Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and the founder of logotherapy and existential analysis, known as the “Third Viennese School” of psychotherapy. He taught at the University of Vienna and, among other institutions, at Harvard and Stanford, and served for many years as head of Vienna’s neurological polyclinic. During the Second World War, Frankl was imprisoned in several concentration camps, where members of his family were killed. After the war, he placed the question of meaning at the center of his psychotherapeutic work. His book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” published in German as “... trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen,” became internationally known and was translated into numerous languages. Frankl received 29 honorary doctorates. He was also a passionate mountaineer and continued climbing into advanced age.