Viktor Frankl
1 book analyzed
Biography
Viktor Emil Frankl (1905-1997) was born in Vienna and showed unusual intellectual promise from childhood — he began a correspondence with Sigmund Freud at age sixteen. He trained as a psychiatrist and neurologist, developing the outlines of logotherapy in the 1930s before the war. He was warned that he could emigrate to the United States but chose to stay to protect his aging parents. He, his parents, his brother, and his pregnant wife were all deported in 1942. He survived; they did not. After liberation in 1945, he dictated the first part of this book in nine days. He went on to publish 39 books, lecture in 209 universities across five continents, and establish logotherapy as a recognized psychotherapeutic tradition. He died in Vienna at 92, having reportedly lived the philosophy he described.