Viktor Frankl Critical Essay | Critical Review by Bruno Bettelheim

SOURCE: "A Note on the Concentration Camps," in Chicago Review, Vol. 13, No. 3, Autumn, 1959, pp. 113-14.

Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educator whose works include A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child Rearing (1987). In the following review of From Death-Camp to Existentialism, he examines the relationship between Frankl's concentration camp experiences and the development of logotherapy.

This small book [From Death-Camp to Existentialism] consists of two parts, quite unequal in size. In the first 90 pages the author presents personal reactions to his experiences in German concentration camps. This is followed by barely 14 pages of sketchy comment on the particular type of existential psychoanalysis he practices, which he calls logotherapy. Both subjects—the concentration camp and existential psychoanalysis—have been dealt with much more adequately by other authors. The merit of this volume lies in the important connection he establishes between these two seemingly...
(read more)