Skinner was an American psychologist largely responsible for popularising behaviourism and the experimental approach to understanding human behaviour. This stamps Jung as being quite distinct from Freud and the nihilism associated with many proponents of existentialism.īurrhus Frederic or BF Skinner (1904 – 1990) ![]() If we don't connect with the core of our being and realise that it is continuous with universal being then we will be ruled by instinct, cause and effect as described by Freud. Jung believed in free will and viewed hard determinism as merely a mode of thought. For Jung personal growth was about awakening to self-knowledge and self-awareness. Hence, self-reflection was something that Jung wholeheartedly embraced but Freud vigorously avoided. ![]() The personal transformation from an isolated individual to a free, universal, enlightened being Jung likens to a kind of spiritual alchemy. This is like a universal mind which, for the most part, we hardly know exists as we go about our distracted day-to-day existence. To Jung, we are all connected not just by our physical proximity to each other, but also through a collective unconscious. He was a deeply spiritual man, in part inspired by his familiarity with the world's great mythologies and wisdom traditions, but also because of his deeply introspective and contemplative leanings. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who was originally a close associate of Freud but went in a very different direction to Freud particularly in relation to his views on the unconscious, religion and free will. He was a hard determinist of the view that our actions and decisions are essentially predetermined by our biology, upbringing and unconscious processes and, because we are unaware of them, we don't get to choose them nor are they under our control. Freud never aimed high as far as therapeutic outcomes were concerned and was openly hostile to religion and dismissive of religious experience. Freud's influential focus on psychopathology may be the chief reason why for the following century psychology almost exclusively focused on abnormality and mental illness rather than positive psychology and wellbeing. He took a gloomy, misanthropic view of humanity perhaps because he formed his theories almost exclusively from a relatively small number of desperately miserable and neurotic people. The ultimate freedom, according to James, is knowing God or 'the highest' and selflessly following its will.įreud's popularisation of psychoanalysis provided our image of the archetypal psychiatrist. To James, the ultimate freedom tied with spirituality. There may be strong biological and environmental influences on our thoughts, emotions and behaviours beyond our control, but that doesn't define us. ![]() He believed we have the scope to freely choose our actions, attitudes and way of being in the world. James' attitude to determinism was what he called 'soft determinism' abhorring the later limited and fatalistic thinking which subsequently became widespread. In relation to attention, he identified its importance, long before the modern interest in contemplative neuroscience, as a prerequisite for understanding oneself and leading a healthy life. Three key themes of James' work related to attention, determinism and spirituality. So, what do a few notable psychologists have to say about freedom?Īn American physician, psychologist and philosopher, whose influential work, The Principles of Psychology, is the foundation for modern psychology. If we ignore the observing self, as psychology has largely done until recently, then we may have been looking at the mind from the wrong perspective, like trying to understand it by thinking about it rather than observing it. The essential factor is the ‘observing self’, the consciousness, which is doing the watching. We see how it works by watching what is does. In order to study and understand the mind we need to observe it. Psychology, simply put, is the study of the mind. Philosophers and theologians have had much to say about the nature of freedom and the mind over millennia, but the discipline of psychology as we know it is relatively new. True freedom is primarily a state of mind, not a physical condition, therefore the study of the mind is central to an inquiry into freedom. ![]() Equally, you could imprison someone like Socrates, Boethius, Thomas More, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela and they would be, in many ways, freer than their gaolers. If freedom were merely a matter of not being in a prison cell then the vast majority of us should be free, but we often find ourselves imprisoned by internal anxieties, worries, habits, compulsions, fears, depression, addictions and false assumptions. We all want freedom but we are not always so sure about what it is or how to attain it.
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