13

Viktor Frankl’s Legacy Continues

The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.¹(V. Frankl)

It has been twenty years since I (Alex) met with Dr. Frankl at his home in Vienna, Austria, and after proposing the idea of writing this book, he grabbed my arm and encouragingly said, “Alex, yours is the book that needs to be written.” It is perhaps even more significant to note that 2017 marks the twentieth year since Frankl’s passing in 1997. A truly exceptional human being, Viktor Frankl will forever bring light to darkness along the path and guide the human quest for meaning. Psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Zeig, who was privileged to know Frankl and his family, anchored his sentiments about the influence of Frankl in words taken from Albert Camus’s The First Man: “There are people who vindicate the world, who help others just by their presence.” Without a doubt, Frankl was a man whose very presence vindicated the world. His legacy continues to be one of hope and possibility. He saw the human condition at its worst, with people behaving in unimaginably intolerable ways. He also saw human beings rising to heights of compassion and caring in what can only be described as miraculous acts of unselfishness and transcendence.

Indeed, Frankl leaves a profound legacy. Through his life and work, he reminds us that we all have important work to do, that whatever we do is important, and that meaning can be found everywhere, all the time. In this chapter it is our intent to highlight some of the ways in which Frankl’s legacy continues to influence (and change) lives, work, and society. Against the backdrop of his extraordinary life and timeless wisdom, may Viktor Frankl’s memory be eternal.

Changing Lives

Frankl developed and practiced Logotherapy and Existential Analysis as a way for everyone—from death row inmates and concentration-camp survivors to CEOs, bus drivers, and postmodern philosophy professors—to find and open the doors of rooms of despair. His framework of being and doing offered an entirely new design for our lives. He provided a disciplined approach for discovering meaning in even the most catastrophic of circumstances—an approach rooted firmly in his profound personal experience.

In this regard, Frankl’s influence cannot be overestimated. Indeed, it transcends a single lifetime and manifests itself in many different ways, on multiple levels. For those of us who were fortunate to have been in his presence, the experience, without doubt, was transformative. However, his “presence” and influence have been—and continue to be—felt by far more people around the world because of the words of wisdom that he has shared through his writings. It is nearly impossible to find someone who hasn’t been affected in a profound way after having read Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. “That book changed my life,” so many people in all walks and stages of life have told us. Indeed, it is no wonder that the Library of Congress named Man’s Search for Meaning one of the ten most influential books in America. Although we agree that this is a well-deserved honor, the book’s influence goes far beyond the United States!

Dr. Frankl’s writing has affected people from all walks of life—educators, students, religious leaders (including Pope Paul VI), politicians, philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and millions of others in search of meaning in their own lives. Yet he was humble, modest, and not interested in promoting himself in the fashion of the times. He was also inspirational to those whose lives were anchored in struggle. For example, Jerry Long, a young man from Texas, was a victim of a tragic diving accident. Although Long was left a quadriplegic, he was determined to become a psychologist because he liked people and wanted to help them. As a college freshman, Long read Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, and found new insights every time he read the book. Despite being able to type only by using a pencil-sized rod that he held in his mouth, Long wrote to Frankl, remarking that his own difficulties seemed to be far less than those suffered by Frankl and his comrades in the concentration camps. When Long eventually met Frankl in person, he told him: “The accident broke my back, but it did not break me.”²

Despite his severe handicap, Jerry Long was able to fulfill his goal of becoming a psychologist, earning his doctorate in clinical psychology in 1990. Dr. Jerry L. Long Jr., who died in 2004, was an extraordinary, inspirational figure and, as Dr. Frankl rightly observed, was a living testimony to “the defiant power of the Spirit.” Long had always believed: “I have suffered but I know that, without the suffering, the growth I have achieved would not have been possible.” He wrote:

Once, after speaking to a large audience, I was asked if I ever felt sad because I could no longer walk. I replied, “Professor Frankl can hardly see, I cannot walk at all, and many of you can hardly cope with life. What is crucial to remember is this—we don’t need just our eyes, just our legs, or just our minds. All we need are the wings of our souls and together we can fly.”³

References to Frankl’s work are numerous. Best-selling author Stephen R. Covey, who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the foreword to this book, was particularly influenced by Frankl’s vision. In their book First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy, Covey and his associates referred to Frankl’s concentration camp experiences and cited the following passage from Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning: “The single most important factor, he realized, was a sense of future vision—the impelling conviction of those who were to survive was that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do.”⁴

Extending the Discipline

Frankl did not promote himself or his school of thought and practice like many other pioneers and leaders in his field. However, his legacy, in large part, has been driven by his disciples and other loyal followers. In this regard, what is referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” (the predecessors being the Freudian and Adlerian Schools) consists of two disciplinary parts: Logotherapy, the meaning-centered therapeutic practice, and Existential Analysis, the philosophical foundation of the meaning-centered approach. Frankl’s expertise in both psychiatry and philosophy, coupled with his extraordinary life experiences, made him ideally suited for what became his meaning “ministry.”

In 1992 the Viktor Frankl Institute was established in Vienna, Austria.⁵ Today the Institute continues to serve as the center of a worldwide network of research and training institutes and societies dedicated to maintaining and fostering the lifework of Viktor Frankl, including advancing his philosophy and therapeutic system of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. There are more than one hundred institutions around the world, representing over forty countries, that are accredited members of the International Association of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis at the Viktor Frankl Institute Vienna. The Institute also provides accreditation/ certification of individual Logotherapists in different professional fields (for example, physicians, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, counselors, and coaches).

In addition to supporting academic degree programs and external research projects, the Institute collaborates with the City of Vienna’s Viktor Frankl Fund to grant scholarships and award prizes for work in the field of meaning-centered humanistic psychotherapy. It also has exclusive access to Frankl’s private archives and the world’s largest collection of texts and research on Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. As part of its rigorous agenda, the Institute organizes a Biennial International Congress on the Future of Logotherapy, held in Vienna. We were honored that Alex was one of the featured speakers at the 2016 Congress, especially since he shared the stage with some of Logotherapy’s most prominent practitioners and advocates, including Viktor Frankl’s beloved wife, Dr. Eleonore (Elly) Frankl.

The global reach and influence of the Viktor Frankl Institute and its worldwide affiliates continue to increase due, in part, to a growing presence on various social media platforms as well as from new digital and communication technologies that make the Institute’s work more readily available. It is noteworthy to see attention to meaning-centered humanistic psychotherapy and existential analysis, as well as references to Frankl’s life and legacy, increase in the professional (both academic and practitioner) literature and in mainstream consumer publications.⁶

Crossover Applications

The increasing attention to Frankl’s contributions to humanizing psychotherapy and improving the human condition doesn’t stop within the professional disciplines that typically are associated with such aims. Because the search for meaning has been shown to be a pertinent concern across all age groups, we have observed many applications, including adaptations, of Frankl’s work enter and essentially intersect with other domains.⁷ Recent developments in the field of existential psychology and existential therapy increasingly have come to rely on Frankl’s philosophical perspective and therapeutic approach. Likewise, fresh insights into what is referred to as “Positive Psychology 2.0” or Second Wave Positive Psychology have opened up new windows of opportunity for applying meaning-centered concepts and practices, specifically Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, and introducing Frankl’s wisdom. Psychologist and researcher Dr. Paul T. P. Wong, founder of the International Network on Personal Meaning and our friend and colleague, has been a thought leader in this area.⁸

Crossing over from the therapeutic arena, we are beginning to see Frankl’s meaning-centered ideas enter the coaching field. Driven, it seems, by the commonalities as well as the inherent tensions between these two professional tracks—that is, “therapy” vis-à-vis “coaching”—some kind of convergence seems inevitable. In this connection we’ve observed such developments as existential therapy adding an “existential coaching” dimension to its repertoire, and the professional practice of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy extending its reach into “cognitive behavioral coaching” with the blessing of the International Coach Federation.⁹ To be sure, these are significant developments, for they point the way to even more opportunities for Frankl’s wisdom with his focus on the human quest for meaning to be seeded and take root in complementary fields of endeavor.

As the theme of this book reveals, the search for meaning in work-related contexts has also grown in importance since both employers and employees within organizations, as well as all other kinds of “workers,” are coming to the realization that meaning at the core of their work has benefits that go far beyond conventional metrics of return on investment (ROI) and the financial bottom line. More and more scientific research, including that which we are conducting in MEANINGology under the auspices of the Global Meaning Institute, documents that meaning drives engagement and resilience, health and well-being, and performance and innovation—all characteristics that are fundamental to the working environment.¹⁰ The need to continue to humanize work and the workplace is a quest in and of itself; the meaning paradigm and formula that Viktor Frankl espoused (as do we) not only underscore the importance of this quest but also provide practical, empirically grounded guidelines for pursuing it successfully.

Earlier in this book, especially in chapter 12, we emphasized that government is an important target of opportunity for bringing meaning into the workplace and, at a societal level, into the formulation of public policy. Statements like “It’s close enough for government work” and “Innovation in government is an oxymoron” are indictments of those employed by the public service and reflections of ourselves as citizens.¹¹ The search for meaning at work, including that derived from government service, has moved to center stage and the need to reflect on the meaning of work is perhaps greater today than ever before. Political posturing aside, the time has come to elevate and, in our view, return government service to its position as a noble calling. Managing the public’s business, which includes the political realm, deserves no less.¹²

In this regard, we are seeing a growing interest in, and even a new consciousness about, finding meaning in and at work and building meaning-centered workplaces across sectors and industries. We mentioned in chapter 11 that the Academy of Management (AoM) chose “Making Organizations Meaningful” as its 2016 annual conference theme. Among its various and related interest groups, AoM has a Public and Nonprofit Division that certainly will benefit from addressing the annual theme and, we hope, will seek to see it continue and expand in the future. Moreover, we’ve had the occasion to introduce Viktor Frankl and his work to government workers in collaboration with the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the largest and most prominent professional association dedicated to advancing excellence in public service, not just in the United States but also on a global scale through its professional development program offerings and publications.

The growing interest in meaning, including Viktor Frankl’s work and our own, in all kinds of organizations and work is clearly evident. We should mention that Prisoners of Our Thoughts was even referenced by the online New World Encyclopedia in the “legacy” section of the encyclopedia’s entry on Viktor Frankl! In particular, we are credited with predicting that Frankl’s contributions to health and wellness, as well as to “good” government and business, would be profound.¹³

Popular Culture

Viktor Frankl’s name and ideas are also finding their way with increasing regularity into popular culture—on television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and, yes, even in movies. Frankl and his work have appeared in such mainstream consumer publications as Psychology Today and India’s premiere lifestyle magazine, Complete Wellbeing. In 2015 it was announced that Frankl’s best seller, Man’s Search for Meaning, was finally heading for the big screen as a feature film.¹⁴ Fuego Films has teamed up with Emmy Award–winning journalist Giselle Fernandez to secure the film-option rights to the book, which had been held back until Frankl’s estate made the deal. Screenwriter Adam Gibgot has been given the honor of writing the script based on the book. Our friend Mary Cimiluca, who represents the Frankl estate and who also is a filmmaker, will be an executive producer on this exciting project. According to Gibgot, “The movie is about the best and worst of humanity, but how out of the worst the best can emerge.”

Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s Tonight Show, has played a recent role in exposing the public to Viktor Frankl and his insights. In the summer of 2015, Fallon had an accident in which he fell at home and nearly lost one of his fingers.¹⁵ The injury required six hours of microsurgery and required Fallon to stay in the intensive care unit of New York’s Bellevue Hospital for ten days. As Fallon described it to his television audience when he returned to work after two weeks off, he started “losing it halfway through” his hospital stay. At his physician’s recommendation, he began to read books about the meaning of life and, in particular, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. On live television Fallon said that he “absolutely loved it,” and he displayed a copy of the book. He also said that he “highlighted quotes and things. I e-mailed all my friends. I’m like, ‘Dude, you have to read this book—I know the meaning of life.’”¹⁶ On a more serious note, Fallon shared the following insights about what he had learned from his ordeal and, consequently, from Viktor Frankl:

This is the meaning of my life. I belong on TV. I should be talking to people who are watching, who are either in an ICU—wherever you are, at home—if anyone is suffering at all, this is my job. I’m here to make you laugh. I’m here to make you have a good time. . . . That’s my job. That’s why I’m here. I want to spread the love.¹⁷

Eternal Message

The memory of Viktor Frankl, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, is eternal. So is Frankl’s inspirational and aspirational message of meaning. Here we briefly describe three initiatives that, in different ways, will guarantee that the memory of his life and legacy is never lost.¹⁸

Viktor & I. In the fascinating and beautifully crafted documentary film Viktor & I, Dr. Frankl’s grandson and filmmaker, Alexander Vesely, gives a unique and personal look at his famous grandfather about whom he coined the moniker “Pioneer of Meaning.” The film is based on interviews with Frankl’s friends and colleagues from around the world that were conducted over a three-year period. Among Vesely’s aims was to discover and depict how Frankl’s theories were connected to him as a person. Viktor & I shows Frankl as he was seen by relatives, friends, colleagues, students, and acquaintances in various professional and private settings. “We can witness a variety of encounters and anecdotes—from funny to profound, from sentimental to inspiring—but always full of insight into a most human, and humane, personality.”¹⁹

Viktor Frankl Museum. On March 26, 2015, on the occasion of what would have been Viktor Frankl’s 110th birthday, the grand opening of the world’s first Viktor Frankl Museum was held in Vienna, Austria.²⁰ The Museum is an initiative of the Viktor Frankl Center Vienna (Viktor Frankl Zentrum Wien), which operates in cooperation with the Viktor Frankl Institute and a number of allied entities in Austria. The Museum was designed to be an experiential, interactive, sensory, and multimedia learning opportunity for visitors to become introduced to Frankl’s life, his philosophy, and his approach to psychotherapy. Visitors are invited to immerse themselves in Frankl’s meaning-centered teachings and to deal with personal questions of meaning and existence. The overall aim of the Viktor Frankl Center is to preserve and disseminate Frankl’s lifework in all spheres of society as well as to integrate the basic ideas of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis into such applied disciplines as medicine, psychotherapy, philosophy, education, and economics through a wide variety of programs and services. Professionals, students, and the general public can get acquainted with Frankl’s body of work through courses, seminars, workshops, lectures, literature, and film, among other educational options.

Statue of Responsibility. Viktor Frankl warned that freedom threatens to degenerate into mere license and arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. Although he enjoyed his time in America and admired much about it, Frankl was not shy about criticizing the popular understanding of some cherished American values, such as our notion of freedom. He took exception, for instance, to what appeared to be a commonly accepted view of equating freedom with a license to do virtually anything one wants. To Frankl, freedom without responsibility was an oxymoron. That is why he recommended that the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in New York Harbor be complemented by a Statue of Responsibility somewhere along the West Coast.

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.²¹ (V. Frankl)

We’ve always been intrigued by Dr. Frankl’s idea for a Statue of Responsibility. Such a monument makes sense to us and, in our opinion, would be much more than just a bookend to the Statue of Liberty. It could serve, among other things, as an important reminder of what is required to safeguard true freedom and a democratic way of life. Moreover, it would be an extraordinary way to celebrate Frankl’s life and legacy. It would be a meaningful, everlasting symbol of his contributions to humankind.

A nonprofit foundation exists to advance Frankl’s idea with the goal of completing the statue, which would be a three-hundred-foot national monument, complete with a large event venue similar to the National Mall in Washington, DC, somewhere on the West Coast by the year 2020.²² A model of the proposed Statue of Responsibility, consisting of a pair of clasped hands oriented vertically, has been designed by commissioned sculptor Gary Lee Price. The model is being used to help raise private funds for the project, which is estimated to cost between $300 million and $400 million. It is interesting to note that the late Stephen R. Covey, who wrote the foreword to Prisoners of Our Thoughts, was a member of the original committee formed by Viktor Frankl in the 1990s to bring the concept of the Statue of Responsibility to life.

The Force Awakens

Indeed, the spirit of Viktor Frankl lives on, and his ageless wisdom about the human quest for meaning continues to spread around the world. More people in all stages and walks of life are being given the opportunity to benefit from Frankl’s wisdom through new channels, such as via new media and social networks, and are revealing their hunger for something “more” in life, work, and society than what they have experienced or can envision for their future. “The times they are a-changin’,” sang Bob Dylan. We consider the meaning movement that is happening to be a megatrend of the twenty-first century. In a postmodern world characterized by increasing complexity, insecurity, uncertainty, and inequality, yet surrounded by unappreciated, unused, and, in many cases, hoarded abundance, the call—the “cry”—for meaning can be heard loud and clear. Yes, Bob Dylan, the times are changing and rightly so. To paraphrase a line from the best-selling Italian novel The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), “If you want things to stay the same, then something is going to have to change.”

By living a life with meaning right to his last breath, Frankl showed us how his existential philosophy and therapeutic approach were grounded in practice. His personal experiences throughout his long life, both as a survivor of the Nazi death camps and as a revered and respected thought leader, illuminate the unlimited potential of a human being. Frankl’s life gives us rich and ample evidence that the keys to freedom from life’s prison cells—real and imagined—are within us, and within reach. Meaning, as Dr. Frankl taught us, can be found everywhere—in and through all of life’s experiences. Like energy, it cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. It exists in the moment—in all moments—and is only waiting to be discovered.

All things being equal, we suspect that the new “balanced scorecard” of the twenty-first century will be concerned more with success at making a life than with success at making a living. As people become increasingly aware of their mortality and their commitment to meaningful values and goals—that is, their will to meaning—they become more likely to consider the kind of personal legacy they would like to leave behind. This shift in consciousness will keep them on their path to meaning. In the end, the “good life,” as the ancient Greek philosophers wisely espoused, is not about the search for happiness, it is about the search for meaning. But discovering meaning in life and work is both a personal and collective responsibility—a message you have heard numerous times throughout this book.

For this to happen, we must make an authentic commitment not to forget the core message of why meaning is so important, how meaning can benefit all aspects of our lives, and what we must do to discover meaning. This is the core message that Viktor Frankl was seeking to convey, share with the world, and leave behind as his personal legacy. Remember the eloquent words of Stephen Covey in his foreword: “To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.” To bring meaning into our lives requires learning, knowing, and then doing. Importantly, this kind of authentic, action-oriented learning and knowing cannot happen until we are no longer prisoners of our thoughts.

Meaning Reflections

Think about how Viktor Frankl’s life and legacy, including what you’ve learned about his System of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, can help you deal with challenges in your life and work, now and in the future. What ideas, life lessons, and/or Logotherapeutic principles do you feel will be most useful—and meaningful—to you? How will you demonstrate that you understand and are authentically committed to practicing these principles in your everyday life and work?

Meaning Questions

• In what ways do the underlying values and goals in your life and work reflect Frankl’s will to meaning?

• What can and will you do to share Frankl’s inspirational meaning message with others?

• How can you help family members, friends, and coworkers find meaning in their lives and work using what you’ve learned about and from Frankl?

Meaning Affirmation

In the spirit of Viktor Frankl’s work and legacy, I will pursue meaning in my life, my work, and in our broader society.