Psychoanalysis and Free Will

ABSTRACT

This article is mainly concerned with the conception of free will in Freudian theory and ego psychology. There are a number of Freuds, not all consistent with each other, on this issue of free will: the Freud who views free will as an illusion, the Freud who identifies as a goal of psychoanalytic treatment the enhancement of the ego’s freedom to choose, and the Freud who locates control of motility (action) in the conscious ego. As for an ego psychology perspective, free will lies in the ego’s relative autonomy from drives, as well as in the freedom to not will and to relinquish control. In contrast to Freudian theory and ego psychology, the question of free will is not salient in post-Freudian theories, where the greater emphasis is on issues having to do with meeting needs rather than on gratification of wishes. Finally, free will is not only a matter of freedom from inner compulsion, but also of freedom from external coercion.

KEYWORDS:

• Free will
• compatibilism
• incompatibilism
• ego autonomy
• free association
• determinism

Introduction

The philosophical and, to a lesser extent, the psychological literature on free will is huge. It would be foolhardy as well as grandiose to think that it can be covered in a journal article. Therefore, although I will briefly describe in general terms some philosophical positions and arguments on free will, my focus will be on a psychoanalytic perspective on that issue.^1,2 And within that perspective I will refer mainly to Freudian theory and the ego psychology of Hartmann and Rapaport. I do so because the issue of willing, including free willing, is at the core of both theoretical perspectives, which, directly or indirectly, address the issue of free will at greater depth than other psychoanalytic theories.³ In contrast to Freudian theory and ego psychology, the issues of willing and free will are not addressed, certainly not in any systematic way in these other theories. Indeed, as I will try to show later in the paper, the question of free will simply does not arise in post-Freudian psychoanalytic writings. I will also discuss some psychological and neuroscientific findings that have been interpreted by many as suggesting that the experience of free will is an illusion. Finally, I want to note that although much has been written on that topic, I will not discuss the relation between free will and responsibility, that is, blameworthiness or praiseworthiness (see Moore, 2020, for an excellent discussion of that topic).

Brief overview of two opposing philosophical positions on free will

I begin with a brief overview of two opposed philosophical positions on free will, which go as far back as antiquity. A fundamental question is how free will is possible in a deterministic world. (I will not get into questions of “hard” versus “soft” determinism.) There have been a number of answers to this question in the philosophical literature.

Incompatibilism

One answer, referred to as Incompatibilism, is that free will and determinism are incompatible. The basic argument for this position is that insofar as every event is determined by antecedent events, there can be no events that are free. A typical incompatibilist argument, elaborated in a recent book titled Determined: A science of life without free will, is that because biological facts (e. g., genetic makeup), childhood experiences, and environmental constraints and demands determine our behavior, the experience of free will is an illusion (Sapolsky, 2023). Variations of this basic argument have been made by other incompatibilists (e.g., Harris, 2012). Note that on this view, free will is defined as undetermined or uncaused. According to the logic of this perspective, a choice is free only if it is, itself, undetermined by antecedent event. Given that from the perspective of a determinist world view, there are no non-determined or uncaused events; at least in the macroworld of actions, there can be no free will.

Incompatibilism and the argument against dualism

Although not often discussed in the context of debate on free will, the incompatibilist position intersects with the argument that as causes can only be physical in nature, to attribute causal powers to mental events, including willing and intending, whether free or not, is to adopt a dualist position in which nonphysical phenomena can influence physical events. In short, insofar as causes can only be physical, willing and intending, whether free or not, cannot have causal properties. Avoidance of the specter of dualism is an important factor in the philosophical positions of nothing but reductionism and eliminative materialism, the former reducing mental states to neural processes, and the latter denying the existence of nonphysical phenomena such as mental states, let alone granting causal properties to mental states. As we will see, Freud tried to avoid the specter of dualism by conceptualizing mental states as essentially somatic in nature (see Wakefield, 2018).

Compatibilism

On a Compatibilist view, the fundamental error of Incompatibilism is to equate free will with undetermined or uncaused and then argue that because there can be no non-determined or uncaused events, there can be no free will. However, as compatibilists note, the opposite of determinism is not free will, but indeterminism; and the opposite of free will is not determined but coerced and compelled by external or internal forces. From this perspective, actions are free when they spring from one’s desires and intentions rather than being coerced. According to the logic of this view, not only are free will and determinism compatible, but the existence of free will requires the assumption that are actions are determined, namely, by our wants and intentions. It is indeterminism that is incompatible with free will. That is, free will is not possible when events are random and unpredictable.⁴

Compatibilism is essentially the view adopted by some early philosophers such as Hume, Locke, and even the materialist Hobbes. For example, according to Hume (1969), an action is free, not when it is uncaused, but when it is determined by one’s motives and will. A similar position is taken by Locke (1975) who thought of freedom as the power to engage or forbear to engage in any action as a function of the determination of one’ mind. Even the materialist Hobbes (1651) supported the claim of free will, which he defined in terms of freedom from coercion. This position was also espoused by later philosophers, including Bertrand Russell (1914) who wrote rather straightforwardly that “Freedom, in short, in any valuable sense, demands only that our volitions shall be, as they are, the result of our own desires, not an outside force compelling us to will what we would rather not will” (as cited in Lewy, 1961, p. 264). Taking a similar position, in a section titled “The confusion of causal determinism with compulsion,” Grünbaum (1971) writes: “ … psychological laws do not force us to do or desire anything against our will. These laws merely state what, as a matter of fact, we do or desire under certain conditions” (p. 303). And finally, as the philosopher Harry Frankfurt (1971) puts it quite simply, one is free if one does what one wants to do. (For an interesting and somewhat different defense of free will, see List, 2019.)

Free will in Freudian theory

There are at least two Freuds, not necessarily compatible with each other, regarding the question of free will. There is the Freud as philosopher of mind whose writings are concerned with the nature of the mind, particularly, the nature of unconscious mental states (Wakefield, 2018), and there is also the Freud whose writings are mainly concerned with clinical matters, particularly matters having to do with treatment processes and goals. It is worth noting, in passing, that Freud believed that his theoretical formulations on the nature of the mind had the greater claim on posterity. He writes: “The future will probably attribute far greater importance to psychoanalysis as the science of the unconscious than as a therapeutic procedure” (Freud, 1927, p. 265).

Freud’s philosophical writings

It may seem odd to view Freud as a philosopher of mind given his frequently expressed disdain for philosophy as a discipline. It may seem odd to many readers to think of Freud as a philosopher of mind, particularly in view of a number of comments that express his negative attitude toward philosophy. For example, Freud (1916 [1915-1916]) writes that “We have nothing to expect from philosophy except that it will once again haughtily point out to us the intellectual inferiority of the object of our study” (pp. 97–98). On a more personal note, Freud (1925 [1924]) states that … .I have carefully avoided any contact with philosophy proper” (p. 59).

However, despite his frequent criticisms of philosophy, Freud (1985, p. 159) also writes rather dramatically in a letter to Fliess: “I see how, via the detour of medical practice, you are reaching your first ideal of understanding human beings as a physiologist, just as I most secretly nourish the hope of arriving, via these same paths, at my initial goal of philosophy. For that is what I wanted originally, when it was not yet at all clear to me to what end I was in the world.” It is also worth noting that during his university training, Freud enrolled in six of Brentano’s philosophy courses, the only non-medical courses he took (Merlan, 1949).

Of course, the status of Freud as philosopher of mind does not depend on his personal attitudes toward the value of philosophy, but rather on his theoretical formulations. It is the latter that have led a number of distinguished philosophers to view Freud as a philosopher of the first order. For example, Smith (2017) writes that “Freud should also be thought of as a philosopher and a deeply insightful and prescient one at that” (p. 1). He also writes that “it’s impossible to really understand Freudian theory without coming to grips with its philosophical undercurrents” (p. 1). He also cites the philosopher of science Clark Glymour (1991), who writes: “Freud’s writings contain a philosophy of mind, and indeed a philosophy of mind that addresses many of the issues about the mental that nowadays concern philosophers and ought to concern psychologists. Freud’s thinking about the issues in the philosophy of mind is better than much of what goes on in contemporary philosophy and is sometimes as good as the best … ” (p. 44). And as another example, Wakefield’s (2018) recent book is entirely devoted to Freud as philosopher of mind.

Although the twenty-three volumes of Freud’s writings contain very few references to the issue of free will, these few references make his position quite clear. For example, he refers to “all our suppressed acts of volition which nourish in us the illusion of Free Will” (Freud, 1919, p. 236). He also writes that “Many people, as is well known, contest the assumption of complete psychical determinism by appealing to a special feeling of conviction that there is a free will; this feeling of conviction exists; and it does not give way before a belief in determinism” (Freud, 1901, p. 253). As the above statements make clear, Freud assumed that an acceptance of determinism should dispel a belief in free will. However, one should keep in mind that Freud’s determinism is a psychic determinism, a topic I turn to next.

Psychic determinism

As noted above, compatibilists argue that free will and determinism are compatible when free will is understood as acting in accord with one’s intentions and wants, that is, doing what one wants to do rather than being compelled or coerced. On this view, it would appear that psychic determinism, an axiomatic assumption of Freudian theory, which states that our mental states and behaviors are determined by psychic factors such as desires and wishes, would be compatible with free will, understood as doing what one wants to do. Indeed, insofar as psychic determinism focuses on psychological determinants, it would seem to exemplify the idea of acting in accord with one’s intentions and desires.

However, matters get more complex in a number of ways. One kind of complexity lies in the question of how one understands the term “psychic determinism.” It is most frequently interpreted as stating that just as is the case in the physical world, there are no undetermined or random psychical events. This meaning of psychic determinism is evident in Arlow’s (1959) definition: “Essentially, psychic determinism implies the application to the phenomena of mental life of the same criteria for causality and relatedness that apply to the phenomena of nature in other sciences” (p. 205). Understood this way, psychic determinism essentially states that determinism applies to all events in the world, including psychological events. This conclusion, which is not especially linked to psychoanalytic theory, would be acceptable to any determinist.

However, the term “psychic” in psychic determinism can also be understood as an adjective modifying determinism, that is, as stating that psychological events are determined by psychic determinants. For example, in dream interpretation, the assumption is made that manifest content is determined by unconscious wishes. A similar assumption is made in the case of interpretations of free associations. And more generally, Freud (1900) writes that only a wish can set the mind in motion. The point here is that on this view, psychic determinism is intended to convey the idea that the determinants of psychological phenomena are psychical in nature, in particular, that they have to do with wishes and desires. Hence, from this perspective, psychic determinism is best understood as motivational determinism (Eagle, 2012). It is this meaning of psychic determinism that especially raises questions about the place of free will in psychoanalytic theory.

As we have seen, on the compatibilist position, free will is understood as the determination of one’s behaviors by one’s intentions, wishes, and desires. On this conceptualization, free will would seem to be entirely compatible with the above conception of psychic determinism. However, the psychic determinants Freudian theory privileges are unconscious wishes and desires, not the ordinary conscious desires and wishes compatibilists have in mind. The question that arises is whether the compatibilist argument holds with regard to unconscious, particularly dynamically unconscious, wishes and desires. The clear answer is that it does not.

Consider Freud’s accounts of the role of consciousness in psychological life in the following passages:

But what part is there left to be played in our scheme by consciousness, which was once so omnipotent and hid all else from view? Only that of a sense-organ for the perception of psychical qualities. (emphasis in the original; Freud, 1900, p. 615)

In psychoanalysis there is no choice but for us to assert that mental processes are in themselves unconscious, and to liken the perception of them by means of consciousness to the perception of the external world by means of sense-organs. (Freud, 1915b, p. 171)

As the above passages make clear, Freud’s position is that just as the mere perception of objects in the external world can have no causal effect on them, so similarly, the mere perception of mental states in one’s inner world cannot have any causal effect on them. Thus, as Wakefield (2018) correctly concludes, Freud’s perceptual model of consciousness “leaves it no direct causal function of its own” (p. 287).

The compatibilist argument holds only when it is conscious desires and wishes, taking the agentic form of “I intend,” “I wish,” or “I desire,” that determine our actions.⁵ Thus, on the compatibilist view, intentions, wishes, and desires have causal-motivational power. However, as Wakefield (2018) demonstrates, in his philosophical writings on the nature of the mind, Freud views consciousness as essentially epiphenomenal. It is mainly unconscious wishes and desires that are the psychic determinants of our behavior. The incongruence between this position and a compatibilist perspective is especially evident with regard to unconscious repressed wishes and desires, which are experienced as ego-alien, unbidden, and driven primarily by unconscious impulses – hardly freely chosen.

The location of causal powers primarily in unconscious, instinctual forces is seen in Freud’s (1923, p. 23) approving citation of Groddeck’s (2015) claim that “we are lived by our id” and his own statement that “power of the id expresses the true purpose of the individual organism’s life” (p. 148). Also consider Freud’s (1923) well known horse and rider metaphor: “ … in its relation to the id [the ego] is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces. … Often a rider, if he is not to be parted from his horse is obliged to guide it where it wants to go; so in the same way the ego is in the habit of transforming the id’s will into action as if it were its own.” (p. 25).

Wakefield (2018) lucidly unpacks Freud’s theoretical motivation for denying causal powers to consciousness. Freud (1940 [1938]) argued that if psychology (including psychoanalysis) is to become a science, it cannot not take conscious experience as its subject matter and cannot accord conscious mental states causal-motivational powers. As the following passage makes clear, the step that Freud took was to argue that the essence of the mental is unconscious and that consciousness is merely a quality that may or may not accompany mental states: “Whereas the psychology of consciousness never went beyond the broken sequences… . the other view, which held that the psychical is unconscious in itself, enabled psychology to take its place as a natural science as any other” (p. 158).

Freud takes an additional step. He argues not only that the essence of the psychical is unconscious, but more radically, that the psychical is inherently somatic. He writes: “It of course becomes plausible to lay the stress in psychology on these somatic processes, to see in them the true essence of what is psychical… . [Psychoanalysis] explains the supposedly somatic concomitant phenomena as being what is truly psychical … .” (pp. 157–158). In other words, Freud views the psychical as a particular form of the somatic that is yet to be determined. Thus, from this perspective, “psychical determinism” can be understood as a particular form of physical determinism. It is in this way that Freud avoids the specter of dualism and as he argues, allows psychology (including psychoanalysis) to take its place as a natural science.

To sum up Freud’s argument, if psychology, including psychoanalysis, is to achieve scientific status, like all other sciences, it needs to limit its explanatory causal accounts to physical processes. To do otherwise, specifically, to accord causal powers to consciousness, is to appeal to explanatory accounts different from all other sciences and therefore, to forgo the possibility of psychology achieving scientific status. Thus, unlike eliminative materialism, Freud does not deny consciousness, but limits its function to the perception of unconscious mental states. However, insofar as free will requires the assumption that consciousness has causal powers, it is not possible on Freud’s view of the nature of consciousness as limited to its perceptual function.⁶

Psychic determinism and free will in Freud’s clinical writings⁷

Freud identifies as the overriding goals of traditional psychoanalytic treatment are making the unconscious conscious (Freud, 1937, p. 238) and “where id was, there shall ego be” (Freud, 1933, p. 106). The rationale for the former goal lies in the assumption that becoming consciously aware of the determinants of one’s mental states will enhance one’s autonomy and freedom.⁸ In the same paper that he uses the horse and rider metaphor, Freud (1923) writes that “the goal of psychoanalysis is to give the patient’s ego freedom to decide one way or another” (as cited in Lewy, 1961, p. 263). He also writes: “As regards internal events, in relation to the id, [the ego] performs that task by gaining control over the demands of the instincts, by deciding whether they shall be allowed to obtain satisfaction, by postponing that satisfaction to times and circumstances favorable in the external world or by suppressing their excitations completely” (p. 3). Of course, if, as Freud maintains in his philosophical writings, that free will is an illusion, it is not clear how the ego can have any freedom to decide, control, or delay anything. According the conscious ego the ability to postpone, delay, control, and decide clearly contradicts the view of consciousness as epiphenomenal, with no causal powers. But without the accordance of` some causal powers to consciousness it is not clear how one could justify psychoanalytic treatment when that project is, in large part, based on the assumption that making the unconscious conscious will enhance the patient’s freedom to delay, control, and choose.⁹

A basic assumption of the clinical psychoanalytic project, one supported by clinical observation and everyday experience, is that whereas feeling compelled and driven by external and internal forces is associated with a difficult and troubling life, feeling free to decide and do what one wants to do is associated with a more gratifying and meaningful life. That is, the subjective feeling of free will is associated with a greater degree of life satisfaction and mental health. In accord with that fact, the goal of psychoanalytic treatment (and other therapeutic approaches) is to enhance one’s feeling of greater freedom. However, as we have seen, Freud and many others and philosophers deem the feeling of free will an illusion. If they are correct, one would have to conclude that a central psychoanalytic treatment outcome goals of giving the ego greater freedom and functioning in accord with the reality principle largely consist in strengthening an illusion (presumably in the service of leading a happier life). However, that view is entirely antithetical to the Freudian project of cure through self-knowledge and learning truths about oneself.

A third Freud: Consciousness and motility

There is a third Freud, whose theoretical and metapsychological writings, like his clinical writings, also contradict the philosophical claim that free will is an illusion. I am referring to Freud’s (1940[1938]) theoretical account of the relation between consciousness and action or what he refers to as “motility.” Freud did not write much about the relation between consciousness and motility and there is little in the psychoanalytic literature on that topic. However, what he did write is quite important in the present context. This third Freud assigns the causal powers of control over motility to the conscious ego and in doing so, contradicts the claim of the philosophical Freud that consciousness is an epiphenomenon. The passages below serve as examples of Freud’s view on the relation between consciousness and motility:

It is to this ego that consciousness is attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility …  (Freud, 1923, p. 17)

The functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that normally control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. (Freud, 1923, p. 25)

Freud (1923) also writes, almost in passing, that the ego develops from perceiving instincts to controlling them, from obeying the instincts to inhibiting them” (Freud, 1923, pp. 55–56; my emphasis). If this statement is intended to include a conscious ego, along with the above passages, it contradicts his view in his philosophical writings that the role of consciousness is limited to its perceptual function (as a sense-organ). As seen in this statement and in the above passages, consciousness is now viewed as having causal powers of control over decisions as to whether action will or will not be pursued. This view is certainly compatible with free will.

Free will as ego control over id impulses

As seen above, when Freud does grant the ego causal powers, the emphasis is on control over instinctual impulses.¹⁰ This emphasis on control is based on Freud’s assumption that because they constitute a danger to the ego, id impulses need to be vigilantly controlled. However, Freud formulates two views regarding the origin and nature of the danger constituted by id impulses. One view is that id impulses represent a potential danger of overwhelming the ego with excessive excitation. Freud (1940[1938]) writes that “an excessive strength of instinct can damage the ego in a similar way to an excessive ‘stimulus’ in the external world” (p. 87). And A. Freud (1936) refers to “the ego’s primary antagonism to instinct … its dread of the strength of instincts [manifested by] the innate hostility between the ego and the instincts, which is indiscriminate, primary, and primitive” (p. 172).¹¹ In ordinary language not tied to the constancy principle, both Freud and A. Freud are stating that the danger from the id is that instinctual impulses that are inimical to both the individual and society will erupt into consciousness and gain access to motility. On this view, which is the dominant id-ego model, willings are expressed in the forms of repudiation and ego control, which requires “the constant expenditure of force” (Freud, 1915a, p. 151).

However, Freud offers another reason for the experience of id impulses as a danger to the ego. According to this second view, which focuses more on psychic reality than metapsychology, id impulses are experienced as a threat to the ego due to their association to the early “danger situations” (S. Freud, 1926). On this second view, id impulses are not an inherent threat to the ego but are experienced as dangerous due to their association with parental disapproval, prohibitions, and threats, including threats of loss of the object, loss of the object’s love, castration, and because of internalization, the additional threat of superego condemnation.

A consequence of this association is the repression of these impulses. Once repressed, another factor comes into play that also contributes to the experience of id impulses as dangerous. S. Freud (1915b) writes that “the instinct-representation… . develops in a more unchecked and luxurious fashion. It ramifies, like a fungus, so to speak, in the dark and takes on extreme forms of expression” (p. 149), including the experience of an illusory (my emphasis) strength of instinct” (p. 149). In other words, repressed id impulses are not inherently dangerous, but are experienced as dangerous due to two factors: one, their association with parental threats; and two, their unchecked and illusory danger due to being repressed itself. On this view, because they are not intrinsically dangerous, there is no realistic need to exercise constant vigilance and ego control over id impulses. One can direct one’s willings to pursue one’s wants and desires rather than to control their expression.

Ego psychology: Free will and the relative autonomy and intactness of the ego

The above passages reveal an increasing emphasis on the ego in psychoanalytic theory. This direction continues in the writings of Hartmann and Rapaport on ego psychology. I turn now to the question of how free will is viewed in the context of this development. The trajectory of classical psychoanalytic theory can be characterized as a relative shift from an id psychology, that is, from a relative emphasis on instinctual drives, to an increasing recognition of the importance of ego processes in psychological functioning as reflected in the emergence of ego psychology. This is the case regarding both the theoretical and clinical psychoanalytic literature. This increased emphasis on the ego is especially relevant to the question of the place of free will in psychoanalytic theory.

According to the ego psychology of Hartmann (1939), whereas id determined mental states and behaviors are experienced as peremptory and are characterized by the push for immediate discharge, mental states and behaviors largely determined by the ego are characterized by capacity for delay of gratification and planning and are more in accord with the reality principle. In Hartmann’s (1939) words, an intact and well-functioning ego enjoys relative autonomy from the demands and pressures of instinctual drives (id). Thus, from the perspective of ego psychology, free will is essentially understood in terms of the relative autonomy of the ego from the peremptory demands of the id. As Lewy (1961) puts it, from a experiential point of view, freedom of choice is “a subjective feeling which is experienced by persons whose ego function is not impaired by inhibiting and restricting unconscious conflicts of an neurotic nature” (p. 264).

The contrast between the id versus the ego dominated mental states and behaviors is often described in the psychoanalytic literature as ego-alien versus ego-syntonic experiences, the full meaning of which becomes evident when the original German terms Das Es and Das Ich are more literally translated as “the It” and “the I.” In this literal translation, id dominated mental states and behaviors are experienced as compelled by not me “it” forces, as if one were inhabited by a foreign body, whereas ego dominated mental states and behaviors are experienced as I states, that is, as reflecting my desires and intentions.

According to psychoanalytic theory, mental states and behaviors are multidetermined and serve multiple functions (Waelder, 2007). Hence, as odd as it may seem, one could conclude that free will versus coercion is not all-or-none, but a matter of degree. More specifically, from this perspective, the degree to which mental states and behaviors are free is a function of the degree to which they are determined by id or ego forces. Indeed, from the perspective of Freudian theory and ego psychology, psychosis is understood in terms of the ego being overwhelmed by id forces, as reflected in loss of ego control over id impulses, resulting in impairment of reality testing and the dominance of primary process thinking.

Free will and relinquishment of willing: Regression in the service of the ego

Freud and ego psychologists place a great deal of emphasis on ego control over id impulses and the pathological consequences of loss of ego control. However, intactness of ego functioning is reflected not only in the capacity for control, but also in the individual’s ability to relinquish control. In other words, it is ego flexibility that is a marker of ego intactness. Thus, there is an important distinction between loss of ego control and relinquishment of ego control. Whereas the former is associated with impairments in ego functioning, the latter reflects ego flexibility, which includes the capacity to will to not will. In short, from an ego psychology perspective, free will in the form of ego flexibility entails the capacity to not only control one’s impulses, but also the capacity to relinquish control.

Consider the overriding psychoanalytic goal of where id was, there shall ego be. It has been largely understood in the psychoanalytic literature as where peremptory instinctual impulses were, there shall greater ego control be (see Apfelbaum, 1966, for a critique of this view). However, when that adage is translated more literally from the original German Wo es war sol Ich warden, it becomes “where impersonal it was, there shall I become.” Therefore, another way of capturing its literal meaning that is more evident in the original German is: ‘where ego-alien “It ‘was, there shall ego-syntonic’ I” be.’ In its fuller expression it would read: Where id impulses, experienced as an ego-alien foreign body were, there shall now be the experience of “I desire” or “I wish,” that is, as an integral aspect of oneself. To the extent that such integration takes place, ego control is less necessary. Indeed, to the extent that a wish and or desire has become an integral part an ego-syntonic aspect of oneself, to that extent can one relinquish the need for ego control.

The idea that ego flexibility is expressed in relinquishment of control, that is, in willing not to will, is conveyed by Kris (1952) concept of “regression in the service of the ego.” Employing the term “regression” to account for this phenomenon is unfortunate and misleading. There is nothing inherently regressive in letting go and yielding control. There are important contexts in which one’s goal is best achieved by not willing it. For example, the goal of falling asleep is undermined by willing it directly. Whatever willing is involved needs to be directed to actions that place one in a situation (e. g., quiet, dim lights, comfortable bed, etc.) that facilitates sleep (see Farber, 2000; see also Ghent’s 1990 discussion of the importance of being able to surrender).

Falling asleep is but just one instance in which willing is antithetical to achievement of one’s goal, and in which one’s goal is more likely to be achieved not when it is directly pursued, but when it is a byproduct of other activities that are intrinsically motivated. Many years ago, I published a paper titled “Interests as object relations” (Eagle, 1981). A central thesis of that paper is that the development of genuine and passionate interests serves ego-sustaining functions similar to those served by object relations. However, for interests to serve that function, they need to be pursued not to sustain the ego, but for their own intrinsic purposes. That is what makes an interest a genuine interest. In short, the ego sustenance provided by genuine interests is not directly pursued but is a byproduct of pursuing interests for their own sake.

That some vital goals are best achieved as byproducts of other activities is perhaps most clearly seen in discussions of how to achieve happiness. One cannot directly will happiness just as one cannot directly will falling asleep or directly will the development of passionate interests. The likelihood of happiness and well-being is not enhanced by pursuing them directly, but rather by engaging in activities the byproducts of which include well-being and happiness. The paradox here is that although pursuing certain activities (e.g., genuine interests, generosity, development of musical or athletic skills) may make one happy, they are nevertheless not primarily means to that end. Rather, they are pursued not primarily as the means to achieve well-being or happiness or meaning in life, but as ends in their own right.

Free association

Relinquishment of willing in the form of yielding or at least lessening control over the flow of one’s thoughts is also required in the context of free association – a mainstay and “sacred cow” (Hoffman, 2006, p. 42) of the clinical psychoanalytic situation. In that sense, it can be understood as an expression of regression in the service of the ego. That is, it entails willing to stop willing and allow whatever comes to mind to enter consciousness. The basic rationale for the use of free association in Freudian theory lies in the assumption that diminution in ego control and censorship will make it more likely that unconscious instinctual drive derivatives will emerge in consciousness and will thereby be subject to interpretation. However, as we know, free association is hardly free. Hoffman (2006) refers to free association as a “myth” in the sense that ego control is never fully relinquished; and in the sense that in the context in which free association takes place, it is inevitably influenced by the demand characteristics and goals relevant to the therapeutic situation. (Macalpine, 1950). The nature and content of free associations are likely to vary with different contexts. For example, free associations in the context of, say, a party game are likely to be quite different than in the context of the therapeutic situation. In the latter situation they are also likely to vary with the manner, attitudes, and cues of the analyst.¹² Finally, free associations are verbally communicated to the therapist, a circumstance that is likely to entail defensive filtering and other constraints. Of course, the effect of context on free association can be empirically investigated.¹³

Free will and moral imperatives

The exercise of free will is expressed not only in acting in accord with one’s wishes and desires, but also in accord with one’s moral values – a particular kind of doing what one wants to do. In the context of Freudian theory, acting in accord with one’s moral values is often understood as action compelled by a harsh superego, similar in structure to action compelled by id impulses. That is, just as id impulses can be experienced as an ego-alien foreign body, to the extent that moral imperatives are closely linked to a primitive and harsh superego, they can also be understood, in Fairbairn’s (1952) words, as an internalized object or an archaic introject that has not been fully assimilated into one’s sense of who one is. Although the concept of superego includes the ego ideal, which may include moral values, Freudian theory does not make a clear distinction between a primitive and harsh superego made up of internalized early parental prohibitions and a mature set of assimilated moral values that influence one’s choices and actions.

In discussing psychical determinism, S. Freud (1901) writes that “in great and important decisions of the will,” the feeling we have is not one of freedom but is rather “one of psychical compulsion” (p. 253). He cites as an example of such psychic compulsion” Martin Luther’s declaration at the Diet of Worms “Here I stand; I can do no other” (as cited in Freud, 2001, p. 253). I think Freud is mistaken in viewing Luther’s declaration as an instance of psychic compulsion rather than as an expression of free will, in the sense of acting in accord with his deepest beliefs and values. That is, in an important sense, Luther is acting in accord with what he wants to do, when what he wants to do springs from values that are deeply embedded and are an essential aspect of who he is.

Neuroscience and free will

Some deniers of free will argue that it is neural processes that determine our behavior, not intentions and desires. This argument has taken various forms: the position that because neural processes determine our behavior, there is no such thing as free will; the eliminative argument that because mental states are illusions, they cannot have causal powers (e.g., Chater, 2018); the reductionist argument that all our joys and sorrows are nothing but assemblies of neural cells (Crick, 1994). In the last number of years, the claim has been made that these arguments are supported by neuroscientific findings.

In 1983, Libet and his colleagues published a very influential journal article that has been frequently cited in arguments against the existence of free will. The participants in the Libet et al. (1983) experiment were instructed to flex their right wrist or the fingers of their right hand at any time they decided to do so. EEG readings from the supplementary motor area (SMA) were recorded during the experiment. A slow negative shift in electrical potential referred to as the Readiness Potential (RP) was detected 550 milliseconds before the participants’ hand or finger movements. Participants were also instructed to indicate (on a clock) the exact time they intended to make the physical movement. One of the main findings was that the participants’ awareness of their intention to make a movement followed the detection of RP by 350 milliseconds.¹⁴ The study was hailed as “one of the most philosophically challenging papers in modern scientific psychology,” raising fundamental questions regarding the viability of the concept of free will (Banks, 2006, p. 235). The findings of the Libet et al. (1983) study were interpreted as “deeply undermin[ing] the concept of conscious free will: preparatory brain activity causes our conscious intentions … if the moment of conscious intention followed the onset of the readiness potential, then conscious free will cannot exist” (Haggard & Libet, 2001, pp. 47–48).

Are these conclusions warranted by the findings? The critical finding in the Libet et al. (1983) study is that the neural RP process preceded the participant’s intention as well as the actual physical movement. Let us take an overall look at the experiment. Keep in mind that the participants were instructed to move their hand or finger whenever they wanted to. Thus, the instructions generate an intention or readiness to move one’s hand or finger at some point. As Ach (1951) wrote a long time ago, experimental instructions activate a “determining tendency” or what later came to be called an Einstellung or “set” (e.g., Luchins, 1942). From this perspective, the RP that preceded the participant’s conscious intention to move his or her hand or finger can be understood as a neural correlate of Ach’s determining tendency.

What should also be kept in mind is that the entire experiment is made possible by the participants’ consent, that is, their intentional agreement not only to participate in the experiment, but also to follow the experimenter’s instructions to report the time at which they formed an intention. Let us say that some milliseconds before the participants agreed to participate in the experiment, one could detect a neural event associated with decision processes, analogous to the RP in relation to physical movement. Would one then say that the participants’ intentional agreement, including the willingness to sign a consent form, to participate in the experimental and carry out the experimental instructions, was not free because the agreement was preceded by certain neural processes?

The basic finding of which so much is made is that neural activation in the form of RP preceded the participants’ intention to make a movement. It is this finding that has led to the conclusion that free will does not exist. More specifically, the argument is that insofar as neural activity caused the intention, the intention was not free – hence, no free will. Note that this argument rests on the claim that causal determinism and free will are incompatible. On this argument, free will would only possible if the participants’ intention had no causal history. But this, of course, is a requirement that is impossible to meet in which all events have a causal history. We know that in the Libet et al. (1983) and other similar experiments the participants’ intention to carry out a particular action is preceded by experimental instructions. It would be quite accurate to say that these instructions played a causal role in the participants’ intentions to carry out the instructed action. Would that, therefore, mean that the participants’ action was not free because they were determined by the experimental instructions? The absurdity of that argument is made apparent when one contrasts this situation with one in which a gun to the participants’ head replaces the experimental instructions. One might add that in both cases, one might expect to find RP that precedes the movement. In short, the issue is not that the participant’s movement is determined by antecedent events, but rather the nature and context of these antecedent events.

One is confronted with the odd situation in which to carry out an experiment presumably demonstrating that free will is not possible, one needs to assume that the participants are free to participate or not participate in the experiment, and that their informed consent is freely given. It seems to me that dilemmas of this sort arise when one’s experiments entail contrived situations that generate serious problems having to do with ecological validity.

Possessing far more ecological validity than the Libet et al. (1983) study is work on brain-machine interface. In one study with a paralyzed individual, his imaginal intention to write specific words by hand is translated into text on a computer screen, thus enabling the “writing” of words through intention (Willett et al., 2021). In another study with a paralyzed individual, in whom electrodes were implanted in his spinal cord and sensorimotor cortex, motor intention to walk led to walking movements. (The technology in both cases is far more complex than I have indicated.) The point I want to call attention to is that in both cases the individual’s conscious intention played a causal role in generating specifically intended actions. Without the individuals’ intention – to imagine writing specific words in one case, and intention to walk in the other case – the project would not get off the ground. Of course, neural processes underlay the individuals’ intentions – we are not disembodied creatures. However, it is not clear whether the question of whether the neural processes preceded or were simultaneous with the intention is of great philosophical importance.

Free will in post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories

I commented at the beginning of the paper that whereas the issue of free will is a central one in Freudian theory and ego psychology, it does not arise as a prominent issue in post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories. Let me pursue that further. I think the main reason for this difference is that whereas Freudian theory is a psychology of wishes, desires, and intentions, post-Freudian theories tend to be a psychology of needs.¹⁵ Whereas the Freudian theory of the workings of the mind and of development, including the development of psychopathology, is embedded in a psychology of conflictual instinctual wishes, for the most part, post-Freudian theories focus on early traumatic parental failures to meet the individual’s needs. Insofar as the natural language for wishes is that of willing, as a psychology of wishes, Freudian theory is mainly concerned with the clash between willings linked to the pleasure principle versus willings linked to the reality principle. Contrastingly, when psychopathology is largely understood in terms of the consequences of environmental failures to meet vital needs, issues of willing and desires are less central. From this perspective, the patient is more a victim than an active agent.

For a theoretical perspective that focuses on wishes and desires, particularly conflicting ones, questions regarding willing and choosing become central: Does one gratify wishes or repudiate them? Does one delay their gratification or seek immediate gratification? Does one become aware of one’s wishes or does one repress them? These questions, all of which entail willing and choosing, are less pressing in the context of a perspective that focuses on traumatic deprivation of vital needs. In short, whereas a wish is something one may choose to pursue or not pursue, response to need is far less a matter of choice. Generally speaking, one can repudiate a wish without dire circumstances. However, one cannot do so about a vital need. A vital need must be met; to fail to do so may threaten intactness and survival.

There are other important differences between a psychology that focuses on wishes and one whose major concern is needs. From the perspective of Freudian theory and ego psychology, an individual dominated by id impulses can be described in terms of feeling compelled by ego-alien forces, that is, as someone whose will is compromised as manifested in a failure to exert adequate control over id impulses; or as someone who is excessively willful, as manifested in his or her pursuit of infantile pleasures that are inimical to herself or himself as well as to the requirements and demands of society.¹⁶ Given the loose connection between the instinctual aim and the object, issues having to do with choice of object are prominent in Freudian theory. This is far less the case about needs, where there is a fixed connection between the need and the object. For example, as a biological need, hunger, which was a quintessential instance of a need for Freud, is assuaged only by edible objects, and not by other objects onto which the hunger need is displaced. Although perhaps less evident, this is also the case about psychological needs for love and acceptance.

These different theoretical perspectives are accompanied by different therapeutic approaches and aims. Whereas an overriding therapeutic goal of Freudian theory is enhancement of the ego’s freedom to choose, that is, enhancement of agency through the acquisition of self-knowledge and increased awareness, the therapeutic goals of post-Freudian approaches include enhancement of self-cohesiveness, the “repair” of defects, and the resumption of developmental growth through the corrective experiences of empathic understanding and the provision of a holding environment.

Consider as an example of an emphasis on need rather than wish Kohut’s (1984) writings on the nature of psychopathology, where the focus is on the role of early traumatic failure of provision of empathic mirroring; as well as his writings on treatment, where the focus is on therapeutic provision of empathic understanding, which through a process that Kohut (1984) refers to as “transmuting internalization,” may lead to accretions in psychic structure. There is little or no discussion in these formulations of the nature of psychopathology and of treatment of such matters as enhancing the patient’s freedom of choice through making the unconscious conscious and learning truths about oneself. Rather, the patient is largely a recipient of therapeutic inputs. In short, the issue of will, including free will, simply does not arise.

As another example, at the core of Winnicott’s writings on psychoanalytic treatment is the basic idea that a holding environment enhances maturation and developmental growth. Similar to the structure of Kohut’s formulations, psychopathology is understood in terms of the consequences of early environmental failures and deficiencies; and correspondingly, treatment is understood in terms of corrections and compensations for these failures and deficiencies through the provision of new experiences and a holding environment. Again, the issue of free will does not arise. A similar pattern is seen in Fairbairn’s (1952) object relations theory. Fairbairn (1952) rejects what he refers to as an “impulse psychology” and replaces it with a theory in which splits in the ego are attributed to deprivation and frustration of the infant’s fundamental needs, and in which a major component of treatment is the experience of the therapist as a “good” object.

This overall conception of psychopathology in terms of unmet needs and of treatment in terms of compensation for these deprivations is also seen in other post-Freudian theoretical approaches, including those of Guntrip, Balint, and Suttie. Guntrip (1968) locates the core of psychopathology in “infantile fear” and “ego weakness” (p. 10) due to environmental failure; and views the essence of psychotherapy in terms of “a controlled constructive regression” … necessary to make regrowth possible” (p. 284). Guntrip notes that this requires “a good therapeutic relationship” (p. 284). He describes a patient who asks her therapist “Can I be sure you genuinely care for the baby in me?” (p. 287), and adds “If I could feel loved, I’m sure I’d grow” (p. 287). Guntrip writes that this last statement “makes it clear that what the patient is fundamentally seeking is relationship of a paternal order which is sufficiently reliable and understanding to nullify the results of early environmental failure” (p. 287). This is a clear example of the conception of psychopathology in terms of deprivation of fundamental needs and a corollary conception of treatment in terms of meeting unmet needs, thereby compensating for environmental failure.

Suttie’s (1935) main emphasis in treatment was on the role of forgiveness and love. Suttie (1935), who was strongly influenced by Ferenczi, located the source of psychopathology in loss of the infant’s security, and wrote that “the physician’s love heals the patient” (p. 178).¹⁷ A similar perspective is seen in Balint’s (1952) conception of “basic fault” and its treatment. The point here is that there is not much to say about wishing and willing in a theoretical perspective in which the focus is on unmet needs, the defects they generate, and the “repair” of these defects in treatment through love in the form of the meeting of unmet needs.

Summary

In coming to the end of this paper, I want to summarize some basic themes and conclusions:

1. In contrast to an incompatibilist position, from a compatibilist position, the opposite of free will is not determinism, but coercion. Hence, from the latter perspective, there is no inherent contradiction between free will and determinism. Free will is understood not as non-determined or uncaused, but as actions caused or motivated by one’s conscious desires and wishes – that is, doing what one wants to do rather than being coerced by external or internal forces.

2. This conception of free will is upended when one introduces the idea of unconscious wishes and desires, particularly repressed wishes and desires of which one is unaware, over which one may have little control, and which are experienced as compelled by ego-alien, not me impulses.

3. In his philosophical and metapsychological writings, Freud maintained that free will is an illusion based on the following considerations: One, he took an incompatibilist position in his view that determinism ruled out the possibility of free will. Two, he maintained that we are lived by our id and the true purpose of life lies in the id. And three, he also took the position that conscious aims and goals are epiphenomenal.

4. The above positions are contradicted in Freud’s clinical writings in which he states that an overriding goal of psychoanalytic treatment is to enhance the ego’s freedom to choose.

5. The trajectory of Freud’s writings reveals an increasing emphasis on the ego, which becomes more fully elaborated in the writings of Hartmann and Rapaport, who propose the idea that an intact and well- functioning ego is relative autonomous from id demands.

6. From an ego psychology perspective, free will is implicitly conceptualized in terms of the degree to which behavior is ego or id dominated. This leads to the perhaps odd idea that free will can be understood as a matter of degree.

7. Quite apart from conceptual and philosophical issues, from a subjective perspective, there is an important distinction between feeling that one’s actions flow from one’s aims and intentions versus feeling that they are coerced and compelled.

8. The concept of “regression in the service of the ego suggests that free will is expressed not only in the active pursuit of goals, but also in one’s ability to relinquish active pursuit, that is, to will not to will.

9. The issue of free will is not a prominent one in post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories. This is at least partly due to their conception of psychopathology less in terms of conflictual wishes and more in terms of traumatic environmental failures to meet one’s needs; and correspondingly, their conception of treatment less in terms of enhanced freedom to choose, and more in terms of providing therapeutic conditions that serve to meet unmet needs and thereby enhance developmental growth.

10. I think that a revised ego psychology perspective is potentially capable of integrating, on the one hand, the emphasis on willing that is represented in both current ego psychology and Freud’s more clinical writings, and on the other hand, the emphasis on traumatic failures and resulting defects in post-Freudian theories. Although I cannot spell out that project here (however, see Eagle, 1984, 2022), I think, to a certain extent, it has already begun. It needs to be made explicit and organized. I think such integration lies in the recognition that trauma and resulting defects are not only a matter of unmet needs but are also likely to entail inner conflictual wishes and problems in willing and agency.

Some concluding comments

As we have seen, although in his philosophical writings, Freud views consciousness as epiphenomenal, he cannot stick to that position in his clinical writings. And that is so because when one deals with living beings, it becomes clear that the capacity for consciousness and conscious subjective experience is at the core of being alive (Eagle, 2024). Further, a core aspect consciousness is a sense of agency, that is, the experience that one’s conscious intentions have causal powers, that, to an important extent, one can do what one wants and intends to do. Without that, how we differ from highly sophisticated robots is not entirely clear. It is not unimportant that an overriding goal of psychoanalysis is to replace an endless pattern of compulsive repetition with an enhancement of the ego’s freedom to choose. This has always seemed to me to be at the center of psychoanalysis’ liberatory project.

As we have also seen, Freud believed that according causal powers to consciousness is incompatible with a physicalist scientific world view. Freud’s position was based on a particular conception of the nature of the “natural” or physical world, one that harked back to his adherence to the Brucke oath to eschew all explanations that go beyond appeal to physical-chemical forces.¹⁸ However, as Chomsky (1986) writes, “We can be fairly sure that there will be a physical explanation for the phenomena in question [i.e., human mentality], if they can be explained at all, for an uninteresting terminological reason, namely, that the concept of ‘physical explanation’ will no doubt be extended to incorporate whatever is discovered in this domain, exactly as it was extended to accommodate gravitational and electromagnetic force, massless particles and numerous other entities and processes that would have offended the common sense of earlier generations” (p. 84). And as Russell (1948) noted quite some time ago, the physical world is only known as regards certain abstract features of its space-time structure. What we know about physical events we know through experience. In short, we need to be humble regarding our knowledge of the nature of the physical and what it will be able and not able to accommodate and account for.

Finally, I want to note that although in the present context, the focus has been on coercion from internal forces as barriers to free will, in a broader context, threats to free will from external coercion and freedom from such threats are at the center of any serious discussion of political philosophy and of forms of government that enhance the human spirit.

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Morris N. Eagle

Morris N. Eagle, Ph.D., ABPP, is Distinguished Faculty Member, New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP); Professor Emeritus, Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University; Professor Emeritus, York University, Toronto, Canada, and Chair of Psychology Department, York University; Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University. He is also Director of Clinical Training, York University; Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology; Distinguished Educator-in-Residence, California Lutheran University; and Former President of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association.

Notes

¹ My discussion of philosophical perspectives will be limited to Incompatibilism and Compatibilism. There are other philosophical positions on free will, such as Supervention and Libertarianism that I do not discuss. An adequate discussion of different philosophical positions on free will would require a separate paper. For a lucid discussion of these positions in the context of considering legal and moral implications, see Moore (2020).

² Possible exceptions include Existential Psychoanalysis associated with the writings of, among others, Binswanger, Sartre, & Boss, as well as the writings of Rank for whom will is at the center of his approach to psychoanalysis. However, an adequate discussion of these perspectives would require a separate paper.

³ As Moore (2020) notes, the distinction between nothing but reductionism and eliminative materialism is a distinction without a difference insofar as the former reduces mental states to something very different, namely, neural processes.

⁴ Basing the possibility of free will on the indeterminism of quantum phenomena is a deficient argument on a number of grounds. The indeterminism of quantum phenomena at the atomic level has little to do with phenomena at the macro level. Also, as noted, it is far from clear how indeterminism or randomness would make free will possible.

⁵ See Coburn (2023) who writes: “I would argue that the antecedents to the exercise of free choice need not be conscious at all” (p. 4). Undoubtedly, there are many antecedents of the exercise of free will that are unconscious. We certainly cannot be consciously aware of all the antecedents of any of our behavior, including our choices. However, in a footnote, Coburn also writes that as Freud has taught us, the unconscious has much “motivational power” and “in some respects has a ‘mind of its own,’ and thus might be exercising a form of free will as best as it can, on its own terms.” However, motivational power and exercise of free will are not equivalent. Also, it is not clear what it means to engage in a form of willing something (i.e., unconscious willing) in which one does not know what one is willing. Of course, this issue needs further discussion.

⁶ In his early, including pre-psychoanalytic, writings, most of it prior to his formulation of drive theory and the id-ego model, Freud referred in a number of contexts to “will” and counter-will’ (as well as “antithetic ideas”). In one context, S. Freud (1892–1893) cites the case of a mother who consciously intends to feed her child, but behaves as if “it was her will not to feed the child… .” (p. 122–123). He describes this behavior as an expression of a “perversion” of will (emphasis in the original). He also refers to other examples, including “blasphemes” and “unbridled erotic language” which are counter to the individual’s will, which S. Freud (1892–1893) defines as a conscious intention. In his last reference to the concepts of will and counter-will, S. Freud (1919) essentially anticipates the 1923 The Ego and the Id. However, the language of will and counter-will is replaced by the metapsychological-structural language of ego control and instinctual impulses.

⁷ In some respects, this conception of freedom is similar to Spinoza’s, who distinguishes between free will, which he denies, and freedom, which, according to him, consists in knowledge of the causes of one’s behavior as well as acting rather than being acted upon.

⁸ Skepticism regarding the causal power of self-knowledge is fed by the frequent clinical observation that enhanced self-knowledge via interpretation may not lead to change.

⁹ S. Freud’s (1950 [1895]) conception of the ego as fundamentally an inhibiting and controlling structure is already present in the Project (see Eagle, 2022).

¹⁰ However, S. Freud (1926) also writes that “there is no natural opposition between the ego and the id; they belong together and under healthy conditions cannot in practice be distinguished from each other” (p. 201). This hardly suggests an inherent or “primary antagonism” between the id and the ego, but rather an antagonism that is the product of psychopathology. The contradiction between these two views is not much discussed in the psychoanalytic literature.

¹¹ This is one of the few passages one can find in Freud’s writings in which, in effect, he proposes that id impulses are repressed not because they are inherently dangerous but are experienced as dangerous due to being repressed.

¹² Gill and Hoffman (1982) reported that an examination of verbatim typescripts of psychoanalytic psychotherapy sessions showed that the analyst’s interest in sexual themes enhanced “the possibility of a subtle imposition of this preference on the patient” (pp. 77–78). A content analysis of tape-recorded psychotherapy sessions of a patient who early on felt that his problem were sexual in nature was treated by Carl Rogers, presumably a non-directive therapist, who believed that his patient’s problems mainly had to do with issues of self and maturity. After a period, whereas the patient’s references to sexual themes dropped significantly, the references to independence increased markedly (Murray, 1956). Truax (1966) Also analyzed psychotherapy sessions of one of Carl Rogers’ patients. He found that Rogers’ expression of empathy and unconditional positive regard, as well as “uh huhs” and “Mmmms” varied with the patient’s themes.

¹³ There is a relatively new area of research on spontaneous thought and mind-wandering, phenomena that bear a family resemblance to free association. One of the findings in this area is that when individuals allow their mind to spontaneously wander, a neural network referred to as the Default Mode Network (DMN) is activated (Callard & Margulies, 2014). When one engages in deliberative thinking, the Executive Control Network (ECN) is activated (Christoff et al., 2009). Importantly, the ECN is more active in free association than in mind-wandering (Raichle et al., 2001). These differences are not surprising given their different contexts. Unlike, mind-wandering, the context for free association includes background goals and expectations.

¹⁴ Other studies have replicated the overall pattern of Libet et al. (1983) findings.

¹⁵ In 1915, a book by E.B. Holt (1915) titled The Freudian Wish and its Place in Ethics was published. According to Holt, Freudian theory made clear that the unit of the mind is not sensation, as the psychology of conscious experience would have it, but rather the wish, which he defined as “a course of action which some mechanism of the body is set to carry out, whether it actually does so or does not” (pp. 3–4). Essentially, like Freud, Holt attempted to find a place for intention and purpose, not in consciousness, but in the body itself. It is interesting to note that Tolman, the father of “purposive behaviorism,” was a student of Holt.

¹⁶ Although Freudian theory is a psychology of wishes rather than needs, he did try to address the latter through his interchangeable concepts of ego-instincts and self-preservative instincts, which he contrasts with sexual instincts. Freud (1917, 1916–1917) writes that hunger and thirst are “the most elementary self-preservative instincts” (p. 412). However, throughout the course of his writings, Freud presents ever-changing and confusing definitions and conceptions of self-preservative instincts, including at one point equating ego-instincts with the death instincts and at another point, essentially eliminating the differences between them (Freud, 1920, p. 52).

¹⁷ It is interesting to note that Guntrip was trained as a Minister, that Fairbairn’s early interest was in theology, and that Suttieexplicitly locates his conception of treatment in the Christian idea of redemption through love. (See Hoffman for a fascinating account of the role of religion in the formulations of these three early object relation theorists.) It is also worth noting that recently a number of analysts, including some who view themselves as “modern Freudians,” have emphasized the analyst’s love for his or her patient as a central curative factor in treatment (see, for example, Bach, 2006; Freidman, 2005; Steingart, 1977).

¹⁸ This oath was directed against vitalist explanations. The Brucke manifesto, written by Dubois-Raymond and Brucke, and latersigned by Helmholtz, was as follows: “We pledge a solemn oath to put into effect this truth: No other forces than the commonphysical-chemical ones are active within the organism” (as cited in Jones, 1953, p. 40). One should note that for a period of sixyears, Brucke was Freud’s advisor.