The Ego-Psychological Perspective

Heinz Hartmann, Robert White and other ego-psychologists have argued that Freud did not place enough emphasis upon the functions of the ego in the behavior of the individual. Furthermore, they feel that the ego is autonomous of the libidinal energy force and is not strictly determined by unconscious, dynamic primary processes or motives. The growth of ego functions differentiates humans from other animals and allows us to break free in many instances from “instinctual” confines. (Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein, 1946, v. II, p. 19)

Furthermore, we are not solely motivated by the need presses of hunger, thirst and sexual gratification, but seeks to gain “competence” or mastery of the environment. (White, 1959, pp. 297-330). Thus, we are free agents, able to confront our environment via adaptive modes of independent ego functioning which are motivated by self-imposed demands, The therapy conducted by the ego psychologists, in addition, is generally more demanding of independent functioning on the part of the patient. then is traditional psychoanalysis,

The Existential Perspective

Jean Paul Sartre (1949, pp. 433-553)), the leading exponent of existentialism, and a frequent participant in the fine art of psychological theorization, believed that every human act is the product of free choice. To assume that every act is determined is to be confronted with an infinite progression—and is to be dealing not with actions but with a series of “movements” –“the existence of the act implies its autonomy.” (Sartre, 1949, p. 477) Sartre arrives at this strict nondeterministic position as a result of his noted preoccupation with the isolated individual. He considers the individual experience to be entirely unique. It is incapable of analysis or evaluation. To consider the studies of rats, let alone the studies of a general population of men, to be relevant to the understanding of the behavior of any individual. would be absurd from an existential point of view.

Numerous psychotherapists have found the existential philosophy of Sartre and his predecessors (notably Heidegger) to be quite in line with their own interests in the individual patient in his unique, “existential” predicament. The most noted exponent of this trend, at least in the US., is Rollo May (1953). On the issue of freedom, May states that if we were not self-conscious or self-transcendent then we would be determined and driven by instincts as is the rest of the animal kingdom. However, human beings possess this ability to be conscious of self, hence are free. With our unique capacity, we can remember past events, and can profit by these experiences. Thus, each of us may consciously allow past events to influence present events or decision. In addition, we have the capacity of imagination, hence can allow past events to influence future happenings. Thus:

Consciousness of self gives us the power to stand outside the rigid chain of stimulus and response, to pause, and by this pause to throw some weight on either side, to cast some decision about what the response will be. (May, 1953, p. 161)

May is not implying that there are an unlimited number of possible choices to be considered or that there are only a limited number of deterministic influences in one’s life. Rather he is saying that there is a margin in which the living human being can be aware of what is determining him, and that he will react to the deterministic factors with freedom to the extent that he is cognizant of these factors.

Thus May, like numerous determinists, sees freedom couched within a deterministic context: each of us is free to the extent that we can appreciate and understand our deterministic world. Yet, we might ask is such a “freedom” meaningful? Are we not left with a rather pessimistic view of humankind as Spinoza’s stone? These questions become the critical point in the third category of approaches to the matter of determinism and freedom.