Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Man’s Search for Meaning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Search for Meaning
Suffering and Hope
Freedom, Optimism, and Responsibility
Psychology and Logotherapy
Summary
Analysis
According to Frankl, “love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.” Essentially, it is impossible to fully understand and appreciate another person without loving him. Frankl says that when someone loves another person, he or she can see the potential of that person and the meaning the person ought to strive to find. By loving someone, one has the opportunity to help that person find his or her purpose in life.
Frankl believes that one can only fully understand people whom one loves because by loving a person, one is able to see that person’s potential. One becomes responsible for helping that person find his or her vocation and meaning, and in doing this, one is able to find one’s own meaning.
Themes
Frankl understands sex as an important expression of love and encourages sex to happen when, and only when, it is “a vehicle for love.” He views the act as a way of finding an “ultimate togetherness.”
While Freud writes extensively about sex, Frankl rarely mentions it. For him, sex is only worthwhile when it intensifies love.
Themes
