Occupational Therapy In A Man's Search For Meaning

295 Words1 Page

A Man's Search for Meaning is a novel that aims to describe the lived experiences of those in concentration camps during World War II. Due to the relevance of the themes in the novel to occupational therapy (OT) practice, I believe A Man's Search for Meaning could be a useful, cost effective tool for an OT working in any therapeutic practice setting. Through his narrative, Frankel describes the daily struggles, hardships, and unexpected humanity he found within the camps. As OTs we often serve as a source of humanity, for clients who experience daily struggles and hardships. Similarly, to Frankel, our clients are often being challenged to change themselves due to their circumstances. Frankel describes these challenges as “human potential at

Show More
Related

  • The Dangers of Fear

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.

    Read More

  • Man's Search For Meaning By Viktor Frankl

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Man's Search for Meaning is a book written in 1946 by Viktor Frankl. Frankl is a holocaust survivor who elaborates on his experiences of being an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II. Being that Frankl is also a trained psychologist, he goes into detail about his psychotherapeutic method, which involved analyzing a purpose in life to feel positively about, and then imagining it being reality. According to Frankl, longevity was explained by the way a prisoner imagined how the future affected his durability of life. The book proposes to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One establishes Frankl's dissection of his experiences in the concentration camps, while part two touches on his theory of logotherapy.

    Read More

  • Hiroshima (Hersey) And Night (Wiesel)

    1432 Words  | 3 Pages

    Often, we find ourselves facing dramatic events in our lives that force us to re-evaluate and redefine ourselves. Such extraordinary circumstances try to crush the heart of the human nature in us. It is at that time, like a carbon under pressure, the humanity in us either shatters apart exposing our primal nature, or transforms into a strong, crystal-clear brilliant of compassion and self sacrifice. The books Night written by Elie Wiesel and Hiroshima written by John Hersey illustrate how the usual lifestyle might un-expectantly change, and how these changes could affect the human within us. Both books display how lives of civilians were interrupted by the World War II, what devastations these people had to undergo, and how the horrific circumstances of war were sometimes able to bring out the best in ordinary people.

    Read More

  • What Is The Effects Of Torture In Night By Elie Wiesel

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the holocaust. The Jews were enslaved in concentration camps, where they have experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment. Such pain has noticeable physical effects, but also shows psychological changes on those unfortunate enough to experience it.These mutations of their characters and mortality showed weaknesses of the Jews’ spirit and mentality, leading them to act vigorously and being treated like animals. However, these actions proved to Jews that the primary key to surviving their tortures was to work selfishly towards one another.

    Read More

  • Night By Elie Wiesel Character Analysis

    534 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some people say that living through hard times can make you stronger. It is a crucible that you come out of with a more powerful soul. In the memoir Night, by Eliezer Wiesel, Elie and his family are sent to concentration camps throughout Germany. Eliezer is employed to do very taxing jobs in these camps, and he is rarely given any ration of food or rest. This essay is meant to evaluate these horrific events and how they affected the author, Eliezer Wiesel. Throughout the Holocaust Eliezer matured faster and more than anybody should.

    Read More

  • Psychosocial Aspects Of Occupational Therapy

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Occupational therapist and occupational therapy assistances work with a wide variety of populations throughout their career. Some of these different populations can include different types of backgrounds, genders, ages, economic statuses, ethnicities, and more. While working with these populations, occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistances have to be aware of different types of influences that can not only affect the client, but the client’s occupations as well. In this article, “Psychosocial Aspects of Occupational Therapy,” it discusses the different types of psychosocial aspects that are in the field of occupational therapy.

    Read More

  • Theories Of Occupational Therapy

    934 Words  | 2 Pages

    Defined as a set of phenomena and relationships (Sladyk, 2015), a theory is the foundation of various concepts. Many of today’s inventions, companies, and practices all have one thing in common. They all a theory behind its purpose. A statement or idea of how a particular envisioned concept is supposed to be guided. There a theories about everything imaginable, such as, life on Earth, the Solar System, even religion. However, occupational therapy is no different. The theoretical foundation for occupational therapy comes from sciences like anatomy and physiology, for example (Sladyk, 2015). When working with a client a practitioner will likely use a Frame of Reference model, but to successfully cater to the individual in need

    Read More

  • Occupation and its Relationship with Health and Wellbeing

    2893 Words  | 6 Pages

    Townsend & Polatajko (2007) state that “Occupational therapy is the art and science of enabling engagement in everyday living, through occupation; of enabling people to perform the occupations that foster health and well-being; and of enabling a just and inclusive society so that all people may participate to their potential in the daily occupations of life”.

    Read More

  • man's search for meaning

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    As World War II occurred, the Jewish population suffered a tremendous loss and was treated with injustice and cruelty by the Nazi’s seen through examples in the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Victor Frankl records his experiences and observations during his time as prisoner at Auschwitz during the war. Before imprisonment, he spent his leisure time as an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, Austria and was able to implement his analytical thought processes to life in the concentration camp. As a psychological analyst, Frankl portrays through the everyday life of the imprisoned of how they discover their own sense of meaning in life and what they aspire to live for, while being mistreated, wrongly punished, and served with little to no food from day to day. He emphasizes three psychological phases that are characterized by shock, apathy, and the inability to retain to normal life after their release from camp. These themes recur throughout the entirety of the book, which the inmates experience when they are first imprisoned, as they adapt as prisoners, and when they are freed from imprisonment. He also emphasizes the need for hope, to provide for a purpose to keep fighting for their lives, even if they were stripped naked and treated lower than the human race. Moreover, the Capos and the SS guards, who were apart of the secret society of Hitler, tormented many of the unjustly convicted. Although many suffered through violent deaths from gas chambers, frostbites, starvation, etc., many more suffered internally from losing faith in oneself to keep on living.

    Read More

  • A Man's Search For Mean By Victor Frankl

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    These conflicts that people face often require examining others both directly and indirectly. Literature often provides the reader a glimpse of these hardships and pains, by causing the reader to contemplate their reaction via asking themselves “what if”. A major theme of the human condition, growth, maturing has become a vast piece of literature today. Literature often shows the readers various forms and levels of the human condition, growth, known as majoring, has become one of the major themes. Victor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust, wrote about growth in his book, A Man’s Search For Meaning, which utilized his pain to illustrate the amount of courage, faith, and love he still had for humanity. Frankl realized that the majority of readers will never experience the horrors of the Holocaust, but knowing that everyone experiences tragedies used a man named Jerry Long as an inspiration. Jerry Long, who during his life faced various hardships, one of which led to Long’s paralyzation, demonstrated the strength of a human’s courage to face the unknown. Long showed the reader that attitudes often lead to how a situation or circumstance would affect how anyone deals with hardships. He explained that “I believe that the handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. I know that without the suffering, the

    Read More

  • Discovering Occupational Therapy: A Personal Journey

    1193 Words  | 3 Pages

    Occupational therapy was a career choice I fell into. When I first arrived to Keiser University back in 2009 I was going to apply for the physical therapy assistant program. Physical and speech therapy where the only therapeutic disciplines I had any knowledge of at that time. When I met with the admissions counselor she informed me the waiting list for the PTA program was about two years, I was floored I wasn’t going to wait that long I needed to start school ASAP. The counselor then asked me “ what is your goal?” and my response was “to work with children in the medical field without being too medically involved”. She then handed me an occupational therapy pamphlet and I just signed the paper work to start that month. I honestly

    Read More

  • Essay On Occupational Science

    833 Words  | 2 Pages

    Occupational science is an emerging academic discipline which is based on the traditional values and beliefs of the occupational therapy practice as articulated by Adolph Meyer, (Yexer ,1993), (Reilly, 1962) and others. It draws on a range of theories, research methodologies and approaches in order to understand humans as occupational beings. Also, it assumes that people’s experiences in engagement in meaningful and purposeful occupations influences both performance and intrinsic motivation ( Haertl, 2007)

    Read More

  • The History Of Occupational Therapy

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kielhofner (2009) states “In the late 1940’s and the 1950s, occupational therapy came under pressure from medicine to establish a new theoretical rationale for its practice. Critiques arose from both Medicine and physicians regarding the concepts used in occupational therapy. Based on those comments, occupational realized the immediate need for a new paradigm. As Kielhofner mentioned “Occupational therapist came to believe it would bring occupational therapist recognition as an efficacious medical service and increase its scientific respectabilities

    Read More

  • Man's Search For Meaning Summary

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl writes about his experiences and observations as an inmate in various concentrations camp during the World War II. Victor Frankl was both a psychiatrist and neurologist, he was protected for a while since he was a doctor but he was eventually put into the concentration camps because his Jewish decent. During his time in the concentration camps Frankl endured starvation, cold and brutal conditions. His wife, father and month died in the Nazi camps, and he himself was under the constant threat of the gas chambers. While he was at the camp he was forced to surrender his scientific manuscript which he has considered to be his life’s work.

    Read More

  • If This Is a Man, by Primo Levi

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.

    Read More

More about Occupational Therapy In A Man's Search For Meaning

Open Document