HR Newsletters 2020

NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTORS Meaning

Dr. Erin Eaton

I f you took any psychology in school, you probably remember the name Viktor Frankl. Even if you weren’t a student of psychology, his name might ring a bell. Dr. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who fathered the theory of “logotherapy.” In a nutshell, Frankl postulated that the human’s search for meaning is the primary driving motivation to persevere. Sounds like something we can all get behind, right? Most people would agree that “meaning” is an important part - if not the most important part - of human existence. Frankl’s contemporary - Erik Erikson - postulated a similar theory within his stages of psychosocial development when he described the stage of “generativity versus stagnation.” Erikson believed this is the stage in which we either find a purpose to our lives, or we don’t. But back to Dr. Frankl. What would inspire a man to base his entire career on this one tenant? How did he come to such a conclusion? If you’re like me - despite studying psychology as an undergraduate and graduate student - it was a story that I either never heard or didn’t remember. It was just a few years ago that I “rediscovered” Viktor Frankl and his story. And it made a significant impact on me. Frankl was born in 1905 and died in 1997. As a doctoral student, Frankl organized counseling centers for youth to confront the increasing number of teen suicides in Vienna. He earned a doctorate in medicine in 1930. From 1933 to 1937, Frankl headed a suicide unit for females at a Viennese psychiatric hospital. He established a private practice in 1938, but was forced to close it when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Dr. Frankl was Jewish. Despite having obtained an immigration visa to the United States in 1940, Frankl opted to stay close to his aging parents. Viktor Frankl married Tilly Grosser in 1941 and soon they expected a child. They were forced to abort by the Nazis. Only a few months later, in 1942, Dr. Frankl, his wife, parents, and brother were arrested and sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Theresienstadt was primarily used as a way- station to the extermination camps. Frankl’s father died there from exhaustion. Despite personal loss beyond comprehension, Frankl organized something of a “first response” team for newcomers to Theresienstadt. His concern was the prevention of suicide of shocked new prisoners. In 1944, Viktor, Tilly and Viktor’s mother were transported to Auschwitz in southern Poland, where his mother was immediately killed in the gas chamber and where his beloved wife, Tilly, was sent to the Ber- gen-Belsen camp in Germany. She would come to perish there. Frankl would eventually be moved between four concentration camps over a course of three years. Tuerkheim in Bavaria was his final stop and where he was freed when the Allies liberated the camp in 1945. Frankl, again, found a place helping others when he becomes chief doctor of a military hospital for the dis- placed. It isn’t until now that he learns of the deaths of his mother, brother, and wife. Overwhelmed with grief, Frankl focused on writing. In 1946, he wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning” in nine days.

22