Psychology and Freedom of the Will

Dorota K. KUNCEWICZ

Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Social Science, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 15, 20-950 Lublin , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9717-7333

Dariusz S. KUNCEWICZ

Specjalistyczna Poradnia Psychoprofilaktyki i Terapii Rodzin im. prof. Włodzimierza Fijałkowskiego, ul. Żołnierzy Niepodległej 1, 20-078 Lublin , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-0867

Abstract

The paper reflects on the status of free will in academic psychology and psychological practice. In contemporary academic psychology, dominated by the naturalistic model of science, the concept of free will is usually disregarded. The problem of free will was replaced by other issues (including self-regulation, self-determination, detailed goal-setting, action planning, and action control) or is discussed in terms of psychological mechanisms or illusory beliefs. In psychological practice, the original understanding of free will, embedded in philosophy and ethics, was marginalised as useless in the context of the belief in the determinism of disorders and the subjectivity of truth. The original interpretation of free will, however, is clearly present in the work of the classics of psychology and the therapeutic approach focused on analysing patients’ decisions. The return of free will and related issues to psychology is to be expected within the framework of the personalist-existentialist current, even though it now faces methodological limitations. The final section proposes a way to overcome these limitations, based on the methodology of literary hermeneutics, embedded in cognitive realism, and other research approaches that take into account freedom of the human will and are relevant to psychological theory and practice.

 

Translated by Małgorzata Bieleń

Keywords:

free will, academic psychology, psychotherapy, methodology of sciences