Psychotherapy and Responsibility

As man has obtained increased knowledge of himself and his universe he has gained mastery and therefore some freedom in the conduct of his life. With this increase in knowledge new choices have become possible. As these choices have become apparent a new kind of freedom with its resultant anxiety has appeared. Man can choose whether to be warm or cold by changing his environment rather than merely coping with it. He can choose whether to have pain or anesthesia. He can even choose whether to allow himself to feel his anxiety or to create a chemical fog in which he decreases his awareness. All of these kinds of choices which man now has available to control his internal and external environment apparently seem to increase his freedom. Yet at the same time he has discovered that there are many potent forces which are part of his inner world and which to a large extent are out of his awareness (unconscious). He can obtain mastery over some of these forces through introspective and reflective techniques, by becoming aware. But by definition a large number of these forces necessarily must remain unconscious. Thus, with the advent of modern dynamic psychiatry and the discovery of the forces which shape man's behavior, an attitude has developed in which the human being is conceived as a helpless victim of unknown and internal energies which shape his life and destiny. Revelations about the external world generally have increased knowledge and have allowed man to take a more directing and therefore more responsible position towards his life. Even when physical forces are discovered which are entirely unalterable, the very knowledge of these gives him more mastery, more control, more possibility to adapt, and therefore an increasing capacity for responsibility. However, dynamic psychiatry and its consequences on the view of man in his culture, on the education of his children, on the psychotherapeutic correction of his behavior, and on the philosophical consideration of his