Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl explains many coping methods used by concentration camp survivors. In the first section of the book, Frankl describes the three phases of an inmate's mental reaction to life in the camps. The first of these phases is shock. Frankl mentions the prisoner's "delusion of reprieve," in which the condemned men "immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. We, too, clung to shreds of hope and believed that would not be so bad" (Frankl, 23). This sense of optimism, however small it may be, is an example of emotion-focused coping. The prisoners had to modify their thoughts and feelings since many outside factors were beyond their control. During the second phase of mental reaction, which Frankl calls apathy, also displays aspects of emotion-focused coping. Due to their extreme torture, longing and loneliness, some prisoners blunted their emotions so that they became "insensitive to daily and hourly beatings." The prisoners became accustomed to the horrid sights around them. Frankl goes on to say that "disgust, horror and pity are emotions that our spector could not really feel anymore. The sufferers, the dying and the dead, became commonplace sights to him after the few weeks of camp life that they could not move him anymore" (Frankl, 34-35). Frankl describes this apathetic behavior as a "necessary mechanism of self-defense" (40). The prisoners learned to tune out the horror around them in order to bear the burden of daily life. This technique could be described as both problem and emotion focused coping since although they were adapting their emotions, they were also actively modifying and escaping the stressor that they must deal with everyday.
Frankl seemed to use a great deal of emotion-focused coping himself in order to survive camp life. He recalls a time when he is forced to march in the cold, icy morning to his work site.
