Paradoxical Intention

[hypno-therapist]

Hi all,

I have been reading with great enthusiasm this week a book by Viktor Frankl.

Frankl was one of the great names in psychology of the last century. During WWII he was confined to several concentration camps, the most famous being Auschwitz. He survived this harrowing experience and went on to create Logotherapy.

The thing that most interests me about Frankl's work is the technique of paradoxical intention (PI).

Paradoxical intention is a process where the therapist encourages the client to intend or wish for what they fear. This is somewhat like exposure therapy in cognitive behavioral therapy. This technique can be very successful for many forms of anticipatory anxiety, phobias and disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, however it should not be used with suicidal or schizophrenic clients.

So how does it work?

Well pretty much the same as the exposure in CBT, it allows the client to test their theories about their perceived threats.

You see, anticipatory anxiety causes avoidance in the phobic client. This then leads to the phobia (behavior) being created or being exaggerated. PI and exposure exercises allows for a logical way to beat an illogical problem such as anxiety. It is far more of a learning experience then a healing experience as the client begins to learn that the thing they feared is nothing to get anxious about.

An example would be to have a client with facial ticks to 'make' them happen instead of just having them happen.

Hope you found this as interesting as me

[beams]

I am familiar with Victor Frankl and I'm very fond of his work actually. Paradoxical intention seems to be a little bit similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy, where you are afraid something will happen and because of your fear, your actions unconsciously make what you fear happen. They seem to be parallel to each other.