Will and the Therapeutic Process

It is only in the last century that human behavior has been viewed as a complex integration of basic biological needs and essential cultural adaptations. Previously man was understood as having animal needs and a spiritual nature endowed by God which gave him the capacity to choose between right and wrong and good and bad.

Developments in science, particularly the theory of evolution, brought to the foreground an explanation for man's behavior which supplanted the theological conception. While it did not alter the notion of man's rationality, the biological instinct hypothesis de-emphasized man's freedom of choice and action and attributed most of his behavior to preformed, naturalistic, unchangeable, and instinctual forces. Man was unable to control this behavior; it occurred without his choice or decision. According to this explanation, man's behavior was viewed as entirely free, entirely directed, or as a combination, dichotomized into mind-body or natural vs. spiritual man. Thus it was to be expected that disorders of behavior were seen in terms of a hereditary taint or organic defect or as a willful opposition to the rational pursuit of God's will.

Another explanation for certain types of behavior was possession by the devil or some hostile force that had entered the body through magic or malevolence. Except for the notion of possession, it was presumed that the demented person behaved the way he did because of some purpose or design, in order to get something he wanted. Most theologians and physicians believed that a person could abandon or alter his course of action if he really wanted to. This idea persisted until the late nineteenth century, when it was demonstrated beyond dispute that behavior could be influenced by thoughts, attitudes, and experiences not immediately apparent to the person involved. The unconscious had been suspected and described by philosophers and theologians prior to Freud, but its role in human functioning had not been systematically a