Definition
Dereflection is a logotherapy technique that treats a particular kind of harm: the harm a person does to themselves by watching themselves too closely. When someone monitors a normally automatic function — sleep, sexual response, fluency of speech — the monitoring disrupts the function. Dereflection turns that excess attention outward.
Frankl called the underlying error hyper-reflection: an exaggerated, self-conscious focus that gets in the way of what it observes. Dereflection is the counter-move. It does not argue the person out of their concern; it redirects their attention toward meaning and toward other people.
Why it matters
How it works
Where paradoxical intention addresses anticipatory anxiety by inviting the feared outcome, dereflection addresses hyper-reflection by withdrawing the searchlight altogether. The therapist helps the person stop scrutinising the troubled function and instead engage with something genuinely worth their attention — a piece of work, a relationship, a task that calls for them.
This rests on Frankl's broader claim that the human being is fundamentally self-transcending: a person is most fully themselves when reaching beyond themselves. Dereflection is that principle made practical. By aiming attention at a meaning outside the self, the over-observed function is freed to resume on its own.