Logotherapy is the only school of existential psychiatry that has developed a therapeutic technique, that is, paradoxical intention. Professor Donald Tweedie notes that this will make logotherapy particularly interesting to the American outlook, which is very pragmatic. Paradoxically, paradoxical intention has not given logotherapy widespread appeal, because other schools of therapy have simply adopted it for themselves without attributing Frankl.
It’s really a double paradox though, because paradoxically, while Frankl’s intention (pun intended) that paradoxical intention be the therapeutic technique par excellence of logotherapy, it seems to me that the numerous subtle techniques by which we want to bring the person to a basic trust in life is the true genius of Frankl.
It is up to us to turn Frankl’s teachings into techniques.