faith where the Word became flesh and continues to dwell among us.

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