Oettingen was born on July 22, 1953, in Munich, Germany to Alois Philipp Joseph Maria Notger, 9th Prince of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg and Countess Elisabeth Gabriele zu Lynar.
[4] Oettingen studied biology in Munich and subsequently worked at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen, Germany, and at the Medical Research Council, Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour, Madingley, Cambridge, England.
[9][10] Based on a psychological principle called "mental contrasting" that involves mentally focusing on the contrast between the positive aspects of one's goals and the negative aspects of one's obstacles or current situation,[11] Oettingen has created behavior change interventions, many of which integrate implementation intentions, a planning strategy suggested by Peter Gollwitzer.
[17] In 2015, James C. Coyne attacked Oettingen's book Rethinking Positive Thinking and accused her of aggressively promoting pseudoscience while ignoring other research in clinical psychology.
[18][19] Coyne pointed out that as part of Oettingen's aggressive promotional campaign for her book, her own son created Wikipedia articles about her work.