Paradoxical techniques look for exactly what their name says: disagreement, absurdity, with them the objective is for the person to put into action behaviors that they sometimes try to avoid and that are, in most cases, the source of their discomfort and anxiety . , paradoxical contradictory intention can be very helpful.
From the chapter Stopping the Parado, Gómez and Yela’s Paradoxical Thinking and Intent, included in Labrador’s Behavior Modification Techniques manual (2007), we will try to understand what mechanisms are implemented so that contradictory paradoxical intent without inconsistency, invaluable technique for achieving therapeutic changes.
- This technique is designed to ensure that the person with an anxiety disorder experiences anxiety at that time; that the person with compulsions and rituals performs exactly these behaviors; or for the person with sleep problems to try.
- In any case.
- Not to sleep while asleep.
In many psychological disorders, especially anxiety disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorders, attempts to avoid obsessive thoughts, rituals or feelings of anxiety are not only counterproductive, but also persist the problem.
A person with OOS with hidden rituals, for example, may try not to check or control their thoughts, these impulses, which usually occur spontaneously, are very difficult to control.
Therefore, according to Salgado et al. , The objective of paradoxical intent is:
Several theoretical models attempt to explain the mechanisms that allow paradoxical contradictory intent to work, some of these theories are:
Paradoxical intent also exposes people to certain behaviors that people fear and that, being avoided, are maintained, this occurs in the vast majority of anxiety disorders, as it is safety and avoidance behaviors that prevent anxiety from occurring.
Paradoxical intent is especially useful for people who fear feeling their own anxiety and expect, for example, to lose control if they get on a plane, go to the movies or go to downtown Natal.
Although the person may never have felt anxious in these situations, their own anticipation can cause them to avoid these places.
In controlled contexts, it is difficult for the person to have an anxiety attack when asked, however, as therapy progresses, the therapist may ask them to try to feel anxious in a supermarket or to try to increase their heart rate and speed up their breathing. .
You may feel anxious, of course, but that anxiety is under control. It is the person who chooses the moment when he appears, not the circumstance.
Therefore, paradoxical intent is also useful for the person to be exposed to their own anxiety, with it may disappear the fear of anxiety that drives you and the strength to avoid doing things, if the anticipatory anxiety disappears, safety behaviors and anxiety disorders will also disappear.
Paradoxical intent is not to ask a person to feel anxious about those words. If that’s your request, you probably don’t know how to do it. The instructions are too general for good results.
The therapist in question should be very specific when prescribing the task to the patient, so the behavior must be specified. In other words, you need to say exactly what you want, for how long and where.
Therefore, and as indicated by Salgado et al. , It is better to give specific instructions than vague indications:
The specification and understanding of behaviors can make the difference between the effectiveness and failure of paradoxical intent in a therapeutic context.
This reminds us that it is a very powerful technique, but also very dangerous in its application, because if it is not applied in a structured and focused way, it can present results contrary to those expected.