Unheard Cry For Meaning (Touchstone Books) [Paperback]

This was a wonderful book. I highly recommend it immediately after you read Man's Search for Meaning. This is a continuation and extension of the Introduction to Logotherapy that comprises the second half of Man's Search for Meaning. This book is more academic and less personal, but still full of insight and humanity. Frankl touches on many different aspects of life and existential vacuums that we all face. Here are some of his remarks that I thought perticularly noteworthy and that will give you a feel for the overall nature of this work.

Frankl's Definition of God

"God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies. Whenever you are talking to yourself in utmost sincerity and ultimate solitude-he to whom you are addressing yourself may justifiably be called God." {NB: This is in the context of a non-theistic statement, Frankl notes that a religious person would assert that these are real dialogues between himself and God, while an atheist would be equally correct in insisting that they are only monologues within his own mind. Frankl, himself, I think tends toward the latter position.}

Frankl, Viktor. "Determinism and Humanism: Critique of Pan-Determinism" The Unheard Cry for Meaning. pg. 63.

Self-Trancendence

"Man is - by virtue of the self-trancendent quality of the human reality - basically concerned with reaching out beyond himself, be it toward a meaning to fulfill, or toward another human being to lovingly encounter."

Frankl, Viktor. "Determinism and Humanism: Critique of Pan-Determinism" The Unheard Cry for Meaning. pg. 80.

On the Meaning of Sex

"Human sex is always more than mere sex, and it is more than sex to the extent that it serves as the physical expression of something metasexual, is the physical expression of love. Only to the extent that sex carries out this function is it a rewarding experience." {To the extent that sex fails in this task, ie. using another person as a tool, failing to connect to that person as a subject, not simply an object, it is referred to as 'masturbatory' and 'neurotic' by Frankl.}

Frankl, Viktor. "Determinism and Humanism: Critique of Pan-Determinism" The Unheard Cry for Meaning. pg. 80.

The Pursuit of Happiness

"The more one's search for meaning is frustrated, the more intensively he devotes himself to what ... has been termed the 'pursuit of happiness.' When this pursuit originates in a frustrated search for meaning it is aimed at intoxication and stupifaction. In the final analysis it is self-defeating, for happiness can arise only as a result of living out one's self-transcendence, one's dedication to a cause to be served or a person to be loved."

Frankl, Viktor. "The Dehumanization of Sex" The Unheard Cry for Meaning. pg. 83.

Hyper-reflection and Existential Emptiness

"Paying too much attention to something is what I am used to calling 'hyper-reflection.' The patient is invited to carefully observe and watch himself; what is even more important, he is encouraged to endlessly discuss whatever he furnishes from within himself. Hyper-discussion becomes more and more a substitute for the meaning of life which is today so often missing, and missed by those who are caught in an 'existential vacuum,' a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness." {There is also a discussion on the principle of hyper-interpretation, which subjects one to a relentless examination on one's 'real motivations.'}

Frankl, Viktor. "Critique of Pure Encounter" The Unheard Cry for Meaning. pg. 76.

I don't want to exaggerate and say this book changed my life, but it has had an incredible impact on my personal philosophy. It's just an amazing book. If existentialism and psychology made a love child, this would be it. I'm still not sure why he isn't more known. Everyone could benefit from his brilliant thoughts. I have major depression and his work has helped me say yes to life.

In the dialogue with Pinchas Lapide Frankl formulates that man is becoming himself, is realizing himself, is purely man exactly to the same degree as he does not try to realize himself or his own luck, rather he should be in the process of giving himself away to something else (or somebody else). Frankl`s extension of psychotherapy to transcendence comes from Jewish, Biblical thinking. It wants to set man free from his self-centerdness, which spoils his ways and removes him from God.
This kind of thinking is somehow biblically designed and practised in therapy. In the manner of Jesus for example who said: "who finds his life will lose it, and who loses it for my sake will find it". Lapide mentions this relation to the New Testament in his conversation with Frankl.
Nothing what is important for man, be it motherhood, a commandment, love, nothing is allowed to serve as an idol, Frankl teaches. Only in the extended view of the transcendence these things attain their fulfillment.
Frankl explains Saint-Exupery who had said: "Love means not to stare in the eyes of one another, but to look into the same direction together" in this way: "The real lovers look parallel into the eternity, they pray together. Love is a mutual prayer, a prayer for two."
The key for a complete life is the conscience, the "organ" to find meaning. Given that the non-religious man who has also conscience and responsibility is a man who ignores the transcendency of the conscience, he misses yet the question of responsibility for what? And of conscience from who? He takes conscience as the last thing in front of which he has to be responsible, but he ignores that it is only the last but one, because the last is God.
Pinchas Lapide respects the manner how Frankl consumed the concentration camp experiences, because he brought them into an interesting context with the question about God:
"Since Frankl had to drain the cup of suffering and yet was able to survive it without hatred and with love for mankind he must be a living prove on two feet for the existence of God... then also Dorothee Sölle and the so called "God-is-dead-theology" are wrong." This would mean that concentration camps and their abominations are a chance to see God rather than to deny his existence! Which makes sense since only a living God can help.
Frankl perceives the crises of meaning of the many singular people also as a society problem. In the existential vacuum which arises where the human existence does not find any sense and does not realize any values something else starts to pore in: frustration, desperation, hatred, violence. Frankl is concerned: "Will spiritual poverty be the poverty of the 21st century?" I will be not the only one to be affirmative.