2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
“However, as a human phenomenon, freedom
- something too human"
Victor E. Frankl.
Usually this question is considered philosophical and people prefer not to answer it. But so often it is freedom that worries people who turn to a psychologist. And the result of successful psychotherapy is compared to the liberation of a person. Irwin Yalom called psychotherapy a rebirth. Books have been written about freedom no less than about love. I want to share my thoughts on freedom and psychotherapy.
In the conditions of intrauterine development and early childhood, the child is in fusion with the mother's figure and the world as a whole. The child does not feel where his self ends. It was then that the concept of freedom is formed as the satisfaction of all our desires "I want", "I do not want".
Infantile freedom feels like a complete lack of internal boundaries and responsibility. In the future, it is this understanding of freedom that guides children's behavior. Facing the world, we try to defend this freedom through:
- Maintaining privacy;
- Conquest by force;
- Merging with other people.
Infantile freedom this is something negative and is expressed by the words “if it were not for…, then I would be free”, “when I have…, I will be free”, etc.
In life, it is precisely the infantile understanding of freedom that is often encountered. It's easy to check by asking the question "Do you think a person can do anything?" Many consider the statement "A person can do everything or almost everything!" axiom and only sometimes justified "A person can do everything, but I can not." Such an opinion, whether it is conscious or not, strongly influences behavior and is not as harmless as it seems. The infantile concept of freedom is part of the neurotic personality.
How can you understand this and become truly free and not remain captive to neurotic illusions?
Let's look at three areas of realizing freedom:
- I am free in relation to myself.
- I am free in relation to the world.
- I am free in relation to my life in general.
Usually neurotic thinking stumbles over the first two areas. And then the request to the psychologist sounds like this - "This is not my body, I am locked in it!", "I want to escape to a desert island!", "I do not feel free!"
And the fact is that we are not free in relation to ourselves and not free in relation to other people and the world as a whole. They are not free in the infantile understanding of freedom, when all our "want" and "do not want" are satisfied. We have limitations: physiological characteristics, mental and mental abilities, socio-economic framework. All these are human restrictions and it would seem that they should interfere with freedom.
This is where a paradox arises. In pursuit of infantile freedom, we move away from life and become lonely, unhappy and dependent.
How can one find a different sense of freedom and an adult idea of it?
One can become free only through the acceptance of these boundaries. "Yes, I'm only human!" "This is my world and the people around are living people!"
Seems simple, but why is this difficult to achieve?
We did not feel and do not know anything but children's freedom. Our parents rarely know their boundaries and often educate us in the wrong way. And it's just that we are scared: scary to die and scary to live, scary to become attached to one's neighbor, scary to be rejected, and so on. It takes a lot of courage to live free.
Now most of the psychological problems in people arise from a lack of understanding of their boundaries and codependent relationships. If in the process of counseling and psychotherapy to build boundaries outside the personality, to regulate only the sphere "I am free in relation to the world" and not to touch upon the issue self-acceptance … As a result of such therapy, psychological defenses will only increase, and the understanding of freedom will remain unaffected.
Understanding and accepting our limitations and the boundaries of the world around us, we take responsibility for ourselves and our lives. My favorite psychotherapeutic exercise for self-acceptance - a leaflet on the refrigerator that says “I'm an ordinary person” every day.
By accepting responsibility, we gain freedom and love for our life in general. Freedom loses its negative meaning and ceases to be a compensation for children's desires and weaknesses. Our freedom matures and says "I can!"
There are many ways to experience freedom: love, religion, beauty, creativity, suffering, and of course psychotherapy. I have chosen the profession of a consultant psychologist and am convinced that psychotherapy is a unique method of self-improvement. Not the only one, but affordable. Not guaranteed, but effective.
For me, there is no border between philosophy and psychology, and my choice is an existential direction. Solving many philosophical questions effectively relieves people of psychological problems and vice versa.
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