No Free Will? Why Therapy Still Works

My belief is that there is no such thing as true free will. Is this belief compatible with clinical psychology? And if it’s true that there is no free will, what does this mean about therapeutic change? Is there any point to therapy if the outcome is determined? 

My answer is yes. In fact, there’s much to be gained from this perspective. 

Sigmund Freud and the Psychoanalysts attribute much of what we feel and do to the unconscious and psychological defense mechanisms. For example, a client comes into therapy with anxiety. They discuss how much they adore their mother and feel guilty that, after all the work their mother did to raise them, they still carry so much anxiety. “Why am I like this?” They ask, “I was given everything and owe everything to my mom. Yet I am still so anxious.”

Through the therapeutic process, we find that their mother was not always so nice. She could be verbally abusive. Controlling. Cruel. She often didn’t allow her child to have autonomy or a sense of self.

Through further work, we find the client has repressed great anger toward their mother. But because these types of feelings were not tolerated by her caregiver in childhood, these parts were buried. Instead, the child formulated a personality that was the opposite of what they often felt. One who adored their mother and was grateful to them. And yet in a constant state of anxiety.

Anxiety often masks unacknowledged anger and hostility, especially in kind people. This is because they learned, often early on, that their anger was not something safe to feel and express. So, for example, they experienced the world as an anxious person, with a sense of duty to their perceived loving and infallible mother. That’s until therapy allowed them to uncover more of the truth about themselves and their upbringing. Then they could feel relief. They were allowed to feel and be more of who they truly were.

Was this person ever truly free? What might you be blind to that’s directly, though unconsciously, affecting not only how you think, feel, and behave, but your very sense of what it means to be you?

Existential therapy takes a different perspective from the Freudians. The psychologist, Viktor Frankl, famously wrote, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The book recounts his experiences as a prisoner in the holocaust during World War II. His way of coping, and ultimately surviving, was to retain his sense of freedom despite having lost almost everything

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His sense was that you always have a choice. Even in the direst circumstances, even when you’ve found yourself in a living hell, you still have freedom. You have the freedom to choose what’s meaningful. Even in the small things – say acts of kindness – you keep your vision and autonomy alive. In other words, existential therapy is about developing freedom. A sense that, no matter what, you can always choose how to think and respond, with your values as your guiding compass. 

When you consider what’s truly important to you, does this awaken something within you?

Despite that, it doesn’t exactly address whether there is true free will.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT, emphasizes how thoughts drive emotional experiences. By changing our thoughts and behaviors, we can improve our emotional health. For example, I trip in public and feel embarrassed. I think, “I’m such a stupid person,” which triggers more embarrassment and shame. Then my behaviors become led by these thoughts. I avoid trying new things to avoid the embarrassment of being a so-called stupid person.

In CBT, we change our thoughts. For example, in response to the automatic thought that defines me as “stupid,” I reframe it and think, “Stumbling is a human universal and doesn’t define me as a person.” Then I’m willing to try new things because I’m okay with stumbling. Then I feel less shame and anxiety. Over time, I develop healthier self-esteem and more confidence. Through learning new abilities, I develop more competence, which allows me to navigate life’s challenges more effectively.

Embedded in the CBT framework is the notion of free will – that we can choose more adaptive and realistic thoughts. We can choose to act differently. This choice comes from our own free will. But a deeper understanding challenges the notion that this process is truly free.

On a neurobiological level, our thoughts and behaviors occur before we are consciously aware of them. A chain of events – neurochemical, hormonal, and biophysical – leads to a conscious sense of being. For example, when I think, “I am going to make this very deliberate decision, such as deciding who I marry or that I’m finally going to start going to the gym,” a chain of neurochemical events has already occurred in the brain to lead to that conscious moment.

In other words, it takes time for a decision to reach conscious awareness. Even if the time is just a few hundred milliseconds (as experiments suggest), the implication is that our decisions have already occurred before we feel we’re choosing them. Our sense of self, our conscious self, is not the true decider. So, who is?

Consider how culture and trauma play a role in our lives. Family systems therapists conceptualize how our birth order, rules and roles in our household, and many other family factors have an impact on our behaviors and how we see ourselves and others in relationships. How do our religious or philosophical beliefs impact our ethical code? How do these beliefs impact how we feel when we violate this code or hold contradictory feelings within ourselves? Is who you date influenced by the cultural values of your family, community, and society? Did playing a contact sport or experiencing childhood neglect create long-lasting brain trauma that makes it difficult for you to regulate your emotions? These are factors out of an essentially infinite multitude that determine who we are and what we do. These factors all diminish our freedom until what, exactly, is left?

In therapy, and personally, I often find that the idea of free will negatively impacts our emotional health, sense of selves, and ultimately, perhaps ironically, our ability to change for the better. When we look at the past and consider what we did, it’s important to have compassion toward ourselves. Understand that while what we did might have been embarrassing or may have even hurt others, given all the factors that led to that moment, we would not have done otherwise. Therefore, it does not make sense, nor is it helpful, to say we were truly at fault. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible.

How do we distinguish between fault and responsibility? Fault is merely a judgment. It is a finality that states you are to blame. This is a direct line to shame. Responsibility, however, implies there’s something we can do about it. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean we have true free will. But it does mean we can learn from our mistakes and act on what we’ve learned.

In my opinion, therapy is about the past, present, and future. We did not choose our past, and it still impacts us. Yet, we can develop more self-awareness, self-forgiveness, and responsibility in the present. We can use both our values and the lessons we’ve learned to guide ourselves toward a better future. We can feel better. We can heal from and have better relationships. Even without true free will, we can, as Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, says, lead a life worth living.