Customer Reviews

When Life Calls Out to Us: The Love and Lifework of Viktor and Elly Frankl

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The below is from Kirkus Reviews.

"Vivid and revealing recollections, impressions, and stories of Viktor Frankl's life, as told to clinical psychologist Klingberg, his friend and former student. In a project that took eight years to complete, Klingberg (Psychology/North Park Univ., Chicago) recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with Frankl and his wife Elly. In the process, he managed to elicit from Frankl (1905-1997) the influences, decisions, and graces that went into the making of the mind that produced the soul-expanding Man's Search for Meaning (1959). Frankl speaks plainly about his secure and comforting early youth, how it may well have had as much influence on his future thought as did the remarkable intellectual atmosphere of early-20th-century Vienna. Not an athletic child, he would instead trip off to attend lectures at the university psychiatric clinic, take sprout in the seedbeds of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Jaspers, the Nihilists, Freud, and Adler. He explains the moment of his discomfort with an idea, of the psychological theory and reductionism that deflected him from Freud and Adler, their constrictions and lack of rationality. And how, prior to the concentration camps, he was forming his theory of logotherapy and the development of a less deterministic, more optimistic and humanistic psychology, one rooted in the freedom and independence of the human spirit to assume responsibility in all personal matters, to find meaning in existence by living for someone or something other than the self. Klingberg provides a thorough picture of Frankl's detractors-from those who were angered by his thumbing his nose at collective guilt to others who found fault in his marrying a Christian to those who thought hiswork came down to simple mental attitude. The author also does an artful job of painting in the background against which Frankl's story is cast. A particularly valuable tool for understanding Frankl, as Klingberg manages to collar a wealth of defining moments in his subject's life and work."

As one of Dr. Frankl's medical students at the Poliklinik in 1948 I found this book of great interest. It is well written and detailed. Although I had always admired Frankl for not falling victim to hate after his concentration camp experiences I was unaware of the profound influence his second wife Elly (the first wife,Tilly, died in Bergen-Belsen) had in his recovery from the tragedies and the help she had given him in the propagation of logotherapy.
Anyone who is familiar with some of Frankl's book will enjoy reading about the fascinating and colorful personal lives of these two truly extraordinary people. Dr. Klingberg is to be congratulated for his efforts in making them available to us.

To those of us who cut our "self-awareness teeth" on Freud, Rogers, Adler and Maslow, Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" was a much-welcomed counterweight, jerking us forcefully back to a common reality about our humanity. For three decades we had watched the pendulum swing from a "human potential movement" run amok (that is from the pursuit of self-esteem projects and self-fulfillment ideologies at all costs and for their own sake. to self-awareness projects such as EST and (for me) "Life Spring," both of which were also self-absorbed self-actualization projects). But stripped of their psychological affectations, they were little more than just another form of individualism at all costs but called by yet another name. The swinging of the individualism pendulum was a morally blind and tawdry affair, with the worse infractions being committed by those in the "pay-as-you-go-mega churches," in which religionists were asked to be all they could be and make all they could make in God's name.

The results of having desperately grasped at these straws of individualism at all costs are now in. And now we cannot fail to recognize them for what they are: the cause of the now familiar social meltdowns of boredom, loneliness, obsessiveness, greed, promiscuity, addictions, abuse, divorces, violence, and the ultimate collective penalty, loss of community. In short, extreme individualism in pursuit of happiness no matter who it may hurt, has not worked very well for our society.

To Frankl the promise of such "individual" happiness on the cheap was always an empty pipe dream, if for no more reason than that it is an integral part of the Existentialist creed that in order to remain whole man must confront and deal with life's unpleasantness wherever it is found. And as this author makes clear, for Frankl, post-concentration camp happiness could not be purchased on the cheap, but to the extent it could be purchased at all, had to be earned day by painful day, through life's front doors.

That all people are capable of immense evil as well as extraordinary good is just a fact of human nature that is too often ignored. According to Frankl, we are all saints and scoundrels in-waiting. The basic fallacy of modern man seems to lie in ignoring this fundamental axiom of human nature a falw that Frankl sees as being built into human character. According to him, the flaw in man lies not in racial doctrines or political ideologies, but in the ease with which he can be seduced by tyrants who promise: privilege, protection, prosperity, advantages, pride and honor all in the name of particular tribal affiliations. According to Frankl, "the ordinary German" was not responsible for the holocaust (and his misery), but a baffling and deadly fusion of human factors in which human character was too easily influenced by Hitler's appeal to these inherent human weaknesses.

For Frankl, there was no "twelve-step program" for overcoming the holocaust. And as was the case when he was near death in Auschwitz, meaning had to be fashioned on the fly, from within the depths of one's own suffering. Suffering through Frankl's eyes thus is not to be seen as one of life's discards. It sits at the center of human experience. And as Frankl's life is testimony to, one of the truest measures of human character is man's ability to summon up from the depths of despair, enough human spirit to fashion from the debris of suffering a reality full of meaningfulness.

For those of us who have learned to live by and through the philosophy, prescribed by Frankl's "Man's Search for meaning," and its instrumentality, Logotherapy, the love story told here between Victor and his second wife, Elly, reflects the maturing of Frankl's soul, and the drawing out of the main themes of logotherapy. Kleinberg, from his own prodigious interviews, and his own reflections as a Psychologist, has made this book a feast for all true humanists. It covers not just Frankl's Holocaust experience, but also and especially the arc of his life from his childhood and the time spent as a neurologist, to his darkest days in four German concentration camps, to his life with his second wife. Theirs was a true love story, of sharing between a wise older Jewish man and a vibrant and dedicated younger Catholic woman. One of the key points of this book is that Elly proved to be the "rock" that got Frankl through his post-concentration malaise, and on to writing his most famous book. And as a result, is responsible for returning him to a full and productive life in the aftermath of the war.

And while, arguably the prose does not quite rise to a level that does the great man justice, it does fill in the blanks about Frankl's precocious childhood, in which he corresponded regularly with Sigmund Freud from the age of 15; as well as the highlights of Frankl's life as a much respected Viennese Neurologist before the Nazi's took over - as well as his robust sexual philandering throughout life. But the most important part in my view was not Frankl's personal idiosyncrasies, but the way the author "zeroed-in on" Frankl's philosophy of life carefully distilling the most prominent themes that eventually shaped his Logotherapy.

If man is a "meaning producing machine" as existentialist psychologists tell us we are, then Kleinberg chronicles of how Frankl went about the business of producing meaning in his life, in every life situation: from those in which his survival was under immediate and constant stress and assault (such as when he was in four different German concentration camps), to those in which due to clutter, ennui, irrelevance, and overpowering feelings of emptiness, meaningfulness in his life was no less equally at stake.

In today's world of glitz, bling, botox, and "cash and carry" religion, if life is to be enjoyed to the fullest, Frankl's ultimate message is that: we always must be in control of the meaning that affects our collective reality. This message, Frankl's way, although steeped deeply in its existentialist roots, offers an alternative route to meaning, sanity and moral responsibility. As the author notes, Frankl's existentialist philosophy has always had a definite life-affirming quality, a quality that arguably eludes contemporary Existentialists. The fundamental truth in Frankl's cosmos is that reality is about love, the love of wife and family: In Frankl's worldview, love is the common denominator of human existence and the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Thus, man's salvation is only to be found in and through love.

When a man has nothing left in this world, he still has the bliss of his own thoughts about his beloved. In the end that is the kind of richness in one's own inner life that is beyond the grasp of society's ability to manipulate. Love is the equalizer: It allows man to enter the insulated world of the poets, of the artists and of the innocents. So that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, as Frankl found himself in, in both Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, man can still "construct his way out, " through a mental "worm hole" of his own creation, fashioned entirely of his own reality of meaning: a web of thoughts walled off from outside control or manipulation. And thus even life's most intense suffering can be imbued with deep and life-affirming (and life-saving) meaning. Five stars

This history of Frankl's life, thoughtfully and respectfully told, provides much of the context which breathed even more life into Frankl's work for me.

It is now 14 years since Haddon Klingberg hosted Viktor Frankl and his wife Elly in Chicago, and was asked by the couple to write their personal story. He accepted the challenge and gave seven years to faithfully researching and recording a remarkable love story, interwoven with the professional accomplishments of one of the towering figures in 20th century psychiatric practice. Klingberg's foreward, introduction and first chapters give a comprehensive overview of the European psychiatric landscape into which Dr. Frankl emerged and upon which he left his indelible mark, after years of incarceration in Nazi concentration camps.

Frankl's logotherapy, which shone a light in my own life forty-three years ago, becomes more than an inspiring theory in author Klingberg's hands. Logotherapy's founder is enfleshed with a genuine humanity of weaknesses and flaws as well as the ideal of self-transcendence to which the noted physician aspired. I learned, and I laughed and cried alternately in this wonderful read. I'll never be the same after being led by the author into the private lives of the two remarkable Frankls.

This book represents the fruits of a seven year project in which the author periodically visited the Frankls in Vienna and recorded their story. Here is a spiritual journey and a love story that has never before been told. Dr. Frankl's early life is rolled out in detail, and many new facts about his captivity by the Nazis. We learn that after his release Frankl was convinced that "when all these things happen to someone, when someone is tested in this way--it must be for something, it must have some meaning." He confided in a friend that he had a sense that there was a task waiting for him, that he was destined to perform some service. Of course, he was destined to gift the world with his lectures and books, "The Unconscious God," (later titled "Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning"), "The Doctor and the Soul," and his most popular work, "Man's Search for Meaning." He would found a new school of psychology, Logotherapy. It is fascinating that he never met Abraham Maslow, yet they shared the same belief that humankind had been sold short. These two men were arguably the 20th century's most important champions of the concept of virtually unlimited human potential.

We learn in "When Life Calls Out to Us" that a remarkable woman shared his spiritual journey, Elly Frankl. They met in 1946. Much as did Abraham Maslow in America, Frankl's ideas about the higher nature of human beings was opposed by the Freudian establishment. We are not surprised that Frankl was exposed to post-holocaust anti-Semitism, and that his somewhat brusque personal style was criticized. But it is rather sobering that even some of his own Jewish people criticized him, claiming he "used" his death camp experiences for his own enrichment. Nonetheless, this is a marvelous book that reveals much about one of the great minds of the twentieth century. It is regrettable that fewer and fewer young people know of his journey. This book deserves to be read as a wondrous love story as well as a testament to the nobility and grace of the human spirit.

I was only slightly familiar with Viktor Frankl prior to reading this book. I read a short review in the Pietesten and it sparked my interest and prompted me to buy it. I recently lost my father and somehow this book has helped me in the healing process. It is written with such respect yet objectivity that you feel the Frankls are your neighbors. I recommend this book for people who enjoy reading about the personal aspects of celebrity. I use celebrity in the most respectful terms of Dr. Frankl and his wife Elly. Their lives will inspire you and prompt you to want to learn more about Dr. Frankl's teachings and writings.

I odered this book a LONG time ago from one of the used Book Dealers.