Are we free in our choice?

Psychologies: Do you think we can truly choose the course of our lives?

Marina Harutyunyan: In a sense, we choose our destiny, but we do it to the best of our understanding, understanding of needs and motives. Psychoanalysis proceeds from the fact that we are all endowed with a conflict nature and our internal contradictions (for example, between reason and feelings, desires and duty, the search for freedom and the desire for security) often prevent us from making a choice. Our psyche is looking for a compromise – and it’s good if it finds the best possible one. At the same time, the conscious “I” often remains in the dark about the motives of behavior: “If I knew what I really feel and what I want, I would not do this.” I remember one three-year-old child – with difficulty and pain, he decided to give a friend a gift that he wanted to have himself: “As if I were kind.” This child does not yet know that he has an internal conflict.

Robert Mizrahi: Contradictions, compromise… As if psychoanalysis proceeded from the fact that we are all sick! What if we consider a healthy individual? A person who could say to himself: “If I don’t want to do this, I can not do this.” I think we are really omnipotent. We are absolutely free to choose our own life and, therefore, to achieve happiness.

If there is a choice, then why do we so often become the cause of our own misfortunes?

M.A.: Precisely because internal conflicts are not fully understood by us, this also applies to completely healthy people. In the depths of the personality there are desires, motives, motives, which, while remaining unconscious, nevertheless influence our choice.

Here is an example. Each of us needs to receive approval from our “Super-I” – an internal moral authority that allows us to consider ourselves “correct”, “good”. But this unconscious instance can be very cruel to its owner, demand too much from him – for example, that a person should always be only kind (smart, loved, winner). Then he does not realize those motives that do not meet these requirements, and loses his freedom of choice. If a woman lives with a man who torments her, is this her choice? Yes, sure. But she did it (perhaps even without knowing it), for example, because the internal “evaluator” will approve of her only if she suffers enough.

RM: We often become the masters of our misfortune because we make bad decisions dictated by what I call “spontaneous consciousness.” This is a state of ignorance and mental discord, in which we are overwhelmed by primitive, vague, blind desires – to possess, to rule, to enjoy – which absolutely do not take into account reality. They cannot be performed without harming another or oneself. The caricature of spontaneous consciousness is the illusion that “I can do anything.” But it is not the unconscious—I don’t believe in the unconscious…

If we were less impulsive, could we choose what will lead us to happiness?

RM: I totally disagree with the idea that happiness is unattainable. When we encounter obstacles, when we get the feeling that we cannot move forward, we are free to question the correctness and validity of our choice. If we feel cornered, it is only because we have remained in the sterile stage of spontaneous consciousness, forgetting that we are the authors of all our actions. I would like to emphasize the tremendous power of freedom when illuminated by our personal inner work, reflection, a power that many are unaware of. This inner work involves a critical eye that reveals the relativity and poverty of any of the options from which we choose, and at the same time our active role in affirming all goals and values. We can at any moment of life discover the creator in ourselves, (re)create ourselves as an actively acting personality, living in harmony with ourselves and others …

And what exactly can we do to become freer, to realize ourselves in the “right” elections?

RM: The first step is to question yourself and your life. This means that you must first go through the crisis. In the face of inner, soul-rending pain, the choice will become inevitable. Which one? Either be content with who you are and let suffering crush you, or through a complete break with your former self, go to the next level, which I call “reflexive consciousness.”

So we learn to sort desires, plans, thoughts, emotions. This is how we become freer. We realize that we were blinded by fantasies, imagination, fiction, where everything revolved exclusively around us and our imaginary greatness. After that, we can realize ourselves, because we come to the choice in which aspirations are consistent with life in society. In essence, it is about choosing with others in mind, but not passively submitting to their will, that is, to exercise genuine intellectual independence.

M.A.: It seems to me a dubious way out “total break”. Psychoanalysis is not so categorical. He says that by working on ourselves, developing the ability to reflect – not stepping back, but understanding our vague and often mutually exclusive desires, giving meaning to fantasies, considering internal contradictions, and not ignoring them – we can come a little closer to understanding that from which we choose. When we finally achieve this, we can get more satisfaction from our actions. True, sometimes this can lead to unexpected decisions: to part with a partner, although there seemed to be no such intentions, to choose an unusual profession, to prefer a new manner of behavior, to rediscover in ourselves abilities that we have long forgotten about. Or, on the contrary, we can finally appreciate what we already have.

How can we better understand ourselves and our true desires?

RM: Inner courage is not enough, you need to help yourself by patiently and engagingly reading books. This allows us to achieve true open-mindedness and calmness. In addition, we can resurrect in memory (and in the body) happy moments: an unforgettable youthful love, a magnificent landscape, a Mozart opera, a restaurant on a memorable evening … All these memories of the fullness of being, shared with friends and loved ones, tell us that the fulfillment of desires it is possible that we can achieve great joy if we act and make right choices.

M.A.: Books certainly help you understand yourself better. Sounds good: make the right choice. But where is the starting point of the right? Morality? Love? Honor? What if they contradict each other? All great literature is about this to some extent. Her characters and creators were not “individuals living in harmony with themselves and others.” And that is why Phaedra, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, King Lear were written… For example, Oedipus made a huge mistake when he ran away from his adoptive parents: choosing freely and with the best of intentions, he made the “wrong” choice. “Blessed be nature for quarrelsomeness, for envious vanity, for the thirst to possess and dominate! exclaims Kant. “Without them, all the excellent inclinations of mankind would have remained undeveloped. Man wants agreement, but nature… wants discord.”