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Time and time again, we have turned to the written word as a way to make sense of our complicated lives and of the chaos of the world. At any given time in modern history, there has been chaos, war, violence, disaster, and all manner of uncertainty. Writers have provided comfort through their works by humanizing and creating narratives around the difficult and frightening aspects of our lives. In the psychology world, there have been timeless contributors to this ongoing dialogue around the world’s challenges. Here, I will highlight three classic written works of psychology that hold up today and that aptly comment on living in a time of chaos, such as the one in which we are currently living.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (1959)
Frankl, a clinical psychologist and Holocaust survivor, wrote perhaps the authoritative text on finding meaning in the midst of unthinkable suffering. Drawn from his own experience of life in a Nazi death camp, Frankl poetically and profoundly describes the ways in which he was able to survive, both physically and emotionally. He writes of humans’ innate and profound ability to find resiliency even in the most dire circumstances.
I consider myself a humanistic and existential psychotherapist, and Frankl’s work, to me, is the gold standard on coping adaptively with the parts of our lives that feel so heavy they might break us. Frankl speaks of the human spirit and its ability to rise above almost any situation, no matter how difficult. In his words, we can find a stark yet hopeful reminder that while we cannot avoid pain and suffering, we can find ways to live despite it. Frankl’s words are especially meaningful as many of us find ourselves inundated with external chaos, overstimulated by horrific events and the unending surge of information, and fatigued by the weight of it all. But Frankl offers a profound viewpoint: “We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”
Man’s Search for Himself by Rollo May (1953)
Rollo May, widely regarded as one of the preeminent American existential psychologists, wrote this book as the Cold War was escalating and people were living in increasing fear of nuclear annihilation. On the cover of the 1967 edition of the book are the words: “How we can find a center of strength within ourselves to face and conquer the insecurities of this troubled age.” This blurb could just as easily appear on a book written in 2025—though the specific events obviously change, the human desire to make sense of it all and to find strength within the chaos remains, despite the year or the historical events.
One of the most poignant passages in May’s book is his description of a young girl who comes home after hearing a lecture on the atom bomb at school; the girl asks her parent, “Mother, can’t we move someplace where there is no sky?” May continues: “This child’s terrifying but revealing question…well symbolizes how anxiety makes us withdraw from nature. Modern man, so afraid of the bombs he has built, must cower from the sky and hide in caves—must cower from the sky which is classically the symbol of vastness, imagination, release.” During any chaotic time, we face an important choice of whether to run, hide, and avoid or to find a way to live fully within the storm. Though clearly an analogy based on the historical events of the time, May’s anecdote is pertinent to many people’s current experience and their search for strength during a fraught time.
Social Interest by Alfred Adler (1938)
Adler, an Austrian psychotherapist, focused much of his work on the importance of community and the dangers of isolation. This is particularly apropos today, as we continue to witness division, segmentation, and a deep and sometimes violent fissure between those with differing beliefs and principles. Adler promoted working and living in the “social interest,” or, in simpler terms, toward a shared, greater good. This is a message that is certainly pertinent almost 100 years after the book’s publication.
Adler also wrote of how “personal superiority…invariably stands in opposition to co-operation.” In a society where we are seemingly pulling further and further apart from one another and where personal status has taken on an outsized importance, Adler encourages us to move toward each other and warns us that isolation will only make our human struggle to find purpose and meaning more difficult. In Social Interest, Adler emphasizes the importance of “our attitude towards our fellow human beings.”
These classic works by Frankl, May, and Adler are applicable to our current times and to the challenges that we face as a society and as humans. It is within these texts that we might find new ways of viewing life’s uncertainty and different perspectives on how to navigate the chaos of the world at any given time. An apt conclusion to this post comes from the final page of Man’s Search for Meaning: “For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
