Definition
Self-distancing (Ger. Selbstdistanzierung) is the specifically human capacity to step back from oneself - to look at one's feelings, fears and symptoms from the side, and even to laugh at them. Together with self-transcendence it is one of the two basic capacities of the noetic dimension.
Humour
Frankl considered humour one of the soul's most important weapons in the struggle for survival. In the camp he and a friend agreed that each of them would invent at least one funny story every day about something that might happen after liberation.
I am not my fear
Self-distancing makes it possible to say: “I have fear, but I am not my fear.” A person does not have to put up with everything their psyche suggests - this is an expression of the defiant power of the spirit.
In therapy
The technique of paradoxical intention is based on self-distancing.
Sources
V. E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning; The Will to Meaning.