So engrossing I literally forgot to put sugar in the pie I was making!

Frankl is a trained neurologist and psychotherapist, he had a unique and trained eye on what he and his fellow inmates were experiencing in Nazi concentration camps. The first half of the book is about his experience there and the psychological stages that people pass through there.

The second half of the book is an intro to logotherapy - the idea that humans are driven primarily by their search for meaning (logo) than anything else. Humans can experience happiness through 3 ways: creation, participation, and a sense of meaning. Because suffering is a fundamental part of human life, as fundamental as birth and death, he tries to help his patients reframe their conceptualization of suffering to include a greater purpose or meaning. We can find meaning in suffering by embracing the opportunity to live out or "actualize" our beliefs, whether that be religious, moral, humanitarian, etc. For example, walking into a gas chamber with your head held high and a prayer in your mouth, as many did. Or willingly sacrificing your own comforts to help others suffer less. Frankl says one of the moments when he did find satisfaction and fulfilment was when he decided, at the last minute, to not make an escape attempt in order to stay behind and continue serving fellow inmates as a doctor and psychologist. He gives a few examples of this, but also admits that we may not understand the purpose in our lifetime (a divine or universal purpose that is too great for us to grasp, similar to how a monkey cannot understand why it is suffering for medical research), or that we may only understand it at the very end of our life (like a movie wouldn't make sense if you only looked at individual frames... you need to see all the frames in sequence to understand the story).

Overall a very beautiful and honest approach to life.