Freedom in Psychotherapy*

The broad and existential-sounding title to this paper was actually not my own choice. If left up to me, I would have probably called it something less assuming, like, “The psychology of choice.” However, a deep inquiry into the dynamics and meaning of ‘choice’ of course does necessarily lead into the problems of freedom and determinism in human action, and it is imperative for psychotherapists to realize fully the implications of this problem. Psychotherapists have the great privilege of belonging to a profession that affords the opportunity to act as a catalyst in liberating the creative potentials for life inherent in their patients, potentials that are blocked due to pathological vicissitudes. Martin Buber in his article, “Hasidism and Modern Man,” 4 says: “The fact of creation means an ever renewed situation of choice.” This is the situation which we attempt to bring about in psychotherapy. (I use the term psychotherapy to denote any particular school or method.) We attempt to help the patient reach the inner freedom which will enable him to create ever renewed situations of authentic, rather than compulsively repetitive, choices.

Choice—conscious or unconscious—is the essential human activity which defines directedness and content of the individual's biography. That choice can be performed with awareness of the process, experienced as a self-determined decision among various alternatives, is a specifically human attribute. So is the dubious privilege of pathology of choice also a specifically human attribute. The amount of inner freedom characteristic of homo sapiens seems to be inextricably connected with the ability to develop psychic disturbances which manifest themselves in curtailing the potential for