Frankl, Viktor

Viktor Emil Frankl (1905–1997) was an Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and philosopher, and the founder of logotherapy and existential analysis, which is a meaning-centred existential/philosophical form of therapy. Born on March 26, 1905, in Vienna, Frankl was the second of three children. His mother, Elsa Frankl, née Lion, hailed from Prague, while his father, Gabriel Frankl, director in the Ministry of Social Service, came from Southern Moravia. During the First World War (1914–1918), the family experienced bitter deprivation; sometimes the children went begging to farmers. In his high school years (1915–1923), Frankl eagerly read the Nature Philosophers, attended public lectures in applied psychology, and became well-read in psychoanalysis. In 1921, Frankl gave his first public lecture: “On the Meaning of Life”; in 1923, he wrote his ...