This method of treating phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorders was proposed by the Austrian psychotherapist Viktor Frankl. Its high efficiency has been confirmed in practice and experimentally. Due to its simplicity, Frankl's paradoxical intention method can also be used by non-professionals. With its help you can quickly get rid of fears and obsessive thoughts. What is the essence of the method of paradoxical intention proposed by Franklin, how it works in specific examples and where it is used will be discussed further.
Vicious circle of phobias
Personal fears can accompany us throughout our lives if we ourselves reinforce them.
For example, someone is afraid of blushing when speaking in public or in an argument (erythrophobia). Anticipation of an unwanted symptom and excessive efforts to avoid it lead to redness. What a person fears happens.
And the more we fear the appearance of a symptom, the higher the likelihood that it will appear. Over time, the fear intensifies due to his “invincibility.” But we continue to believe in deliverance and hope that one day he will retreat.
The circle closes:
- fear of a symptom;
- the presence of fear inside and its implementation outside;
- disappointment and a new desire to fight;
- fear of recurrence of symptoms;
- increase in fear and repetition of the symptom.
Phobia gives rise to avoidant behavior. A person with claustrophobia avoids using the elevator, and an agoraphobe (agoraphobia - fear of open spaces) or social phobia does not leave the house for weeks.
Implosion technique - floods in the imagination
This approach to the treatment of phobias and anxiety conditions is within the framework of behavioral psychotherapy. It works well in patients with fear of space, heights, enclosed spaces, etc. The method is based on confrontation (immersion of the patient in the situation) and desensitization (gradual loss of sensitivity to the pattern), having common features with logotherapy.
At the first stage, the psychotherapist explains to the client the essence of the technique and the algorithm of action. Then the patient is asked to close his eyes and mentally imagine the situation that frightens him. This could be a multi-story building, traveling on an airplane, or going out onto a crowded street. The doctor acts as a symbolic substitute. He verbally reinforces the patient’s experiences, maintaining fear at a high level. This procedure lasts 40-45 minutes. Unlike the real situation, the phobia is not reinforced by real stimuli (consequences). Then the patient must repeat this procedure on his own once a day, in addition to visits to the psychotherapist.
Over time, tolerance to the pathological pattern appears, and the person can rationally assess the situation.
Paradoxical = opposite
Paradoxical intention is the cessation of resistance to fear, a kind of psychological aikido technique.
We recognize our internal focus on what we consider to be our weaknesses. Moreover, we declare that we desire this. This is the paradox of acting contrary to conscious intention. In the case of erythrophobia, the paradoxical intention may sound like this:
“I’ll turn red like a tomato. I'll show people how good I am at blushing."
An important condition: intention (intention) must be expressed in a hyperbolic manner, in a humorous form.
Other examples of paradoxical intentions:
- Fear of stuttering: I want to stutter so that no one understands me, I will tear the words into small pieces.
- Fear of sweating: I'm going to sweat a lot, I'm going to produce a bucket of sweat.
- If you are afraid of fainting: I will show everyone how I faint. I'm great at doing this.
What does logotherapy give?
Logotherapy has had many followers, but its methodology is not as well developed as, for example, the methodology of Gestalt therapy. This is understandable: the very essence of existential therapy involves a large role for the individual, and the process will look different when performed by different therapists. The concept remains common: serious and paradoxical, romantic and spiritual. It allows you to provide answers to the most difficult questions of human existence:
- What gives you the strength to survive trials without losing your human dignity?
- Why do people suffer?
- How to continue living if there is not much left?
- How to listen to yourself and make the right choice?
Of course, these questions concern each of us from time to time. And the answers to them are in the books and works of Viktor Frankl.
Why does this work?
Paradoxical intention is effective even in difficult cases when medication and other psychotherapy techniques do not help. What is the power of this ingenious method?
When a person is immersed in internal conflict , his energy is expended on supporting both conflicting parties. Attention captured. A person cannot go into third position and look at himself from the outside.
Humor and hyperbolism allow you to distance yourself from yourself and get out of a vicious circle. Self-detachment, in turn, leads to sudden relaxation.
Let us add that a person is not able to cause sweating or reddening of the cheeks through an effort of will. An absurd idea. But as a ploy, it works. We surrender to the inner force playing against us, consciously connect with it and cancel it.
There is no doubt that some people resort to paradoxical intention intuitively - when they step towards fear under the motto “Come what may!”
Combining psychotherapy with medications
Psychotherapy is often combined with drug treatment. In some cases, it is simply necessary, for example, during situations where there is no self-control, the ability to perform household functions and lead a social lifestyle. Benzodiazepine drugs are effective in treating both phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorders. They calm the patient, improve sleep, but are limited in the time of use. This is due to the danger of addiction and withdrawal symptoms. Therefore, the primary task of the doctor or psychotherapist is to explain the need to stop taking medications in the future.
Antidepressants have shown themselves to be effective in the treatment of phobias, compulsions (obsessions), increased anxiety and panic attacks. They are used even without the presence of a depressive component in the patient, as they have a fairly wide range of effects in the treatment of these disorders. These are drugs that affect the balance of a neurotransmitter such as serotonin, increasing it in the synaptic cleft. This group of medications is prescribed by a psychiatrist with the selection of a specific drug and individual dose. You need to know that these drugs accumulate in the body for three weeks, and only after this time they begin to work, helping the patient, together with psychotherapy, get rid of phobias, panic attacks, increased anxiety and obsessions.
Obsessive thoughts (obsessions)
This method is also suitable for obsessive thoughts One lawyer became convinced that when he filled out his tax return, he hid part of his taxes, although this was not the case. He could not get rid of this thought and expected to be arrested. He also could not continue to work and was depressed for several months by obsessions. Until he stopped resisting them.
His intention looked like this: “Yes, I’m wrong! Damn perfection! Let them put me behind bars soon!” At the appointment, the doctor greeted the man with the words: “What’s going on? Are you still walking around free?" Laughter relieved tension and soon the lawyer was freed from obsession, although before treatment with the Frankl method he was forced to stay in a psychiatric clinic.
Therapy with meaning
Neurosurgeon and psychotherapist Frankl found his calling early. He was only 20 when he organized a psychological assistance service for students at the University of Vienna. While this service existed, none of them committed suicide.
In the 1930s, Frankl headed the suicide prevention department at a Viennese clinic. When the Nazis came to power, he saved Jews from Hitler's euthanasia program.
In 1942, Frankl's entire family, including himself, was deported to a concentration camp. Only two survived the war - himself and his sister. In the most difficult conditions, Frankl continued, secretly from the SS, to do his life’s work: preventing suicides and helping other prisoners preserve themselves no matter what.
In the book “Saying Yes to Life!”: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp,” Frankl describes how a person’s inner life changes under unbearable conditions. Hunger and cold, lack of sleep and illness, exhausting work, beatings and bullying, the constant proximity of death made people irritable and indifferent. The prisoners were not afraid to die. Gradually all thoughts were reduced to primitive needs.
“Even the gas chamber does not cause him fear after a few days. In his eyes, it’s just something that takes the worry out of suicide.”
Victor Frankl
from the book “Say Yes to Life!”
In the book, Frankl brings up the idea again and again: even a concentration camp prisoner has a choice. He can try to survive at any cost or fall into final torpor and fold his arms. Or he may fight not to survive, but to continue to live in spite of everything. The image of a loved one and a mental conversation with her, an unfinished business that awaits in freedom, tree trunks illuminated by sunset, helping other prisoners, humor - everything can become a point of spiritual “escape”, a secret life that is not subject to terrible conditions.
Frankl quickly discovered that the question “will we survive here” is not as meaningful as another question: “does our suffering have meaning?” Because if they don’t make sense, then there’s no point in surviving. To remain human means to find this meaning and maintain the aspirations that are associated with it.
This is what psychologist Viktor Frankl discovered and tested under extreme conditions. Logotherapy means “therapy with meaning.”
Birth of the concept
Intention absorbed the main theses from scholasticism, which separated the mental (intentional) existence of an object and the real one. In the Middle Ages it was believed that there could be no knowledge of a subject without intervention in it. Thomas Aquinas discussed the nature of intention. He spoke about the formation of intention by the mind regarding an understood object. In the 19th century, with the light hand of psychologist F. Brentano, the concept took on a new life. He believed that consciousness is intentional, that is, directed towards what is outside itself. In other words, the concept brings meaning to consciousness. Scientists A. Meinong and E. Husserl developed in their scientific works various approaches to defining intention, which later had a significant impact on a number of areas in psychology (Gestalt psychology, personalism, and so on). Another philosopher, M. Heidegger, combined care and intentionality, believing that there is an internal connection between them. He argued that “man in his being is a being who cares about being.” If a person fails in his “being”, then he loses his possibilities.
Definition
Intention is a broad concept that can be described as the direction of thinking. The ability to think is born in every person in childhood. And it is at a young age that a child develops his own personal range of interests and a path to knowledge of the areas of interest to him. Under the influence of various internal and external factors, the baby forms his own picture of the world. He understands what is good and what is bad. Parents teach the child etiquette, competent speech and the basics of cultural behavior. By synthesizing this information, a person creates a base that he will use throughout his life. This basis is different for all people. You've probably encountered the problem that someone you know doesn't understand you, although it seems to you that you simply won't be able to explain it any more clearly. It may seem to you that the person opposite you is unimaginably stupid. But that's not true. Most likely, the direction of thinking between you and this person is very different. You look at the world differently and put different meanings into the same definition.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=R0BTUGz4-X0
Why do you need to study intention?
Studying psychology helps you better know yourself and others. And studying thinking, its basis and structure, and in the case of intention, its direction, is useful in order to better understand people. What manifestations of intention do you encounter every day? Have you noticed that some people often complain about their unsuccessful lives? Such people love to complain, to say that everything would be fine with them if it weren’t for this or that. Interlocutors sometimes do not understand that they live the way they want and deserve it. A successful person did not acquire his wealth immediately. He had to work hard to get a good education and a prestigious position in a growing company. Yes, in appearance it might seem that the person is not making any effort, but in fact the person is working hard. But many are accustomed to judging without knowing what is hidden behind the beautiful picture of success. Intention makes a person think about what kind of work it took for the individual to rise up. Thanks to such reflections, a person gets rid of envy and is inspired by the example of a successful person.
Sample results
A cause for concern is the fact that the patient cannot draw a straight line from his finger to his nose. Instead of calmly hitting the target, the person begins to tremble, the movements become oscillatory, or right before the tip of the nose - the hand suddenly stops. As a result, the finger gets into the cheek, eyes, forehead or, generally, past the face.
The results of the finger-nose test may be as follows:
- Norm. The patient's condition is normal if he can calmly touch the tip of his nose with his eyes closed.
- Ataxia. A lot of useless movements and swings are made, which do not lead to a good result, but lead to missing the nose.
- Intention. As the finger approaches the nose, the hand spontaneously begins to tremble more and more.
- Bridle symptom. Almost reaching the target, the finger suddenly stops. At this moment, the brain tries to determine the location of the hand in relation to the nose and navigate where to give direction next. Having understood what to do, the brain sends signals and the finger again moves to its destination.
Communicative
How do people communicate with each other? Through speech, they try to convey their thoughts to their interlocutor and reveal their inner world. Communicative intention is the direction of human thinking towards some goal. In order to find out the necessary information, a person can join the conversation, and in order to hide something, the interlocutor will try to discreetly change the topic. But people cannot always understand each other well. What's stopping this?
- Different meanings attached to concepts. When you communicate with a person, you hardly take into account the area where the interlocutor grew up, his moral values, education and upbringing. But all these factors make an individual unique. This is where the difficulty of communication lies. Sometimes two people can put different meanings into the same concept. Against this background, mutual misunderstanding arises.
- A different picture of the world. The direction of thinking is different for everyone. One person is interested in studying science, another is interested in studying art, and another is interested in studying politics. Accordingly, all these people will differ in their set of knowledge, skills and aspirations. Differences in views on the same things give rise to alienation and hostility.
- It's hard to understand something you haven't experienced. A person cannot always understand the state of his interlocutor. There are things that cannot be described in words, but can only be felt. For example, it is difficult to understand what the death of a loved one is until you have experienced this feeling.
