Frankl, V. (2006) | References | Narcissus and the Child

What This Research Found

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, having sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 50 languages. Written in just nine days after Frankl's liberation from Nazi concentration camps, it combines a memoir of survival with a psychological theory that has helped millions find meaning in suffering.

The central observation: Frankl noticed that in the concentration camps, survival was not determined solely—or even primarily—by physical strength or access to resources. What distinguished those who maintained hope and dignity from those who collapsed was psychological: whether they had something to live for, some meaning that made their suffering bearable. "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how," Frankl wrote, quoting Nietzsche.

The three sources of meaning: Frankl identified three primary ways humans find meaning in life:

Through work and creative accomplishment: Creating something, contributing something, leaving something behind. For concentration camp prisoners, this might mean maintaining their professional identity in their minds, planning books to write, or simply doing assigned work with care despite its meaninglessness to captors.
Through love and connection: Experiencing another human being in their unique essence—loving them. Frankl describes sustaining long inner dialogues with his wife (not knowing she had already died), finding that love transcends physical presence. "Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved."
Through suffering that cannot be avoided: When unavoidable suffering is met with courage and dignity, the suffering itself becomes meaningful. This is not endorsement of suffering but recognition that humans can transform even tragedy into achievement. "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

The will to meaning: Frankl proposed that the primary human motivation is neither Freud's "will to pleasure" nor Adler's "will to power" but rather the "will to meaning"—the fundamental drive to find significance and purpose in one's existence. When this drive is frustrated, people experience what Frankl called the "existential vacuum"—a pervasive sense of emptiness and meaninglessness that can manifest as depression, anxiety, addiction, and various psychological disorders.

Logotherapy: The second half of the book introduces logotherapy, the psychotherapeutic approach Frankl developed. Unlike therapies focused on analyzing the past (psychoanalysis) or modifying behavior (behaviorism), logotherapy is oriented toward the future—toward meanings to be fulfilled. Key techniques include:

Paradoxical intention: Using humor and reverse psychology to address anxiety and phobias
Dereflection: Shifting attention away from symptoms toward meaningful engagement
Socratic dialogue: Helping clients discover their own meanings rather than imposing values
Attitude modification: Working with how clients relate to circumstances they cannot change

The last human freedom: Perhaps Frankl's most famous insight is that even in extremity, humans retain one inviolable freedom: "to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." The Nazis controlled everything external—prisoners' movements, bodies, whether they lived or died. But they could not control how prisoners thought about their circumstances. This "last freedom" sustained dignity and survival when everything else had been stripped away.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Frankl's work appears in Narcissus and the Child as a framework for understanding how meaning-making transforms the recovery process. In Chapter 15: Protecting Yourself, Frankl's insights illuminate the spiritual dimension of post-traumatic growth:

"Spiritual development often accompanies recovery. This doesn't necessarily mean religious conversion but expanded understanding of meaning, connection, and purpose... The narcissist's attempt to play god in their lives leads to recognition of genuine transcendence. Having experienced evil, survivors often develop profound appreciation for good. The dark night of the soul transforms into spiritual awakening."

The book draws on Frankl's concept that suffering can be transformed into meaning when discussing how survivors create legacy from trauma:

"Legacy creation provides meaning that extends beyond personal healing. Survivors often feel compelled to ensure their suffering produces lasting positive change... The narcissist attempted to erase you; creating legacy ensures your existence matters. This legacy focus transforms from victim of someone else's pathology to author of meaningful story."

Frankl's framework supports the book's message that recovery is not merely about symptom reduction but about building a meaningful life that transcends survivor identity. The search for meaning—finding purpose in helping others, in breaking intergenerational trauma cycles, in transforming pain into wisdom—becomes a core recovery process.

Why This Matters for Survivors

If you experienced narcissistic abuse, Frankl's work offers both validation and direction for your recovery.

Your suffering was real and your capacity for meaning survived intact. The narcissist tried to convince you that your perceptions were wrong, your needs were unreasonable, and your existence was worthless except as a source of narcissistic supply. Frankl's work validates that psychological torture—being stripped of dignity, having your reality systematically denied, living under coercive control—is genuine suffering. And his observations demonstrate that the deepest human capacities survive such suffering: the ability to love, to find meaning, to maintain inner freedom even when external freedom is destroyed.

The "last freedom" applies to you. The narcissist controlled many aspects of your life—perhaps your finances, your social connections, your daily activities, even your sense of what was real. But they could not control your ultimate response to what happened. You may have felt you had no choices during the abuse, and in many ways you didn't—you were trapped by trauma bonding, by practical circumstances, by fear. But now, in recovery, you have the freedom Frankl described: to choose what this experience will mean, who you will become, what you will do with what you learned. This is not toxic positivity or victim-blaming—it is the reclamation of agency that the narcissist tried to steal.

Meaning transforms suffering. Frankl did not argue that suffering is good or necessary. He argued that when suffering is already present, finding meaning within it changes its character. The same experience can be meaningless torture or meaningful transformation depending on how it is held. Your narcissistic abuse was wrong and should not have happened. AND what you do with that experience—helping others, gaining wisdom, breaking cycles, building the life the narcissist tried to prevent—creates meaning that transcends the original suffering. The narcissist wanted your suffering to be pointless, to destroy you. Finding meaning is itself resistance.

The existential vacuum has a name. If you feel empty, adrift, unsure who you are or what you want after leaving the narcissist, Frankl's concept of the existential vacuum describes your experience precisely. The narcissist demanded that you organize your life around their needs, suppress your values, abandon your purposes. When that organizing principle is removed—even though it was toxic—emptiness remains. This is not failure; it is a predictable consequence of psychological abuse. Recovery involves filling this vacuum not with another person's demands but with your own discovered meanings.

Purpose aids survival. Frankl observed that prisoners who lost all sense of future and purpose were most likely to succumb. The same principle applies to recovery from narcissistic abuse. Having something to live for—children to protect, goals to achieve, people to help, a self to become—sustains the difficult work of healing. If you are in early recovery and struggling to find reasons to continue, Frankl's framework suggests starting wherever meaning is available: a pet who depends on you, a friend who needs you, a small project that engages you. Meaning can begin small and grow.

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed healthcare providers, Frankl's framework has direct implications for working with narcissistic abuse survivors.

Assessment should include meaning dimensions. Beyond standard symptom inventories, clinicians working with abuse survivors benefit from assessing:

Sources of meaning currently available to the patient
Values that survived the abuse intact
Future orientation and goal structures
Existential concerns about purpose and significance
Spiritual or philosophical frameworks that may support recovery

The Purpose in Life Test (PIL) and other meaning-focused assessments can complement trauma-focused measures, identifying strengths and resources that symptom inventories miss.

Meaning-centered approaches complement trauma processing. While evidence-based trauma treatments (EMDR, prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy) address symptoms effectively, Frankl's framework suggests that full recovery also requires engagement with meaning. Some survivors achieve significant symptom reduction but remain adrift, unsure what to do with their lives. Integrating logotherapy principles—exploring values, identifying purposes, addressing existential questions—can support the transition from symptom-focused to meaning-focused recovery.

Address the existential vacuum directly. Survivors of narcissistic abuse often present with depression, anxiety, or relationship difficulties that have an existential dimension the DSM does not capture. The emptiness, the sense that nothing matters, the inability to identify wants or preferences—these reflect years of having authentic selfhood suppressed. Treatment that only addresses symptoms may miss this core issue. Helping survivors discover what matters to them, what they value, what purposes call them forward, addresses the existential vacuum that underlies many presenting symptoms.

The "last freedom" supports agency restoration. Narcissistic abuse systematically undermines victims' sense of agency—the belief that their choices matter and they can influence their lives. Frankl's concept of attitudinal freedom can support agency restoration:

Even in situations that cannot be changed (ongoing co-parenting with a narcissist, family systems that won't acknowledge abuse), patients retain freedom in how they respond
The focus shifts from controlling outcomes (often impossible with narcissists) to choosing responses (always possible)
This is not victim-blaming but empowerment—recognizing that internal freedom survives external constraint

Facilitate meaning-making without imposing meanings. Logotherapy's Socratic approach—helping clients discover their own meanings rather than providing them—is particularly important with narcissistic abuse survivors whose autonomy was violated. Clinicians can:

Ask questions that prompt exploration: "What matters to you now?" "What do you want your life to stand for?"
Reflect emerging values and purposes back to the patient
Avoid prescribing what the patient's experience "should" mean
Create space for meanings to emerge organically from the therapeutic relationship

Consider meaning in treatment planning. Research suggests that meaning-in-life is associated with better outcomes across many conditions. For narcissistic abuse survivors, treatment plans might include:

Early focus on any available sources of meaning (children, work, creativity, spirituality)
Gradual expansion of meaningful engagement as stabilization proceeds
Explicit attention to values clarification during middle phases of treatment
Legacy and purpose work in later phases, as meaning-making integrates traumatic experience

Broader Implications

Frankl's framework extends far beyond individual therapy to illuminate patterns across families, relationships, and recovery communities.

Narcissistic Abuse as Meaning-Destruction

Understanding narcissistic abuse through Frankl's lens reveals it as fundamentally an assault on meaning. The narcissist attacks all three sources of meaning Frankl identified:

Creative meaning is suppressed. Narcissists often sabotage their targets' work, education, and creative pursuits. They mock accomplishments, create chaos that prevents concentration, and demand that their needs take precedence over any project or goal. Survivors frequently describe abandoned careers, unfinished degrees, and creative gifts that went unexpressed.

Connection is corrupted. The narcissist offers love bombing that mimics love, creating trauma bonds rather than genuine connection. They isolate victims from other relationships, ensuring the narcissist is the only source of approval (intermittently withheld). Real intimacy—being known and valued for who you actually are—becomes impossible.

Suffering is made meaningless. The narcissist's gaslighting denies that victims are suffering at all ("You're too sensitive," "Nothing happened," "You're the abusive one"). When suffering is denied reality, it cannot be integrated or transformed—it remains raw, unprocessed, meaningless. This may be the deepest wound: not just the suffering but the enforced meaninglessness of that suffering.

Recovery, in Frankl's terms, means reclaiming all three meaning sources: resuming creative work, building genuine connections, and finally being able to find meaning in what you endured.

The Narcissist's Existential Emptiness

Frankl's framework also illuminates the narcissist's psychology. Narcissistic personality disorder can be understood as a profound disturbance of meaning-making:

The narcissist's grandiosity represents an attempt to create meaning through superiority—but it requires constant external validation and thus is never stable
The exploitation of others as narcissistic supply substitutes for genuine connection
The narcissist's terror of exposure suggests they know, at some level, that their constructed self is empty
The narcissistic collapse that follows exposure may represent the existential vacuum breaking through defenses

This perspective does not excuse narcissistic behavior—Frankl was clear that humans retain responsibility for their choices regardless of their psychological state. But it may help survivors understand that the narcissist's attacks reflect their own emptiness, not the survivor's inadequacy.

Meaning in Helping Others

Frankl observed that one of the most powerful sources of meaning is service to others—and this is strikingly evident in narcissistic abuse recovery communities. Many survivors find meaning by:

Sharing their stories to validate others
Facilitating support groups
Training as therapists or coaches specializing in narcissistic abuse
Writing books, blogs, or social media content to educate others
Advocating for legal recognition of coercive control

This "wounded healer" pattern transforms suffering into meaning exactly as Frankl described. The abuse that felt purposeless becomes the foundation for helping others avoid or survive similar experiences. What the narcissist intended for destruction becomes a gift to others.

Breaking Generational Cycles

For survivors who are parents or plan to become parents, Frankl's framework illuminates the meaning available in breaking intergenerational patterns. Intergenerational trauma describes how abuse and dysfunction transmit across generations—but that transmission is not inevitable. Survivors who do the hard work of recovery, who refuse to perpetuate the patterns they experienced, create meaning through protection:

The abuse stops here
My children will know what healthy love feels like
The generations that follow will not carry this wound
My healing changes the trajectory of my family line

This meaning extends beyond the individual into collective significance—recovery becomes an act with consequences for people not yet born.

Collective Meaning-Making

Frankl's insights also apply to meaning-making at community and cultural levels. The growing awareness of narcissistic abuse, the development of vocabulary for these experiences (gaslighting, love bombing, trauma bonding), and the formation of support communities all represent collective meaning-making. What was once individual, isolated, unspeakable suffering becomes recognized, named, and placed in social context.

This collective meaning-making serves survivors by:

Validating that what happened was real and wrong
Providing language for previously indescribable experiences
Reducing isolation through community recognition
Creating pressure for institutional and legal responses
Establishing that recovery is possible and documented

The individual survivor's meaning-making is supported by and contributes to this larger project of collective understanding.

Limitations and Considerations

Frankl's work, while profound, has important limitations that inform how we apply it.

The circumstances were extreme. Frankl's observations emerged from concentration camps—conditions of extreme deprivation, physical torture, and mass murder. While he explicitly intended his insights to apply to ordinary suffering, the translation requires care. Narcissistic abuse is genuine trauma, but survivors may feel their experiences don't "measure up" to Holocaust suffering. This comparison can become another form of self-invalidation. Frankl's principles apply across circumstances; the intensity of the original observations shouldn't minimize other forms of suffering.

The emphasis on choice can be misused. The concept of "choosing one's attitude" can be weaponized into victim-blaming: "If you're still struggling, you're just not choosing the right attitude." This misrepresents Frankl entirely. He never suggested that attitude choice is easy, that it prevents suffering, or that those who struggle are failing. He documented that some prisoners maintained hope and others didn't—without judging the latter. For narcissistic abuse survivors, the emphasis on choice must be balanced with recognition that trauma affects the capacity to choose, and that healing precedes optimal choice-making.

Logotherapy requires adaptation for trauma. Frankl developed logotherapy primarily for existential crises, not PTSD. While meaning-focused approaches complement trauma treatment, they don't replace evidence-based trauma processing. A survivor in acute crisis needs stabilization before meaning exploration; someone with severe dissociation needs grounding before philosophical inquiry. Clinicians should integrate Frankl's insights within comprehensive trauma-informed treatment, not as standalone intervention.

Cultural context matters. Frankl's framework emerged from a specific cultural and historical context—European, mid-twentieth century, shaped by Jewish and Christian thought about suffering. How meaning is understood, sought, and expressed varies across cultures. Collectivist cultures may emphasize different meaning sources than Frankl's individualistic framework. Spiritual traditions offer varying perspectives on suffering's significance. Clinicians should adapt Frankl's principles to patients' cultural contexts rather than imposing a single framework.

Not everyone finds meaning. While Frankl observed that meaning sustained survival in camps, many people with strong meaning systems died anyway, and some without apparent meaning survived. The relationship between meaning and outcome is probabilistic, not deterministic. Similarly, some narcissistic abuse survivors find meaning readily; others struggle. Difficulty finding meaning is not failure—it may reflect trauma's impact on meaning-making capacities, and may require patience and support.

The Three Sources of Meaning in Recovery

Creating and Accomplishing

For survivors whose creative and professional capacities were suppressed by the narcissist, recovery involves reclaiming these meaning sources:

Returning to abandoned pursuits. The degree program the narcissist sabotaged, the artistic practice they mocked, the career they undermined—these can be resumed. Many survivors report that creative pursuits suppressed during abuse flower spectacularly in recovery, as if the creative energy had been building pressure for years.

Discovering new capacities. The growth process itself reveals strengths previously unknown. The survivor who navigated psychological manipulation, who extracted themselves from a trauma bond, who rebuilt a life from destruction—they've developed capacities they didn't know they had. These strengths become resources for future creation.

Making something of the experience. Writing, art, music, advocacy—many survivors create directly from their experience. The abuse that felt meaningless becomes raw material for expression that helps others. This creative transformation is meaning-making in its purest form.

Loving and Connecting

Having experienced love bombing followed by devaluation, survivors learn to distinguish manipulation from genuine connection. This painful education becomes wisdom:

Recognizing authentic connection. The capacity to detect narcissistic patterns protects against future exploitation while also revealing what genuine love actually looks like. Consistency, respect, mutual care—these become visible against the contrast of their absence.

Deepening existing relationships. Friends and family who supported recovery become more precious. The survivor has learned what loyalty and care actually mean, and values these qualities in ways previously impossible.

Building chosen family. When biological family systems are toxic, survivors often create chosen families—networks of deep friendship that provide the acceptance and belonging that blood relations couldn't offer. These chosen connections, formed from authentic self rather than performance, often prove more sustaining than biological ties.

Transforming Suffering

When suffering cannot be changed—and some consequences of narcissistic abuse cannot be fully healed—Frankl's third meaning source becomes relevant:

Choosing response to unchangeable circumstances. Co-parenting with a narcissist may be unavoidable. Health consequences of chronic stress may persist. Lost years cannot be recovered. In these circumstances, meaning comes from how one responds: maintaining dignity despite ongoing difficulty, refusing to become bitter, protecting children within impossible constraints.

Using suffering to develop wisdom. The survivor who has experienced coercive control understands power dynamics that others miss. The one who has been gaslit recognizes reality distortion in politics, institutions, and relationships. This hard-won wisdom becomes a resource—for personal navigation of the world, for helping others, for contribution to collective understanding.

Refusing meaninglessness. Perhaps most fundamentally, the survivor can simply refuse to let the narcissist's cruelty be the final word. By building a meaningful life despite the abuse, by thriving rather than merely surviving, by becoming someone the narcissist could never have predicted, the survivor transforms meaningless suffering into meaningful triumph.

Logotherapy Techniques for Recovery

Dereflection

Narcissistic abuse often creates hyperawareness of symptoms—the anxiety, the hypervigilance, the emotional flashbacks. This focus on symptoms can itself become a problem, as attention feeds what it focuses on. Dereflection involves redirecting attention away from symptoms toward meaningful engagement:

Rather than monitoring anxiety levels, engage in an activity that matters
Rather than cataloging triggers, focus on present experience
Rather than measuring recovery progress, live life that makes progress possible

This is not denial or suppression of symptoms; it's shifting the figure-ground relationship so that meaningful life becomes foreground and symptoms become background.

Paradoxical Intention

Some symptoms persist because the attempt to avoid them creates tension that maintains them. Paradoxical intention uses humor to defuse this cycle:

The person afraid of blushing is instructed to try to blush as much as possible
The person with insomnia is told to try to stay awake
The survivor afraid of anxious thoughts is encouraged to have as many as possible

By exaggerating what is feared, the fear itself loses power. This technique can be particularly useful for anticipatory anxiety and rumination, though it requires careful clinical judgment and is not appropriate for all symptoms or all survivors.

Socratic Dialogue

Rather than telling survivors what their experience should mean, Socratic dialogue helps them discover their own meanings:

"What matters to you now that the relationship is over?"
"What do you want your life to stand for?"
"If a friend went through what you went through, what would you hope for them?"
"What would make the rest of your life worth living?"

These questions prompt exploration rather than providing answers. The meanings that emerge are the survivor's own, not imposed by therapist or theory.

Attitude Modification

When circumstances cannot be changed, work focuses on how the survivor relates to those circumstances:

Reframing unavoidable difficulty as opportunity for growth
Finding purpose in how one faces challenges
Identifying the choice that remains when other choices are foreclosed
Developing philosophical or spiritual frameworks that contextualize suffering

This is not toxic positivity or denial of difficulty—it's Frankl's "last freedom" in practice: choosing one's attitude when one cannot choose one's circumstances.

Historical Context

Viktor Frankl was 40 years old, an established psychiatrist who had already developed the foundations of logotherapy, when he, his wife, and his parents were deported to concentration camps in 1942. Over three years, he endured Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Kaufering III, and Turkheim (subcamps of Dachau). His father died at Theresienstadt from starvation and pneumonia. His mother and brother were gassed at Auschwitz. His wife Tilly died at Bergen-Belsen. Of his immediate family, only Frankl and his sister (who had emigrated to Australia) survived.

The manuscript of his first book, which he had sewn into his coat lining, was confiscated and destroyed at Auschwitz. He later described how he reconstructed key ideas by scratching notes on scraps of paper when he could find them.

After liberation in April 1945, Frankl learned of his family's deaths and was initially devastated. But he returned to Vienna, resumed psychiatric practice, and dictated Man's Search for Meaning in just nine days—as if the words had been waiting for release. The book was first published in German in 1946 as Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager (A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp), later retitled ...trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen (...saying Yes to life in spite of everything).

The English translation appeared in 1959 and found growing audiences over subsequent decades. By the time of Frankl's death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies; that number has since exceeded 16 million. The Library of Congress named it one of the ten most influential books in America.

Frankl rebuilt his life along with his career. He remarried in 1947, and he and his wife Eleonore had a daughter. He held professorships at the University of Vienna, Harvard, and other institutions. He lectured in over 200 universities across five continents and received 29 honorary doctorates. He continued writing, eventually publishing 39 books. He maintained an active clinical practice and developed training programs for logotherapy until shortly before his death at age 92.

The reception of Frankl's work has been broadly positive but not without criticism. Some scholars have questioned the accuracy of specific camp descriptions or the degree to which logotherapy was actually developed before the war. Others have noted that Frankl's emphasis on meaning can be appropriated by self-help culture in ways that trivialize suffering. Still others have observed that his framework, emerging from specific cultural and religious contexts, may not translate universally.

Despite these critiques, Man's Search for Meaning remains one of the most widely read and influential books on suffering and resilience. Its insights have been applied to cancer patients, addiction recovery, grief counseling, hospice care, military psychology, corporate leadership, and—increasingly—recovery from psychological abuse. Frankl's core message—that meaning can be found in any circumstance, and that this finding sustains human dignity—continues to offer hope to millions facing circumstances they cannot change.

Man's Search for Meaning

APA Citation