In a 1979 interview, Austrian psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl noted that the suicide rate (or at least the rate of suicidal thoughts among teenagers) was higher in modern, affluent Austria than it had been in Auschwitz. Despite the fact that the concentration camps were among the most stressful and crushing environments fathomable to the human mind, Frankl observed that neurotic symptoms all but disappeared within the confines of the camps.
How to account for the fact that mental and spiritual health was, in many ways, superior for camp prisoners living in inconceivable conditions of deprivation than it is for most modern Westerners, who have access to every comfort and luxury? That is largely the subject of Frankl’s renowned book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” in which he tells of his experiences and observations in the concentration camps and how they helped him develop his therapeutic methods.
