“Free Will?” Again
The same old question, a new book, the same answer
One of the annoyances of getting old is that you see things get recycled several times throughout your life. You see the swings of freedom and justice, and then you see the backlash it creates. Then, the swing back, as the backlash to the backlash begins.
This is probably true in every field of endeavor. A new theory or new technology comes out. Some people like it, some people resist it. After a while, the attention it gets diminishes. Then, years later, someone brings it up again and the reactions begin all over again.
As a psychologist and psychotherapist, I have always been interested in answering the question about “free will.” How much of everyone’s behavior is determined before it happens, versus how much does anyone have complete control over what he or she does next? For me, these discussions began in grad school when we read Emanuel Kant and compared his writings to David Hume. It was also Freud versus the behaviorists. How little we actually knew.
Would therapy be necessary if people could just change their lives because they wanted to? — I could say, “Just stop smoking so much weed, take a shower, get a job, and pay your own rent.” and the next day my twenty-two-year-old patient would do all of that, But things don’t happen that way.
