This is the first time we've ever seen a very significant scientifically
dose-response effect for having a strong focus on meaning in life and survival.
This video is the last in a series on survival and a sense of purpose;
Longevity and a purpose driven life. Viktor Frankl and "Man's Search for
Meaning" is the topic for today. Viktor Frankl was a physician; a psychiatrist
who experienced the concentration camps. He was Jewish but even before getting
entered into the concentration camps, he had a strong focus on suicide prevention
and had been incredibly successful in this area. His perspective was having a
sense of purpose in life created a huge ability to survive. And he felt that even
beyond suicide, you could survive incredible challenges like a
concentration camp if you had a strong enough sense of survival and a strong
enough purpose for living. Again, one of the - he was a major star in terms of
suicide prevention. We'll talk about that in just a minute; but one of his major
techniques, coming out of the blocks and interviews with patients, was to start
off with something like "Why do you not commit suicide?"
That sounds harsh, but he found that earnestly digging into that question
really helped the patient understand just what is the purpose for my life; the
meaning for my life that may be bigger than me; bigger than my opinions; bigger
than what I want to do; bigger than me and something worth surviving for. So,
Franco was born in March 26, 1905; died September 2nd in 1997. He was entered, as
I said, in several different concentration camps. Theresienstadt, Auschwitz,
Kaufering, and Turkheim. Turkheim, and Kaufering (I think) were wastage camps
for Auschwitz. He developed a logotherapy.
It's classified as a form of existential analysis. And we'll talk about it a
little bit more in a minute. He also coined the term
"Existential Vacuum" If you've read the book "Ecclesiastes" in the judeo-christian
Bible, the Old Testament, it starts off with "Vanity, vanity; all is vanity..." or
something like that. That word could actually be interpreted as mist or smoke
or uselessness. And it's an older King Solomon demonstrating exactly what
Viktor Frankl would call the existential vacuum - staring into the jaws of death
and meaninglessness in life. Within a few months of getting rescued by the (I think)
was the Americans at Auschwitz, he wrote the book "Man's Search for Meaning" That
book has sold 12 million copies and has been translated into 24
languages. it's a popular book and it's a short book; doesn't take long to read it.
If you haven't read it, I would strongly suggest it. Just like everybody else, the
claim also gets involved with a lot of controversy. He was as well (pardon my
misspelling of Auschwitz - just never gonna get all of my video graphics right, am I?)
There was controversy regarding just how long and how much time he spent
at Auschwitz. Was he involved in some lobotomy procedures? Did not see
socialism foster logotherapy prior to the war and even during the war,
etc. I'm not gonna get into any of the controversies. This is gonna be a fairly
light, fairly quick video.
If you're interested in a 2-day boot camp type
of environment where you get your CIMT, you get all your labs, and we spend two
days going over the whole thing, check out our event! It's November 8th and 9th
at Louisville. Great place to fly into in November at the University of Louisville.
Victor Frankl, early days. 1922, he said that - he tells the story about as a 17
year old, he sent a letter to the big star in Vienna in psychiatry - Sigmund
Freud. He said that he got a response from Freud and Freud actually even
wanted to publish an article with him on suicide prevention. In 1928, he was a
medical student and he developed a program where they provided free
counseling to students, himself, and a bunch of psychologists. It was very
successful. Each year (about May during the year) during exam time, there was
always a number of student suicides. During this counseling program that
Viktor Frankl started, the student suicides plummeted to zero. Based on
hearing that, Wilhelm Reich sent him an invitation for
him to come to Berlin to talk about his program. Again, part of the seeds of that
controversy on whether or not social - Nazi socialism actually - how much they
encouraged his work. In '33 to '37, he did a residency in psychiatry and neurology. He
treated over 3,000 suicide patients during that time. So, again, a major focus
on suicide there. In 1938, when everything clamped down in Austria and Germany due
to the Nazis, since he was Jewish, he was no longer
allowed to treat any Aryans and, therefore, focused all of his treatment
on prisoners. Logotherapy. He developed logotherapy. It's considered
a type of existential analysis and, again, most of us tend to think of Nihilism
and all those guys when we think of existentialism but he's actually more
the opposite. Logos means - is Greek for the - for - meaning "word" and his focus
is using the therapy to find a patient's meaning in life, their beliefs, their
faith system. And, of course, as we've already covered, part of his point was -
This is not just suicide prevention. It's survival. We'll talk about studies -
follow-up studies in that area in just a minute. We've cut - we've already done a
video on survival of concentration camp survivors but this is not just about
concentration camps and history. Logotherapy is the major thing right now,
in terms of other things that can be humanized human beings, like cancer and
other adversities. So, again, thanks for your interest in the video. Just a quick
review of the rest of the series - it started off with my discussion of Ecclesiastes 1
- that everything is vanity; King Solomon and Victor Frankl's existential
vacuum; if you're not familiar with the book Ecclesiastes, go to chapter 3 verses
1 through 8. If you're an old rhythm and blues type of - well, this is not rhythm
and blues - this was a pop song: Turn, turn, turn. To everything there's a season... By
the birds. So, an interesting connection to our culture. I mentioned several times:
survival, even during the toughest times in life. And, yes, there's been recently
- just over the past couple of months - article that was published in JAMA
(Journal of the American Medical Association) is the Holocaust paradox.
Basically, here's the bond. And I think it's very interesting. My
elementary school teacher taught that those who hass emerged from the horrors of
the camp's would die young. A reasonable assumption but wrong. And this is exactly
what the point was. They've recently done a comparison of mortality and
comorbidity or illness rates between Holocaust survivors and individuals in
the general population in Israel. What they found was - Yes, the Holocaust
survivors were sicker. They had higher cancer rates, insulin resistance rates,
heart attack rates, you name it. But, they lived longer. This is - the blue is the
lifespan of the control guys and the yellow, here, is the lifespan of the
Holocaust survivors. So, it's interesting. Again, if you have interest in this whole
article, I've done a complete video on it. There's also been another article that
came out of JAMA network over the past couple of months. It's a little bit
more academic article. Well, both of them are academically very rigorous or
scientifically very rigorous. This one is looking at her BAE that's been going on
for the past what twenty years or so it's called the health and retirement
survey they looked at about 10,000 people the all cost survivor survey by
the way looked at like 40,000 39,000 survivors and 35,000 controls so big big
study this studies about 10,000 people total I think well 6,000 7,000 and
basically this is the image that tells it all for this study they gave them a
survey regarding their own purpose in life the stronger their purpose in life
the higher they scored on this purpose in life survey the longer they lived
these in the black line were the folks that scored the lowest next lowest next
lowest and these guys in the yellow line were the highest. This is survival
probability and this is time period. So, again, there's been interest in this
issue before but most of the studies in the past (are) looking at survival and
longevity. Focused on one or two questions. A lot of
Japanese things, especially in Okinawa. The - one of the blue zones, they just
asked "Do you have a strong ikigai?" An Ikigai meaning "purpose in life"
This one - again, this is the first time we've ever seen a very significant
scientifically dose-response effect for having a strong focus on
meaning in life and survival. Thank you, again, for your interest.
Would you like
to get your CIMT and labs all coordinated for you and done it one time
over a two-day period? Check out our event! It's going to be in Louisville
November 8th and 9th