---
title: "Three phases of the prisoner's mind"
description: "How a person's reactions to extreme captivity move over time, so you can see where someone is and what they need."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/three-phases-of-the-prisoners-mind/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Three phases of the prisoner's mind

> How a person's reactions to extreme captivity move over time, so you can see where someone is and what they need.

Viktor Frankl's framework, from Man's Search for Meaning, pp. 10 to 81.

Framework 1 of 4 from [Man's Search for Meaning](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/index.md) by Viktor Frankl. Category: Content and packaging.

## The steps

1. **Shock on admission.** Disbelief, a delusion of reprieve, then grim humour and cold curiosity as old illusions are stripped away.
2. **Apathy in camp routine.** Emotions blunt as a protective shell, attention narrows to keeping oneself and a friend alive, and inner life drops to a primitive level.
3. **After liberation.** Depersonalisation first, then the risk of moral deformity, bitterness at others and disillusionment when home is not what was dreamed of.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: I, pp. 10–81

Frankl tells what ordinary daily life in the camps did to the mind of the average prisoner, in three phases: shock on arrival, apathy in routine, and the strange aftermath of liberation. He shows that prisoners kept a last freedom, the choice of their attitude, and that those with a future goal, a person or an unfinished work to live for, survived best. Love, humour, beauty in nature and a sense of responsibility to someone or something kept the inner life alive. He argues the question of meaning is reversed: life asks us, and we answer by our conduct.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/three-phases-of-the-prisoners-mind.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/three-phases-of-the-prisoners-mind-dark.mp4
- Still: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/three-phases-of-the-prisoners-mind.png
- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/mans-search-for-meaning/three-phases-of-the-prisoners-mind-dark.png