I recently read – and deeply enjoyed – Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” What an astonishing story of survival, what an amazing testament to the power of the human mind. 

The horrors that those men experienced every day was overshadowed in my mind, by the amazing ability of human mind to transform that experience into normality or even transcend it into fulfillment.

In this inquiry, I am going to dive into some of Frankl’s own terminology for Logotherapy technique. Here I will specifically focus on the ideas of:

• Hyper-intention
• Hyper-reflection
• Paradoxical intention

My focus will involve coming up with sensible definitions for the three terms, followed by a segment where I will aim to gain insight into the function and of the terms themselves in our own experience. 

A Defining of Terms______________

Frankl does not provide a precise definition of the terms I am exploring here (unless I am unaware of a source). ‘Paradoxical intent’ is the exception, for which Frankl provides most of an adequate definition. For the other two, I will use context and Frankl’s in-book briefing of the terms in order to construct a definition.

 

Hyper-intention:

An excessive intention to will or force something to be, which in fact ensures that the thing will not be. 

Hyper-reflection:

An intensified attention to something within ourselves which prevents that something from coming to be.

Paradoxical intent:

(“Based on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes”)

The individual is asked to intend – if only for the moment – precisely what he fears. In doing so, on changes one’s focus and relinquishes one’s fear.

 

Inquiry into Terms______________

I will now proceed to explore the relations, functioning, and application of these ideas presented by Frankl. 

 

Difference between Hyper-intention and Hyper-reflection:

If we intend something intensely, does is not make sense that our attention is on that thing?

It seems as though this would be the case. The difference is, if we intend something, then we have a specific positive or negative focus on that thing. For example, if I had a tendency to blush in social situations, then I might very intensely intend on not blushing.

With attention, however (the factor involved in Hyper-reflection), my focus needn’t be necessarily positive or negative given my concern. My attention could be intensely focused on my blushing itself, or my attention could be intensely focused on my yearning not to blush. My attention can be, but need not be, aligned with my intention.

Hence, Hyper-intention seems to be one’s genuine yearning in a given situation (wishing and wanting not to blush), which leads to the yearning not being fulfilled (one blushes anyway).

Hyper-reflection, then, is one’s intense conscious focus during a period of Hyper-intention (which is aimed at oneself in this example, yearning for a specific end).

 

The Functioning of Hyper-reflection:

It seems possible that if we intend something we can put our attention on that same thing (intending on sleep and putting our attention deeply on sleeping). In Frankl’s work, this will bring about the non-happening of the phenomena. 

It is possible that we intend something but put our attention on the opposite of that something (intending for sleeping but putting our attention on our inability to actually fall asleep). I would argue that this, too, would bring about the non-happening of the event. 

How can both of these hyper-reflections, which focus attention on opposite targets (getting to sleep and the inability to sleep) have the same effect? I believe that it is because their origin is the same. The hyper-intention and either hyper-reflections, I pose, are triggered by the same “anticipatory anxiety” – term Frankl uses himself. 

This anxiety is that we will not fall asleep, and the fear of not sleeping is the origin of the intent to sleep and the attention on sleeping or not sleeping. All have their origins in fear.

In order to have this fear one must think about not sleeping, one must imagine that one will not fall asleep – one’s mental focus must be on the inability to sleep – which by itself makes sleep difficult (especially because sleep is not something we have direct conscious control over).

Hence, our intention is on sleep because we fear not sleeping, and our attention has something to do with sleep (either our wish to sleep or our inability to sleep) all because of the seed of fear.

This fear keeps a portion of our minds focused on not allowing the desired outcome to take place. Why? Not because it is the fear in and of itself, but because the perpetuated thought that stirs the fear and lies behind the fear is “I won’t be able to get to sleep.” Hence, the mind – even if in a subtle way – holds the thought of not sleeping and remains focused on it, and so does not allow sleep to occur.

 

Applying Hyper-Intention / Reflection- 

I have posed thus far that “anticipatory anxiety” holds something back from happening because it focuses part of the mind on that thing not happening (the origin of the fear / anxiety in the first place).

What if our anticipatory anxiety had to do with something that was much more underneath or conscious control? For instance, what if we had anticipatory anxiety about crashing a car into trees or telephone poles. 

This would bring about a hyper-intention to stay on the road, a hyper-reflection would occur which would bring attention to either crashing or not crashing. 

It would be my guess that a frightened driver (with the above thought processes) would be more likely to get into an accident than a driver whose thoughts were not on crashing. Having this subtle focus in one’s mind would likely make one more likely to manifest the feared behaviors and bring about the feared events (again, not because they are feared, per say, but I pose that it is because the origin of the fear is the mental focus on crashing in the first place). 

What about trapeze artists who choose to brave perils on a daily basis? Surely they have to think about falling and dying constantly. So how do they stay up?

I would actually argue that the best trapeze artists are those who think of peril and death the least. It may be that those who think of their next step forward or the rope itself are the most successful. It might also be said that the best trapeze artists are those who have the clearest mind – void of any potentially corrupting content…

(Continued in Part 2)

 

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