What do you think?
Rate this book
The Unconscious God
The distinguished Austrian psychiatrist examines the essential reality and significance of mankind's unconscious spirituality and awareness of the God within and the interrelationship between psychotherapy and theology
161 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
63 people are currently reading
1289 people want to read
About the author
Viktor E. Frankl
182 books8,075 followersViktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories.
Logotherapy was promoted as the third school of Viennese Psychotherapy, after those established by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.
Frankl published 39 books. The autobiographical Man's Search for Meaning, a best-selling book, is based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.
Logotherapy was promoted as the third school of Viennese Psychotherapy, after those established by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.
Frankl published 39 books. The autobiographical Man's Search for Meaning, a best-selling book, is based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
March 8, 2022
Undoubtedly, 'The Unconscious God' was one of the best books I've read this year. I loved the analysis of the existential void or vacuum in this book along with the experiences from practical life mentioned by Viktor Frankl. Frankl makes the whole process of the conscience seem so elementary. I especially was touched by the death row prisoner who was making his last steps to the gas chamber, it really got me choked up. This is a must book to read for all logotherapy fans. It is concise, exact & very well analyzed using objective scientific knowledge & experimentation. This book will remain with me for a long time to come. And I'm not done with the book yet, I will be referring to it every time I have a moment to myself. Well done !
July 22, 2017
I must confess to harboring a lot of skepticism towards Frankl's ideas here. If I may crudely paraphrase his thesis as outlined in the preface: in times of distress many people experience spiritual feelings which therefore suggests the existence of god. And because the feelings of awe and zeal that we experience when communing with Something beyond ourselves are expressed as mental stimulation, the study of spirituality becomes the domain of psychiatry and not solely theology. Hmm.
Well, Frankl, you won me over with a tale of survival and humanity in Man's Search for Meaning. I'll hear you out.
I had feared Frankl was going to spend time arguing for the validity One True Faith. In fact, it's much the opposite. He ascribes no single religion the full store of complete truth, noting that religious doctrine necessarily follows from spiritual experience as people try to explain the feelings they've had. Sensations of faith, hope, and love cannot be forced: "[Y]ou cannot order anyone to laugh--if you want him to laugh, you must tell him a joke." (14) In many ways I'm reminded of the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, which stresses the need to submit to a higher power but leaves the identity of that higher power up to you. I'm reminded too of that old Discordian inquiry: "Are ye a human being and not a cabbage or something?"
Reading this book was a unique experience for me. I felt challenged, as it invited me to consider things from a different perspective. But I wouldn't say I'm a convert to the ideas here; there's a persistent begging-the-question, chicken-or-the-egg sort of vibe throughout. Frankl gets quasi-mystical--there's a chapter about interpreting dreams, and in arguing against Freudian psychotherapy he comes just shy of quoting "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." But there's something very compelling in his line of thought and in the principles of logotherapy. What is it that separates human from non-human, really? We may not be able to clearly articulate it, but we cannot ignore it and we dare not neglect it.
3 stars out of 5.
(Read in 2017, the twenty-first book in my Alphabetical Reading Challenge)
Well, Frankl, you won me over with a tale of survival and humanity in Man's Search for Meaning. I'll hear you out.
I had feared Frankl was going to spend time arguing for the validity One True Faith. In fact, it's much the opposite. He ascribes no single religion the full store of complete truth, noting that religious doctrine necessarily follows from spiritual experience as people try to explain the feelings they've had. Sensations of faith, hope, and love cannot be forced: "[Y]ou cannot order anyone to laugh--if you want him to laugh, you must tell him a joke." (14) In many ways I'm reminded of the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, which stresses the need to submit to a higher power but leaves the identity of that higher power up to you. I'm reminded too of that old Discordian inquiry: "Are ye a human being and not a cabbage or something?"
Reading this book was a unique experience for me. I felt challenged, as it invited me to consider things from a different perspective. But I wouldn't say I'm a convert to the ideas here; there's a persistent begging-the-question, chicken-or-the-egg sort of vibe throughout. Frankl gets quasi-mystical--there's a chapter about interpreting dreams, and in arguing against Freudian psychotherapy he comes just shy of quoting "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." But there's something very compelling in his line of thought and in the principles of logotherapy. What is it that separates human from non-human, really? We may not be able to clearly articulate it, but we cannot ignore it and we dare not neglect it.
3 stars out of 5.
(Read in 2017, the twenty-first book in my Alphabetical Reading Challenge)
June 1, 2013
I read this so long ago, forgive my broad summary. He takes the three part composition of the Soul from Freud, who was IMHO taking Plato's system and translating it from Greek into Latin: Logos, Eros, Ethos: Ego, Id, Super-Ego; and turns that two dimensional analysis into a three dimensional one. Indeed, we can even add past, present, and future to make the complexity of the Soul more visual. Building a system to explain our Inner World, Frankl scratches the itch of explaining ourselves to ourselves. Some may disapprove of an apparent bias toward spirituality, but these are the only words our culturally limited linguistic skills give us to describe the Great Wonder. In short, as I recall, he says the closer we are to our own deepest feelings of meaningfulness, the Super-Ego, the closer we are to the Creator of meaning.
January 20, 2024
Stumbled upon the book unexpectedly at an offbeat public library. So happy I picked it up. A guaranteed re-read.
January 21, 2021
This is one of Frankl's more rare works. Within it he makes a case for the validity of man's "will to meaning". Frankl admonishes Freud's psychoanalysis clan and the behaviorist movement. It is Frankl's argument that they have in turn dehumanized people and hindered their ability to fully develop. Frankl evidences how this could arguably be the cause of things such as substance abuse, depression, and even suicidality.
PS If you ever see a copy of the English print for sale, GRAB IT! These sell for about $30 minimum right now. Some copies run as high as a few hundred dollars.
PS If you ever see a copy of the English print for sale, GRAB IT! These sell for about $30 minimum right now. Some copies run as high as a few hundred dollars.
November 24, 2015
"Existuji tri zakladni moznosti, jak nalezt smysl, tvorit hodnoty: za prve, kdyz neco delam, neco tvorim; za druhe, kdyz neco prozivam, kdyz miluji, tedy neco svetu davam a neco si z nej beru; ale za treti, kdyz se vse rozpadne, kdyz nejakou situaci nemuzu zmenit, potom je na mne, i toto nejak smysluplne pojmout tim, ze utrpeni promenim v silu,"
s. 77
s. 77
September 6, 2024
I read this book strictly for the philosophical insights and left with both philosophical and theological insights. Viktor makes solid arguments for his point of view and does a great job at explaining his case.
March 17, 2025
I give most of the books I list 5 stars because I usually don't want to include them unless they are THAT good. This one is that good.
April 30, 2025
Easily one of the best books about faith and meaning I’ve ever read!
June 7, 2023
Much of this book is not about God. Instead it is a response and argument against Freudian psychoanalysis which (I gather) was the dominant form of psychiatry in 1945 at the time of writing.
Roughly 1/3 of the way through is the book’s apex of religiosity, and Frankl specifically calls out the "flagrantly religious dreams of what were known to be irreligious patients", arguing it's important not to ascribe sexual meaning to those dreams instead of religious meaning... and here I found one of a number of disagreements with the author, and a false binary in those two choices.
My contention: there is an unconscious transcendence in all humans, but “God” is in fact layered on top by religious humans the same way that sexual meaning is by a Freudian. Frankl does make some overtures to humanism vs religion in his attribution of transcendence, but not homogeneously.
In general an interesting read, especially with the (equally long) 1975 Postscript on New Research in Logotherapy. Some nuggets of truth or wisdom I highlighted, entirely non-representative of the book as a whole:
“No knowledge can come to know itself, to judge itself, without rising above itself. In the same vein, no science can weigh its own results and realize their implications without transcending its own ontic sphere and subjecting itself to ontological scrutiny.”
“However, just as the dignity of man is based on his freedom—to the extent that he may even say no to God—likewise, the dignity of a science is based on that unconditional freedom which guarantees its independent search for truth. And just as human freedom must include the freedom to say no, so the freedom of scientific investigation must face the risk that its results will turn out to contradict religious beliefs and convictions.”
“Logotherapy is, as it were, trifocal: it focuses on three fundamental facts of human existence: there is a will to meaning, there is a meaning in suffering; and there is a freedom of will.”
“… one cannot "give" meaning to the life of others. And if this is true of meaning per se, how much more does it hold for ultimate meaning. The more com prehensive the meaning, the less comprehensible it is. Infinite meaning is necessarily beyond the comprehension of a finite being. Here is the point at which science gives up and wisdom takes over.”
Roughly 1/3 of the way through is the book’s apex of religiosity, and Frankl specifically calls out the "flagrantly religious dreams of what were known to be irreligious patients", arguing it's important not to ascribe sexual meaning to those dreams instead of religious meaning... and here I found one of a number of disagreements with the author, and a false binary in those two choices.
My contention: there is an unconscious transcendence in all humans, but “God” is in fact layered on top by religious humans the same way that sexual meaning is by a Freudian. Frankl does make some overtures to humanism vs religion in his attribution of transcendence, but not homogeneously.
In general an interesting read, especially with the (equally long) 1975 Postscript on New Research in Logotherapy. Some nuggets of truth or wisdom I highlighted, entirely non-representative of the book as a whole:
“No knowledge can come to know itself, to judge itself, without rising above itself. In the same vein, no science can weigh its own results and realize their implications without transcending its own ontic sphere and subjecting itself to ontological scrutiny.”
“However, just as the dignity of man is based on his freedom—to the extent that he may even say no to God—likewise, the dignity of a science is based on that unconditional freedom which guarantees its independent search for truth. And just as human freedom must include the freedom to say no, so the freedom of scientific investigation must face the risk that its results will turn out to contradict religious beliefs and convictions.”
“Logotherapy is, as it were, trifocal: it focuses on three fundamental facts of human existence: there is a will to meaning, there is a meaning in suffering; and there is a freedom of will.”
“… one cannot "give" meaning to the life of others. And if this is true of meaning per se, how much more does it hold for ultimate meaning. The more com prehensive the meaning, the less comprehensible it is. Infinite meaning is necessarily beyond the comprehension of a finite being. Here is the point at which science gives up and wisdom takes over.”
March 5, 2018
Der Psychiater Viktor E. Frankl unterscheidet in "Der unbewusste Gott" das triebhafte Unbewusste, welches Sigmund Freud erforscht hatte, vom geistigen Unbewussten und zieht eine auch für Atheisten und Gläubige jeder Form passende Analogie heran, um für das geistig Unbewusste den Beweis anzutreten. Der menschliche Nabel, welchen wir alle auf unserem Leibe tragen, ist laut Frankl eine Spur für unsere physische Herkunft, für unsere Verbindung zu unserer Mutter. Kaum sind wir in die Welt geboren ist diese Verbindung, die Nabelschnur, getrennt. Dasselbe gilt, so Frankl für das Gewissen, welches eine Spur für unsere geistige Herkunft ist. Frankl folgert, dass wir durch das Gewissen immer mit dem Transzendenten verbunden sind, aber diese Verbindung für die meisten ins Unbewusste abgesunken ist. Die Logotherapie soll dem Menschen helfen das Vertrauen zum Unbewussten wiederherzustellen, und zwar unabhängig davon ob an einen Gott geglaubt wird oder nicht.
August 20, 2020
Some dated bits in here but read in its historical context it is a good push back on excessively Freudian therapeutic models and an encouragement to re-humanize therapy. Not a bad bit of advice. I think therapy has moved towards the kind of model that Frankl hoped for.
Some other reviewer critique Frankl's religious worldview. Fair enough. He does insist that God has a role in creating the religious unconscious and that this is not just another epi-phenomenon but a real thing. I respect that others might critique his view but that re-enforces his point. To critique religious views as fictions or falsehoods simply reveals another kind of bias.
Quote: "Religion is not an insurance policy for a tranquil life, for maximum freedom from conflicts, or for any other hygenic goal." p. 74-75
Some other reviewer critique Frankl's religious worldview. Fair enough. He does insist that God has a role in creating the religious unconscious and that this is not just another epi-phenomenon but a real thing. I respect that others might critique his view but that re-enforces his point. To critique religious views as fictions or falsehoods simply reveals another kind of bias.
Quote: "Religion is not an insurance policy for a tranquil life, for maximum freedom from conflicts, or for any other hygenic goal." p. 74-75
February 6, 2023
[...]Ποιό είναι το νόημα της ζωής; μπορεί να δοθεί μόνο από ολόκληρο το είναι κάποιου - η ίδια η ζωή κάποιου είναι η απάντηση στο ερώτημα για το νόημά της.[...]
[...]Η θρησκεία είναι η καθολική καταναγκαστική νεύρωση του ανθρώπινου είδους, όπως και η νεύρωση του παιδιού ξεκινά από το Οιδιπόδειο σύμπλεγμα από την σχέση με τον πατέρα.[...]
[...]Και πίστεψέ με, ακόμα και μια ζωή που πέρασε χωρίς νόημα, δηλαδή μια ζωή που σπαταλήθηκε, μπορεί - ακόμα και την τελευταία στιγμή- να αποκτήσει νόημα ακριβώς από τον τρόπο που θα χειριστούμε αυτή την κατάσταση.[...]
[...]Η θρησκεία είναι η καθολική καταναγκαστική νεύρωση του ανθρώπινου είδους, όπως και η νεύρωση του παιδιού ξεκινά από το Οιδιπόδειο σύμπλεγμα από την σχέση με τον πατέρα.[...]
[...]Και πίστεψέ με, ακόμα και μια ζωή που πέρασε χωρίς νόημα, δηλαδή μια ζωή που σπαταλήθηκε, μπορεί - ακόμα και την τελευταία στιγμή- να αποκτήσει νόημα ακριβώς από τον τρόπο που θα χειριστούμε αυτή την κατάσταση.[...]
November 16, 2010
Having read and very much admired Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning in college, I read this volume and his The Will to Meaning one right after another. Neither impressed me as much as I'd been by his personal account in that earlier book. It seems, on the basis of just these three books, that Frankl is one of those who had one central insight (an important one), a seed crystal which constellated all of his subsequent work. Get that and you get him.
July 7, 2016
A Must read for those looking to look at themselves for that which is inside themselves. A human way of looking at a human faced to a mirror with a mirror at there back. When we are all right in what we do we all succeeded for the greater good for the greater purpose. Good and Great things can come out of depravity, if we choose to make good and great things out of what we must go through, for a higher purpose for a greater next day.
October 10, 2020
Compared to Man's Search For Meaning, this is a drier and mote technical book. You would need a high tolerance for the vocabulary and concepts of the professional psychologist to enjoy this book. But it does reward. Frankl always seems to be exploring, trying to understand, rather than indoctrinating. In his quest he uses what he calls the wisdom of the man on the street, i.e. common sense.
November 20, 2021
Fantastic book. It starts (I think) with the original book, however, the final section is a amalgamation of research from the original release up until around 1975.
Many relevant references to his own and comparisons to other work. This is the first time I'm formally introduced to logotherapy. Truly a fantastic concept and piece of work.
Many relevant references to his own and comparisons to other work. This is the first time I'm formally introduced to logotherapy. Truly a fantastic concept and piece of work.
Read
January 7, 2024Mám to podtrhaný křížem krážem, doporučuji! Pokud teda máte aspoň trochu chuť přemýšlet o smyslu…všeho možného.
“… musíme se zbavit předsudku, že člověk je tu jen proto, aby byl šťastný. Protože to, co člověk ve skutečnosti chce, je důvod být šťastný.” s. 47
“… musíme se zbavit předsudku, že člověk je tu jen proto, aby byl šťastný. Protože to, co člověk ve skutečnosti chce, je důvod být šťastný.” s. 47
June 3, 2007
excellent book....
August 16, 2010
Great To Think
Want to read
July 29, 2012Haven't gotten far, probably becuase he's so intense I have to be ready to process the information.
October 26, 2012
Muy buen libro para una tarde fresca de otoño...
July 28, 2018
very interesting concept, language and writing is very demanding for modern kind of communication
May 24, 2020
Un libro para Profundizar en los temas De Dios, Fe y Sentido de vida. Muy recomendable
October 1, 2020
Jestli někdo může nabídnout pomocnou ruku při hledání smyslu, jsou to tito pánové :)
October 6, 2021
Una anécdota sobre Paulo VI, sobre Heidegger y sobre unas monjas de la resistencia son lo mejor de este diálogo.
January 27, 2022
Masterpiece
January 17, 2023
I like the concepts of Psychology is detailed and wholesomely explained in relation to man's spirituality without forcing the knowledge to make sense.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews