This book investigates the role of free will and responsibility in mental well-being, psychotherapy, and personality theory. Mounting evidence suggests that a belief in free will is associated with positive outcomes for human mental health and behaviours, yet little is known about why the theme of freedom has such a significant impact. This book explores why and how different freedom-related concepts affect well-being and psychotherapy, such as autonomy, free will, negative freedom, the experience of freedom, blame, and responsibility. Through the lens of the works of Freud and Rogers, the book tackles both theoretical and practical questions: How can different senses of responsibility affect mental health? What are the implications of a lack of free will for therapy? If we have no free will, can therapists continue to encourage their clients to take responsibility for their actions? Is it possible to reconcile different counselling schools concerning free will? With an illuminating dive into both philosophy and psychotherapy, Beliavsky carefully analyses the implications of the philosophical free will debate on therapy and shows that some senses of freedom and responsibility are crucial to psychotherapy and mental health.

The popular psychoanalyst examines the continuing tension in our lives between the possibilities that freedom offers and the various limitations imposed upon us by our particular fate or destiny. "May is an existential analyst who deservedly enjoys a reputation among both general and critical readers as an accessible and insightful social and psychological theorist. . . . Freedom's characteristics, fruits, and problems; destiny's reality; death; and therapy's place in the confrontation between freedom and destiny are examined. . . . Poets, social critics, artists, and other thinkers are invoked appropriately to support May's theory of freedom and destiny's interdependence."—Library Journal "Especially instructive, even stunning, is Dr. May's willingness to respect mystery. . . .There is, too, at work throughout the book a disciplined yet relaxed clinical mind, inclined to celebrate . . . what Flannery O'Connor called 'mystery and manners,' and to do so in a tactful, meditative manner."—Robert Coles, America

Dr. William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness. For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship–destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.

The Therapist and the Soul: From Fate to Freedom by Elisabeth Lukas Elisabeth Lukas is one of the leading practitioners of logotherapy in the world, and is internationally known for applying and extending the work of Viktor Frankl. Frankl noted that, "For Lukas, there is no human being who does not retain a chance to grow, no situation which does not have its spark of meaning.... To elucidate meaning possibilities is the art of Elisabeth Lukas and entirely in the tradition of logotherapy." In this book, Lukas offers hope to those who suffer from guilt or fear, whether justified or not. Each must be dealt with differently; for example, it is common for a person to suffer from guilt for an accident for which there is no responsibility. Such unjustified guilt is actually the result of the blows of fate, which were not chosen and for which the person was therefore not responsible. On the other hand, where guilt is justified, the offering of "absolution" is not appropriate, and practical measures must be offered for the individual to address it. Lukas devotes separate chapters to meaningful approaches to the unique struggles facing men and women; working with "problem children"; the use of books for self-therapy; the prevention of suicides; as well as justified vs. unjustified guilt, among others. Lukas establishes (using examples and case studies) that it is not necessary to dredge up the past, uncover old wounds, or analyze childhood traumas in order to find meaning and healing. What awaits us all is a meaningful choice among a constellation of possibilities. Excerpts from The Therapist and the Soul: From Fate to Freedom Everybody can be good for something or someone, independent of the perhaps miserable position in which the person exists. At the very moment when such a "being good for something" (that is, a meaning element of one's own existence) lights up, the question "why live?" or "why go on living?" is already answered. (p. 186) How can helping support be given in the search for meaning, which every person faces sooner or later? One fact has to be kept in mind: Meaning can never be given--it must be discovered. (p. 12) It is the central concern of the logotherapist to guide vulnerable people towards meaning-oriented thinking and to rouse in them supportive attitudes which will prove themselves in times of need and crisis. (pp. 185-186) It is not the intention of those practicing logotherapy to put blame onto patients; nor are practitioners interested in exonerating patients of guilt. Rather, the logotherapist is concerned with insight into just how far we are free and hence responsible, in contrast to how far we are the plaything of fate and hence not responsible or guilty. Which possibility is preferred is an open question. (p. 221) Fate entails that the circumstances themselves cannot be changed. But we are not responsible for what we cannot change and have not chosen, nor can we be at fault in such circumstances. However, what we have chosen freely, done freely, decided freely to be a part of our own lives, to this we have committed ourselves with all its consequences. It is undeniably our own deed or our own fault. When we look at it this way, we may hesitate to prefer the area of freedom. For freedom may well be a gift, but it is also a sentence to responsibility. And fate may well force us to do something, but it is also a pardon from responsibility. (p. 218)

Mrs Roberts examines responsibility and freedom in terms of human interests and purposes. She builds up an account of the social context in which we learn to use words like 'responsibility', 'freedom' and 'action'. Ambiguities in the use of 'action' and 'perception' are dealt with at length.