On Becoming the Author of Your Life
Image via Jon Tyson
To be responsible, as Jean-Paul Sartre defines it, is to be “the uncontested author of an event or thing.” Authorship is a stand-in for the word creator, of which an author is one kind, and for whom the task is to fashion from the materials of their imagination a work that is complete and new. This imagination being the main tool applied, there can be no doubt that the author is the source from which the story originates. It is clear that several people are involved in the making and publishing of a book, from editor’s, proofreaders, cover designers, type setters and more. Each of these serves an important role in the process, but their roles are created in reaction to the author and defined in relation to the author’s original efforts.
Applying his notion of responsibility in a psychotherapeutic setting has benefits and risks. Doing so moves me towards a more internal locus of control when discussing issues and sets up an expectation that the client will shift to a similar orientation. And when more emphasis is placed on what a client can control and change, less time is wasted on issues that can be affected by neither the client or myself.
Of particular interest is the fact that the client is now allowed to approach the issue of suffering differently. To say that someone is responsible for their suffering runs the risk of being insensitive, but to say a client’s suffering is theirs, and that they alone are responsible for what they do with it moves them out of a helpless role and into a more active one. Challenging and often unfair, accepting responsibility for one’s suffering is still the best option for someone who intends to do something about it. A significant amount of suffering self-induced and unwarranted. It is a kind of suffering psychologically born in the aftermath of what has already occurred and added unto one’s burdens through the stories people tell themselves about what their suffering means.
When you focus on your role in events you understand that almost nothing in your life is the way it has always been or the way it must always be. This is true of life generally, and expands your possibilities once you realize it.
Admittedly, an emphasis on responsibility is most comforting to people who highly value individualism, partially because it ignores the reality of interdependence. In societies that are increasingly more complex, where accomplishing most tasks involves help from others, cordoning oneself off might be possible, but it would not be desirable. We need other people to survive and to flourish. We need other people to achieve our full potential. As the African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
There is the risk of veering too far on the side of responsibility assumption. This attitude becomes unhelpful when you begin to assume responsibility for things that you are not actually responsible for, which allows others to potentially take advantage of this and use you. For example, if a client complains about mistreatment from their family, and I am too quick to focus on the client’s role in the situation, I give the impression that the client’s concerns are illegitimate. It is possible for a client to remain the author of their feelings while also being shown respect and compassion for the difficult conditions under which their feelings arise. Conditions which they of course, are not the uncontested author of. Responsibility should not be heaped on an individual without considering the constant pressure that other people exert on them.
Most clients, at the time we first meet, are limited in their ability to assume responsibility for their lives. As it is in life, so it is in therapy. They must be encouraged to increase this capacity, and a large portion of success in therapy and in life is attributable to ones willingness to do this. One must always come back to their role in events, no matter how large or miniscule, no matter how many times they stray from it, because it is the only perspective from which change takes place.