ABSTRACT
Viktor E. Frankl is usually considered an existential analyst because his therapy is a phenomenological approach to what he sees as man's basic striving "for finding and fulfilling meaning and purpose in life." The technique of paradoxical intention, which is described in the following paper, is similar to tactics employed by Marie Coleman Nelson, Hyman Spotnitz, Aron Krich, Milton Erickson, Jay Haley, and Harold Greenwald, although their rationale may be quite different from Frankl's. With paradoxical intention one enters into the noetic dimension as the characteristic and constitutive dimension of human existence. Viewed from the point of view of logotherapeutic teachings, this dimension, the realm of the spiritual, covers more than merely rational or intellectual processes, although these are certainly included. In the frame of logotherapy or existential analysis, a specific technique has been developed to handle obsessive, compulsive, and phobic conditions.
