CONCEPT
The Intentionality Test (May)
May's second diagnostic: Can I articulate what this work is for—not what it produces, but what it serves?
The intentionality test asks whether the builder can name the purpose of the work beyond the production of the artifact—what human need it addresses, what value it embodies, why the encounter matters. Rollo May borrowed intentionality from phenomenology (consciousness always directed toward something) and developed it in Love and Will as the quality distinguishing meaningful from empty activity. Intentionality is not the same as intention (a plan); it is the directedness of consciousness toward meaning, the experience of work as connected to something larger than the immediate task. The builder who can answer the test question is working with intentionality—the daimonic force is directed, the work has purpose. The builder who cannot answer has lost the thread connecting activity to purpose, and the work continues through momentum rather than meaning. May observed that intentionality can be lost gradually through small surrenders, each disconnecting work slightly further from the purpose that originally animated it.
In The You On AI Field Guide
May's clinical use of the concept appeared in his treatment of patients who