I have worked with people with obsessive compulsive disorders and it is a complex area and those who come to the attention of mental health professionals often have routines and rituals which make it hard for them to function. For example, they may get stuck in routines while washing or using the toilet. Often this is connected to fears, such as contamination. There is often an underlying problem of intrusive thoughts which affect the individuals too.Belindi wrote: ↑March 24th, 2022, 7:36 amI heartily think that the psychology of choice can be developed. Indeed there is no big difference between an educator and a psychotherapist. The question of nature or nurture enters into the methods of education/therapy as some people are slow or backward learners, and others suffer from brain lesions or chemical malfunction e.g. dementia, bipolar, or schizophrenia, or a combination of nature and nurture.JackDaydream wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2022, 6:07 amI am glad that your post looks at the psychology of freedom, such as obsessions of Macbeth or Putin. Often, the philosophy of free will focuses upon the issue of whether people have any conscious reflective ability to choose or are mere robots or puppets. Some writers, such as the behaviourist BF Skinner, in his book, 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity', argued against consciousness as an aspect of human choice. However, rather than this be a sweeping statement about the human condition, it may be that such choice may be developed.Belindi wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2022, 5:36 amEither all scenarios absolutely and exclusively are caused (i.e.determined) scenarios, or all scenarios absolutely and exclusively are Free Will scenarios.
Nature is game of skill not a game of luck. If Free Will were true there would be no order or reason and all would be random, not caused.
Your example "If I throw a pencil etc.------" is over -simplified. Everything that happened necessarily happened, but you don't know if the pencil will fall to the ground. You don't know because you don't know that a thieving bird won't snatch it from the air, or that a fire won't intervene to burn the pencil in mid air. The pencil you threw yesterday fell to the ground but that does not imply the pencil will fall to the ground today. That determinism does not imply prediction is not grounds for Free Will to be the case.
Common sense tell us the pencil will invariably fall but this useful intuition is not philosophical or scientific reasoning.
BTW there are other active discussions on Free Will and Determinism.
Your freedom of choice does not reside in so-called 'Free Will'. Your freedom results from your knowledge and reasoning ability; the more you can use those the more free you are and the more and wider are your choices. Thus a man who suffers from an obsession is less free. Take Macbeth , or Putin, for examples. These men are ruled by their obsessions with personal power and so they will not be free to choose other possibilities.
In this respect the issue of freedom is about the development of consciousness and self mastery, but I realise that this may be different from the way people think about free will as a whole. Breaking down the concept of what free will means may be important. As the author of this thread points out, there is the issue of the ability to predict. There is also the question about nature and nurture. In addition, there is the ability to make conscious choices which involves the establishment of clear goals.
I don't know how obsessive disorder fits with nature or nurture. I am sure in the cases of Macbeth and Putin the obsession to increase personal power has been learned. In each of the above cases the obsession with power (and Lady Macbeth's handwashing thing too) were learned. The weird events that happen to persons who once were innocent healthy babies can set people off on some track of thinking that can eventually kill them. As a mental health professional you will have met people with obsessive disorder who are an existential danger to themselves.
The model which I have seen used in working with OCD is often cognitive behavioral. It often involves patients working with therapists to draw up programs to address the behaviour with increased exposure to doing activities which address the behaviours. There is a certain amount of success with CBT but it can hard work for the people and some find that there needs to be much deeper work with interrelated fears and past trauma as well.
The difference between what is seen as 'normal' and 'abnormal' is also complicated. What is important at this present time is that there may be an increase in OCD since the pandemic linked to fears of contamination. I remember the patients buying antibacterial wipes and gels endlessly and now it has become the norm.
However, getting back to obsessions in general, such as for power, this may be more insidious. Many people have such obsessions and are rewarded rather than seen as 'abnormal' in any way. The people who do get diagnosed are often the ones who are seen as having 'personality disorders' and there can be an overlap between personality disorders and OCD. Also, there are various differences in this, especially between those who may wish to harm themselves or those who have or wish to harm others. The second group often are in forensic psychiatry services.
However, I wish to take this back to the topic of free will. What may be an important issue may be whether the person wishes to change or not. I am sure that Putin doesn't see himself as having a problem and would not wish to be given therapeutic interventions. Nevertheless, there are people who have obsessions or thoughts which they wish to alter so much, but have great difficulty. That may be where the determinism vs free will debate gets so hard.
The power of environmental factors, especially childhood traumas, can be so hard and wired into the brain that it is extremely difficult. There are links between trauma and mental health problems in general. Often, the importance of medications come in. The way in which the medications affect thoughts and behaviours shows how important physiology and brain chemistry as a determining factor. Many people are on medication for years and relapse if they do not. That is why therapies as well as medications are important, but therapy is a difficult task.
Finally, the fact that many people are never seen as having problems which need psychiatric or psychological interventions doesn't mean that they have no areas for change. This may be the underlying philosophy issue of freedom or self-mastery, and the extent to which people wish to pursue this. Also, the prominence of deterministic philosophy may have the effect of disempowering people about their own autonomy and any potential development of free will.