Man´s Search for Meaning (4)

Failed Suicide Cases

If you read the passage from F's dream, his illness and death, you will understand that this is what happened to Mike's father when his wife died: he no longer had — or he believed he no longer had — reasons to live, so the leukaemia, which was lethargic, suddenly appeared.

Shocking, on the other hand, is the reading of two cases of attempted suicide. Lager laws forbade the rope of the person who wanted to hang himself to be cut. Therefore, if you wanted to save the life of a potential suicide, you had to act before the noose was placed around his neck.

To introduce us to the phase after liberation - what V. Frankl calls the Third Phase - the psychiatrist compares a prisoner in a concentration camp to a diver:

 

Just as a diver — subjected to atmospheric pressure — would be in danger if his diving suit were suddenly removed, a man suddenly released from psychological tension can suffer damage to his mental health.

 

Page 120 of the book is very rich and we should not read it without stopping a little longer than we have been doing it.

After liberation, our doctor only feared God.

From my Borstal.

LDR

Viktor Frankl.- El hombre en busca de sentido. CTE. Herder Editorial. Barcelona, 2015

P.S.- The second part of the book is all dedicated to some 'Basic Concepts of Logotherapy' and that is a garden in which I don´t want to get involved. However, I don´t want to stop recommending, dear friend, the reading of the case of doctor J that appears in the last pages.