Viktor Frankl

Viktor Emil Frankl (German: Viktor Emil Frankl; 26 March 1905, Vienna, Austria-Hungary — 2 September 1997, Vienna, Austria) was an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist, and neurologist, and a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Frankl was the creator of logotherapy, a method of existential psychoanalysis that became the basis of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.

Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants (Beamtenfamilie). At a young age, he developed an interest in psychology. He devoted his gymnasium diploma thesis to the psychology of philosophical thinking. After graduating from gymnasium in 1923, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where he later chose to specialize in neurology and psychiatry. He studied the psychology of depression and suicide in particular depth. Frankl’s early experience was shaped by the influence of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, though he later departed from their views.

In 1924, Frankl became president of the Sozialistische Mittelschüler Österreich school. In this position, Frankl created a specialized support program for students during the period of taking their final examinations. During Frankl’s time in this role, no suicides among Vienna students were recorded. The program’s success attracted the attention of Wilhelm Reich, who invited Frankl to Berlin.

From 1933 to 1937, Frankl headed the so-called Selbstmörderpavillon, a suicide prevention department at one of Vienna’s clinics. More than 30,000 women at risk of suicide became Frankl’s patients. However, with the Nazis’ rise to power in 1938, Frankl was forbidden to treat Aryan patients because of his Jewish origin. Frankl entered private practice, and in 1940 he headed the neurology department of the Rothschild Hospital, where he also worked as a neurosurgeon. At that time, it was the only hospital that admitted Jews. Thanks to Frankl’s efforts, several patients were saved from destruction under the Nazi euthanasia program.

In 1941, Frankl married Tilly Grosser.

On 25 September 1942, Frankl, his wife, and his parents were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration