Freedom & Responsibility in Existential Therapy: Session 10

Narration by Adam
Godwin (MA, PGCE)
Copyright Adam Godwin (2020)

Session 10
Freedom & Responsibility in Existential Therapy
Freedom & Responsibility in Existential Therapy
In this session we will:
• Study the role of existential issues pertaining to ‘freedom’ and ‘responsibility’ in therapy
• Identify common defence-mechanisms used by people to avoid freedom and responsibility
• Analyse the potential significance of these existential ideas in the therapeutic process
By the end of this session you should be able to:

• Explain why many people seek to avoid existential freedom and responsibility
• Identify and overcome defence-mechanisms people use to avoid freedom and responsibility
• Connect these existential issues to people you encounter in your therapeutic work
Reflection Questions
Are humans free to choose what they do with their lives or are all actions determined by external forces?
To what extent do patients choose to play a role in perpetuating their own challenges and symptoms?
PAUSE
Overview
Existentialists are libertarians: they believe humans have freewill and reject deterministic accounts of human behaviour. Furthermore,
it is a philosophy of radical freedom and radical responsibility: our freedom is absolute and inalienable – there is always a choice. For
existentialists, even when our options in life may sometimes be limited (such as when we have a terminal diagnosis) we still have
considerable freedoms in terms of how we behave, think, and feel in response to our situation.
The existential philosophers considered that human beings have a complicated emotional relationship to their own freedom; our
ability to choose our own destiny can be a source of anxiety. There are infinite choices ahead of us in any given moment of our lives
and each choice you make excludes all others; moreover, due to the uncertainty implied by our existential conditions, we can never
know which choice is correct and which incorrect until we have actually made it. Perhaps most importantly: to be free means to take
responsibility for one’s own choices and the role of one’s own choices in creating the problems one faces.
As per Yalom’s psychodynamic model, the anxiety generated by our confrontation with the existential givens of freedom and
responsibility leads to the creation of defense-mechanisms. Yalom explores the defense-mechanisms people use to deny the extent of
their own freedom and the responsibility they have for their choices: "compulsivity", displacement of responsibility to another, denial
of responsibility (such as taking the role of an “innocent victim”, or claiming that one “loses control”), avoidance of autonomous
behaviour and decisional pathology. He notes that the ‘ultimate rescuer’ defense-mechanism used to assuage death-anxiety also helps
people to avoid taking responsibility for their lives and avoid making choices about their lives.
Therapists must help patients explore the role of their own choices in perpetuating their symptoms, helping them to identify the “pay-
offs” that they get from their situation. One of the central aims of the existential therapist is to help patients lead more authentic lives;
this depends on them taking responsibility for their lives, owning their choices, and becoming a more autonomous individual.
Use a mind-map or list of bullet-points to take notes…
Why is Freedom a Source of Anxiety?
“Viewed from the perspective self-creation, choice, and will, and action, freedom is psychologically complex and
permeated with anxiety” (Yalom, 2002, p. 141).
• Infinite choices / too much choice
• Uncertainty – we might be wrong, accepting past mistakes (and “wasted time” they might imply)
• Responsibility – For Choices and one’s life in general

• Since ‘existence precedes essence’ and your choices are not limited by any fixed ‘design’ you are
“condemned to be free”: thrown into the world, you are completely free yet solely responsible for your
entire existence.
• Reveals the contingent and arbitrary nature of our situation; we are confronted with the ‘groundlessness’ of
our lives and dislike the absence of structure:
• “Freedom in this sense has terrifying implications; it means that beneath us there is no ground –
nothing, a void, and an abyss. A key existential dynamic then, is the clash between our confrontation
with groundlessness and our wish for ground and structure.” (Yalom, 1980, p. 9)
• “Individuals are faced with the discomfort of authentic choice and the temptation of comfortable inauthenticity”
(Sartre, 1949).
Yalom on Freedom & Responsibility
• Yalom advocates taking complete responsibility for one’s life and one’s choices: “To be aware of
responsibility is to be aware of creating one’s own self, destiny, life predicament, feelings, and if such is
the case, one’s own suffering” (1980, p. 218).
• Yalom emphasises the role of choices in symptoms that present in therapy.

• For example: the choice to stay in a dysfunctional relationship, the choice to focus on negative
thoughts, the choice to ascribe a particular meaning to an unsettling encounter
• Frank and honest exploration of “pay-offs” must be explored: avoiding self-deception
• For Yalom, the path to authentic and free behaviour involves two main efforts:
• Assuming Responsibility
• Enacting choices through wishing, deciding and willing
• In response to the anxiety caused by freedom and choice people create defense-mechanisms that
serve as obstacles ‘preventing’ free and authentic behaviour. “Thus one seeks structure,
authority, grand designs, magic, something that is bigger than one’s self ” (1980, p. 222).
Defense-Mechanisms Against Responsibility
Existential
Given
• “I just cannot decide!” • e.g. an apparent inability to
• “The choice is impossible” Decisional make decisions and choices
A Anxiety • “I lose either way” Pathology (or a particular choice).
Defense
Mechanism
• Avoidance of •
E.g. Letting others plan
one’s life and make Autonomous Defenses Compulsivity
Suspension of
responsibility
decisions on your behalf Behaviour • Addictions
• “At least if I join the army I

Against • “I just had to do it”
•
won’t have to make decisions.”
“It’s better just to conform.” Taking •
•
“My anger compelled me”
“My cravings make me lose control”
Freedom &
Responsibility • “It wasn’t my place to do it.” Responsibility • “Tell me what to do!”
• “I didn’t have any choice.” • “I just let him make the decisions.”
• “I had to be there” • “I was just following orders”
B Anxiety Displacement
• “Innocent victim” Denial of of • Ultimate Rescuer figure
• “Losing control” Responsibility Responsibility • Therapist
Defense • Blaming circumstances • Blaming other people
to Another
Mechanism
Defense-Mechanisms: A Closer Look
“Displacement of responsibility – external locus of control, one avoids personal responsibility by
placing it upon another, such as a partner, parents, an institution or religious deity, or perhaps the
therapist. A paranoid individual may place it on an unseen force.
Compulsivity or the creation of a psychic world, where one exists under the influence of an irresistible
ego – alien force. For instance in the case of gambling or sexual addiction, irrational behaviour,
overeating, excessive spending or committing crimes etc.
Denial of responsibility – avoiding autonomous behaviour, not taking personal responsibility for
actions, being the “innocent victim” (assuming an “it wasn’t me” or an “I can’t help it” stance), merging
with others (by merging with others we are able to avoid the anxiety that comes with facing the reality
of our fundamental groundlessness), losing control — offers another pay-off — nurturance.
Other defenses may include the employment of defensive mechanisms such as remaining in
dysfunctional relationships, or non-supportive employment, deadening oneself to desires or wishes,
denial of feelings, maintaining fatalistic worldviews (doomsday theories etc.).” (Berry-Smith, 2002)
Examples of Responsibility Avoidance [1/5]
Existential The Nuremberg Trials
Given Pause the video and take a moment to
consider how the individual might try • e.g. an inability to make
Decisional decisions and choices (or a
to deny responsibility using the Pathology
A Anxiety particular choice).
diagrams of Yalom’s model…
Defense
Mechanism
one’s life and make Autonomous Defense Compulsivity
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
Responsibility Responsibility PAUSE
to Another
Mechanism
Existential The Car Crash
Given A young woman was involved in a car
crash that killed a young boy. She was • e.g. an inability to make
using her phone at the time; checking Pathology particular choice).
A Anxiety
social media. She blames the other driver.
Defense
Mechanism
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
to Another
Mechanism
Existential The Depressed Man
Given John chooses to think negatively. He chooses
• e.g. an inability to make
to do very little other than read depressing Decisional decisions and choices (or a
things on the internet. John chooses to sit at Pathology
home a lot: thinking sad thoughts and living
an empty life. He chooses to have no friends.
Defense
Mechanism
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
to Another
Mechanism
Existential The Unhappy Couple
Given Kevin & Karen stay together even though
they have little in common, a poor sex life, Decisional decisions and choices (or a
and little apparent compatibility in any Pathology
way. Their passive style of co-dependency
stems from deeper existential issues…
Defense
Mechanism
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
to Another
Mechanism
Existential Use of Drugs
Given Sarah has a history of poor mental health;
nonetheless she uses a wide range of Decisional decisions and choices (or a
recreational drugs with a casual attitude. Pathology particular choice).
A Anxiety
Her most recent break-down followed a
long and sleepless weekend of hedonism.
Defense
Mechanism
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
to Another
Mechanism
How About You?
Existential Examples from your own life…
Given Do you ever use any of these strategies so
as to avoid making choices and/or taking • e.g. an inability to make
some form of responsibility? Pathology particular choice).
A Anxiety
Does any of this theory ring true for your
Defense own life and your own attitudes?
Mechanism
Suspension of
responsibility
Against
Taking
Freedom &
to Another
Mechanism
Complete The Case Studies
In your workbook complete the case-studies: you should hypothesis about the
person’s situation from an existential perspective that emphasises
the role of freedom, choice and responsibility…
PAUSE
Reflection Questions
How can a therapist avoid coming across as moralising, judgemental or
callous when helping people take responsibility for their own choices?
What emotions might a person feel when a therapist tries to have them
assume responsibility for the role their choices have in their lives?
What is the role of a person’s choices in how other

people come to see and treat them?
PAUSE
Freedom & Responsibility - Notes for Practice
• The main goal of existential therapy is to allow a person to make a free choice.
• Individuals may try to displace choices, decisions and responsibility to therapists

• May display learned ‘feigned-helplessness’ behaviours: “I don’t know what to do”, “If I knew what to do I wouldn’t be
here”, “That’s why I’m coming to you” and “Tell me what I have to do”.
• Always use the language of choice: returning to the reality of choices that were and can be made
• Emphasis on ‘here-and-now’ present-moment reality of choice and decision-making
• Always helping individuals to assume responsibility “Every therapist knows that the first crucial step in therapy
is the patient’s assumption of responsibility for his or her life predicament” (Yalom, 1989, p. 8)
• Yalom challenges the therapist to examine his or her own beliefs about responsibility and arrive at a consistent
position, stating, “double standards in the therapeutic as well as in any relationship will not do” (1980, p.
269). (Quoted in Berry-Smith, 2002)
• Practice should emphasise: choice, responsibility, “pay-offs”, self-deception – but also positive and honest
discussions about the sheer range of options and choice as person can make. (e.g. “why not just move away?”)
Learning New Therapeutic Skills & Techniques
The Phenomenological Method
Turn again your ‘New Therapeutic Techniques Log’
Throughout the course you should add to your therapeutic technique log: documenting new therapeutic methods
that you learn about on the course. Choose to try them in your practice as a therapist, psycho-therapist, or counsellor
Add this therapeutic technique to your: ‘New Therapeutic

Techniques Log’. You will find it at the back of your printable
workbook, or you can create a separate file using note-paper.
Learning these techniques, so that you can apply them in your
practice, will be an important take-away from this course.
For each technique consider:
• How can you integrate this into your current practice?
• To which clients might this method be most suited?
• Are their any contra-indications for using this approach?
• What are its strengths and weaknesses? PAUSE
Specific Therapeutic Technique
Using The Language of Choices
• Individuals should be encouraged to use ‘choice-orientated language’ that reframes their experiences and the
narratives they derive from those experiences in terms of choices.
• e.g. “I started having lots of negative thoughts” = “I chose to start generating lots of negative thoughts”
• e.g. “I got angry and I hit her” = “I chose to feed my anger, chose act on my anger, and chose to hit her”
• Language takes place in a framework of temporarily setting aside doubts and assuming responsibility
• Non-judgemental questions provoke individuals to honestly explore the role of their own choices in creating their
current situation as well as the other possible choices that could have should
Therapists (or still
be can be)that
cautious made.
they themselves do not slip
• The therapist should challenge language use that is in “bad faith”
into deterministic
or seeks toways of explaining
absolve (or excusing)
the individual ofbehaviours.
responsibility for their choices and the outcome of those choices.
A person either had a choice or they did not have a choice:
Add this therapeutic technique to your: ‘New Therapeutic exploring the truth of the matter is the important thing.
Techniques Log’. You will find it at the back of your printable
workbook or you can create a separate file using note-paper.
Learning these techniques, so that you can apply them in your
practice, will be an important take-away from this course.
For each technique consider:
• How can you integrate this into your current practice? PAUSE
• To which clients might this method be most suited?

• Are their any contra-indications for using this approach?
• What are its strengths and weaknesses?
Wishing & Willing A Change To Occur
• Understanding that one is responsible for one’s choices is not enough to create meaningful change in a person’s
life: one needs to wish to change and one needs to will to change.
• “What the therapist can do is to liberate will - to remove encumbrances from the bound, stifled will of the
patient” (1980, p. 292). Further, “some people are wish–blocked, knowing neither what they feel nor what they
want. Without opinions, without impulses, without inclinations, they become parasites on the desires of others”
(1989, p. 9). (Quoted in Berry-Smith, 2002)
• Individuals need to deeply explore what they wish, what they wish out of life! “The inability to wish, or to
express one’s wishes, has not been widely and explicitly discussed in clinical literature; it is generally embedded
in a global disorder –- the inability to feel” (Yalom, 1980, p. 304).
• Yalom advises it is ultimately a decision by the patient that slips the machinery of change into gear. (Berry-
Smith, 2002)
• Therapy may involve a careful examination of what a person really wants out of life, what their wishes are and
what obstacles they install in order to get in the way of enacting their will.
• Existential therapy is orientated towards the future and potential decisions that can be made: not the past.
Responsibility Assumptions, Groups & Social Interaction
• Yalom suggests that people should take (realistic) responsibility for how their own choices and behaviours
influence the way that others see and treat them.
Assuming Responsibility in Group Dynamics
• It is common for people to have fixed ideas about who they are really are: as Bugental stated “You are not
what you think you are!” – e.g. a person in group says “I’m just a shy person”, a manPatients recently got into a
learn how their behaviour
Patients learn how their Patients learn how their behavior
bar fight, “This kind of thing always happens to me, I’m
behavior is viewed by others.
just
creates the unlucky – people
opinions others have of don’t like me.”their opinion of
influences
themselves. Building on the
• Yalom
Through challenges people to honestly investigate their
feedback them.own choices
Members learn in
that,creating
as a social interactions
information gathered in and in
the first
Patients learn how their result of their behavior, others
shaping
and, later, the behaviours
through of others around them. value them, dislike them, find
three steps, patients formulate self-
self-observation, patients
behaviour makes others feel evaluations; they make judgments
• Note: this is [and must be!] very different to “victim-blaming”
them unpleasant, respect them, about their self-worth and their
learn to see themselves avoid them, exploit them, fear lovability, and they learn how their
through others' eyes them, and so on. behaviour leads to these judgments.
• Yalom (1980) draws on his expertise in group therapy settings: the ‘here-and-now’ behavioural dynamics
that manifest in group therapy often point to social issues in wider life.
• How is this person choosing to interact and how does that tend to make others feel and, consequently,
behave towards that person? How do they choose to treat others?
• How is this person trying to absolve themselves of responsibility for the way they treat others?
• Are they ‘taking ownership’ of their choices? Acting in ‘bad faith’? Communicating honestly and
authentically? Are they peddling deterministic fantasies and trying to get others to nod along?
Test Your Learning
What are the three most important things about freedom and responsibility
in existential therapy that you learned from this session?
Make a note!
PAUSE
References
Berry-Smith, 2002. Death, Freedom, Isolation and Meaninglessness, And The Existential Psychotherapy of Irvin D. Yalom A Literature Review
Van Deurzen-Smith, E. (1997). Everyday mysteries – Existential dimensions of psychotherapy. London, England: Routledge.
May, R. (1957). The meaning of anxiety (rev.ed. ed.). New York, NY: W.W.Norton.
May, R., & Yalom, I. (2000). Existential psychotherapy. In R. J. Corsini, & D. Wedding, Current psychotherapies (6th ed., pp. 279-302). Itasca, Illinois: Peacock.
Spinelli, E. (2006). Existential psychotherapy. Análise Psicológica, 3, 311-321.
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1989). Love's executioner and other tales of psychotherapy. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1991). When Nietzsche wept. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1996). Lying on the couch. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1998). The Yalom reader. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1999). Momma and the meaning of life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (2000). Religion and Psychiatry. American journal of psychotherapy, 56, (3) 301-306.
Yalom, I. D. (2002). The gift of therapy. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

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Narration by Adam

Godwin (MA, PGCE)

Copyright Adam Godwin (2020)

By the end of this session you should be able to:

• Responsibility – For Choices and one’s life in general

• Yalom emphasises the role of choices in symptoms that present in therapy.

• “At least if I join the army I

What is the role of a person’s choices in how other

• Individuals may try to displace choices, decisions and responsibility to therapists

• Emphasis on ‘here-and-now’ present-moment reality of choice and decision-making

Add this therapeutic technique to your: ‘New Therapeutic

• To which clients might this method be most suited?

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