Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This really is a must read for every one who lives and breathes. It was interesting to read it as a therapist. I was expecting something more like a self help book, but was intrigued to find it to be a cross between that and a description of a model of therapy (though leans heavily toward the former). I could relate it to my work with couples as often as we work through their struggles we are looking for the “meaning” in their relationship and finding that meaning carries them through their struggles together. It is why couples stay together through so much pain and conflict and gives them the motivation to work through it and stay together.
I was moved by his description of his emotional connection to his wife. Here are a few of his quotes about love that touched me:
“My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing–which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It find its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
“I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thought, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.” p. 58
The last generation of therapists (and some still today) talk about codependency as if it is a bad thing. We are deeply connected to our partners beyond ourselves. Invisible wires connect us to their hearts and minds. We become attached like a mother and child with similar needs, but in a lateral way.
Another: “”Listen, Otto, if I dont’ get back home to my wife and if you should see her again, then tell her that I talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I have loved her more than anyone. Thirdly, the short time I have been married to her outweighs everything even all we have gone through here.” p. 76
Imagine that, the magnitude of love being greater than the pain of the holocaust. Think of what love (a.k.a. secure adult attachment) does for us who live normal lives. Indeed, love gives us a secure base from which we can become so much more than the sum of our parts.
And ‘The Meaning of Love’ on p. 134.
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.
“In logotherapy, love is not interpreted as a mere epiphenomenon of sexual drives and instincts in the sense of a so-called sublimation. Love is as primary a phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of love. Thus love is not understood as a mere side-effect of sex; rather, sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love.”
Enough said. And today is my 11th anniversary…so fortunate to have true love. So, so fortunate.
