Man’s Search for Meaning: Logotherapy: Logotherapy as a Technique Summary & Analysis

Frankl explains that logotherapy is well-suited to treating “anticipatory anxiety,” in which a person’s fear of something makes that thing actually happen. For example, a man worried about performing well in bed is then unable to perform well in bed. Frankl also discusses “hyper-reflection,” in which the patient is so attentive to an issue that his attention affects his life. For example, a woman who had been sexually abused had trouble enjoying sex with her partner because she was so worried about the toll this abuse might take on her sex life, not because of the actual abuse itself. She was too focused on her anxiety, and thus could not focus on the sexual act itself.

Logotherapy uses “paradoxical intention” to counteract these two tendencies. By instructing patients to bring about that which they fear or that which hyper-reflection prohibits, logotherapists can help them overcome their neuroses. For example, Frankl worked with a patient who was so afraid of sweating profusely that he sweated all the time. When the patient tried his hardest to sweat, however, he found that he could not sweat at all. By reversing a patient’s habits, paradoxical intention can help expose patients’ anxieties and hyper-attentions and give them control over their lives.

Frankl successfully treated many patients, including a bookkeeper afflicted with bad handwriting and a man with a horrible stutter, through paradoxical intention. Frankl says that this form of treatment is particularly helpful for those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. While paradoxical intention cannot fix everything, it is a useful therapeutic device in that it cuts through the cycle by which anxious behaviors are reinforced. The patient can only heal when he orients himself toward a unique goal and meaning.