‘The Patient’ Episode 9: Alan’s Nightmare About Viktor Frankl, Explained
The Patient Episode 9 opened with Dr. Alan Strauss having a nightmare about Victor Frankl and Auschwitz. Throughout the Hulu series, Alan has been dreaming about the Holocaust as he grapples with his situation. His dream in episode 9 features Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. Here’s why the nightmare is so significant.
[SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers ahead for The Patient Episode 9, “Auschwitz.”]
Alan has nightmares about the Holocaust in ‘The Patient’
Throughout The Patient, Alan has been reaching into his own subconscious. He sits in therapy sessions in his mind with his dead therapist Charlie.
Alan also has nightmares about the Holocaust and concentration camps. While speaking with Charlie, he makes the connection that these dreams likely stem from the fact that he is a “Jew trapped in a basement.”
However, Alan’s dream in The Patient Episode 9 gets more specific. He walks through Auschwitz until he finds a sleeping man having a nightmare. Alan wakes this man, but he states, “Didn’t you read my book? I said not to wake the person up.”
It turns out that the man in Alan’s dream in The Patient was Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. Charlie and Alan discuss a line from Frankl’s book: “Reality is worse than a nightmare in Auschwitz. Don’t wake him up.”
Alan’s nightmare about Viktor Frankl in ‘The Patient’ Episode 9 explained
Charlie posits that Alan waking up Viktor in his dream could mean that the human spirit can prevail. Alan posits that the dream could mean he should die fighting back against Sam.
The pair reference Frankl’s book, likely referring to Man’s Search for Meaning. The book detailed Frankl’s survival story and became an international bestseller. In his book, Frankl discusses the power of choice, even choosing one’s own attitude in difficult situations.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” Frankl wrote, according to The Marginalian.
Perhaps this is why Alan interprets his dream to mean that he should take action and try to escape. He convinces Sam to invite Mary over for brunch. Alan plots to stab Sam with a sharpened tube of foot cream and yell for Mary to help him, but in the end, he doesn’t go through with it.
Frankl also developed logotherapy and existential analysis, which focuses on finding meaning in life. Humor is an important technique used in logotherapy and something that Alan holds on to throughout the series.
Some fans reacted negatively to the Holocaust imagery
It’s worth noting that The Patient has received criticism for casting a non-Jewish actor to portray Alan. Some fans have also deemed the Holocaust comparisons and imagery as unnecessary and insensitive. “A Holocaust comparison? Really?? Who that was a good idea?” A Reddit user wondered in a discussion of episode 6. There are definitely some upsetting scenes in the Hulu series.
New episodes of The Patient every Tuesday exclusively on Hulu.
