Is Change Really Possible?, Part II

In the last post, we considered two types of deterministic views held by people, astrological and genetic. In this post, I will discuss two more, psychological and sociological.

III. Psychological Determinism

Sigmund Freud and his followers popularized the notion that our experiences in childhood affect our psychological state as adults. Mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, were blamed on the mother's treatment of the child. The key to resolving neuroses and other psychological disturbances was to dig deeply into one's past and resolve issues that still lingered from our childhood.

Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that our childhood experiences affect our psychological well-being as adults, but do those experiences determine how we feel and think as adults? This view can be taken to extremes. For example, in highly publicized criminal trials, defendants have justified their criminal behavior because of things that happened to them in the past. They claimed to have no control over their actions because their psychological health had been impaired by neglect and abuse when they were younger. One of the most prominent and sensational of these trials involved the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, who slaughtered their parents with shotguns on August 20, 1989. In the televised trial in 1993, they defended themselves by arguing that the parental abuse they had suffered made them incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

On a more common level, we often excuse many of our bad habits or failures in life by blaming our parents for how they treated us. We feel that we are who we are because of how we were raised, and we think there is little that we can do to change that.

But this viewpoint involves a major misunderstanding of the field of psychology. The science of psychology was not developed in order to give people the right to refuse to change or to control their actions. As I mentioned in the last post, the industry of psychotherapy is based on the supposition that it is possible, and necessary, for people to change. Knowing how the past affects us in the present was never intended to relieve us of the responsibility for the choices we make in the present. That knowledge is intended to help us understand the influences on us so that we can modify our thought processes and change our behavior. Psychologists have continually sought ways to help people change their harmful thoughts and behaviors, resulting in a variety of approaches such as behaviorism, hypnotherapy, and cognitive therapy. The field of psychopharmacology has developed drugs to adjust the chemistry of the brain so that dark moods can be lifted and impulsive thoughts can be controlled.

A major study of how psychotherapy promotes change was conducted by Michael J. Mahoney (1991). He showed that scientific research indicated that it was possible for people to change but that the process is "rarely rapid or easy" (p. 18). He also found that core areas were more difficult to change than peripheral areas. Core areas included things like "a person's experience of reality (order), self (identity), value (valence), and power (control)" (p. 18). Change is not easy, but it is possible, a view which seems consistent with biblical teaching.

The psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis also recognized the difficulty of changing the personality: "Personality is a complex balance of many conflicting claims, forces, tensions, compunctions, distractions, which yet manages somehow to be a functioning entity. However it may have come to be what it is, it resists becoming anything else. It tends to maintain itself, to convey itself onward into the future unaltered. It may be changed only with difficulty" (1973, p. 100).

And yet Wheelis believes that change really is possible. He expresses the tension between viewing ourselves as the product of our upbringing and believing in the possibility of change:

Being the product of conditioning and being free to change do not war with each other. Both are true. They coexist, grow together in an upward spiral, and the growth of one furthers the growth of the other. The more cogently we prove ourselves to have been shaped by causes, the more opportunities we create for changing. The more we change, the more possible it becomes to see how determined we were in that which we have just ceased to be (1973, pp. 87-88).

He goes on to warn against viewing either determinism or freedom to change as absolutes exclusive of the other:

Sometimes it will be necessary to see behavior, individual or social, as the product of preexisting conditions, for we are indeed pushed and pulled, and if we are to increase our authority in reference to these forces we must examine them as causes. Sometimes, likewise, it will be necessary to see behavior, individual or social, as the product of unconstrained will, for we are truly free, even in situations of extreme coercion (1973, p. 96).

So, while many have distorted the findings of psychological research to excuse their bad behavior and deny the possibility of change, psychology actually assumes the possibility of change, as difficult as it may be.

IV.Sociological Determinism

This excuse for avoiding change is similar to psychological determinism. Many people feel they cannot improve themselves or their situation because of the country they were born in or the area in which they were raised or the race they belong to. This view was prevalent in the 50s and 60s: If we could change social structures, people would become better people. This excuse, along with psychological determinism, was mocked in the musical West Side Story when the gang members, in the song "Gee, Officer Krupke," try to explain why they are the way they are. The song begins with these lyrics:

Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

Later in the song, A-Rab complains:

Officer Krupke, you're really a slob.
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job.
Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick!

Undoubtedly, our social background does affect who we are to a great extent. A person who grows up surrounded by racial prejudice will naturally be influenced to hold those views, but many people have broken out of their sociological straitjackets and altered their ways of thinking and relating to people.

Reflection Questions:

1. How have my childhood experiences affected me? Have I used those experiences as excuses for refusing to change?

2. In what ways have I moved beyond my past experiences to become a healthier person?

3. What unhealthy influences have I experienced from my social upbringing? How can I continue to rid myself of those?

4. How has Christ helped me to move beyond my past into a healthier future?

Next Topic: Is Change Really Possible?, Part III

Sources:

Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundations of psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

Is Change Really Possible?, Part I

Certain types of change are inevitable in many areas of our lives. For example, we know that we will all change physically. A man attended a college reunion thirty years after graduation, and he remarked to a friend, "See that fellow over there? Well, he's gotten so bald and so fat he didn't even recognize me." We know that physical changes will occur as we get older, as much as we try to ward them off.

But what about other aspects of our lives? Is it possible to change our personality? Our habits? Our talents? Our character? Our inner person? The famed psychiatrist Martin Seligman wrote a book with the catchy title What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Self-Improvement. In this book he details the aspects of ourselves that research suggests are subject to change and those that are resistant to change. This topic is of interest to psychologists because the entire counseling industry is predicated on the possibility of change. One of the best-known books on this subject is Michael Mahoney's Human Change Processes: The Scientific Foundations of Psychotherapy.

The psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis, in his little meditation on How People Change, expressed optimism that change, although admittedly difficult, is always possible: "We are wise to believe it difficult to change, to recognize that character has a forward propulsion which tends to carry it unaltered into the future, but we need not believe it impossible to change. Our present and future choices may take us upon different courses which will in time comprise a different identity. It happens, sometimes, that the crook reforms, that the coward stands to fight" (Wheelis, 1973, p. 13).

Many people think that it is not possible to change. This view is expressed in some of our cultural proverbs, such as "an old dog can't learn new tricks" or "a leopard can't change its spots." Such a pessimistic view gives people the excuse not to try to become better people. Skepticism about the possibility of change can cause a person to become lazy, complacent, self-satisfied, and resigned to their fate.

The view that people cannot change can be termed "determinism." "Determinism is the "a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws" (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 2007, p. 340). People espouse various types of determinism. I want to examine these reasons why people deny the possibility of change.

I. Astrological Determinism

Astrology teaches that our fate is determined by the position of the stars at the time of our birth. Earthly events are influenced by heavenly movements. The connection between the two is based on the principle of sympathy. The day-to-day events in our lives are determined by the changing positions of the stars and planets, which are in turn controlled by gods and other spiritual beings. This view originated among the Chaldeans and then spread from Babylonia to Egypt and then on to Greece and Rome.

According to Franz Cumont, "the most essential principle of astrology was that of fatalism" (1956, p. 179). He also says that "the postulates of astrology imply an absolute determinism" (Ibid.). He describes the outcome of the view that fate determines all things:

Following the example set by the Stoics, they made absolute submission to an almighty fate and joyful acceptance of the inevitable a moral duty, and were satisfied to worship the superior power that ruled the universe, without demanding anything in return. They considered themselves at the mercy of even the most capricious fate, and were like the intelligent slave who guesses the desires of his master to satisfy them, and knows how to make the hardest servitude tolerable (p. 181).

By the time of Jesus and Paul, astrological determinism pervaded the ancient world:

Soon neither important nor small matters were undertaken without consulting the astrologer. His previsions were sought not only in regard to great public events like the conduct of a war, the founding of a city, or the accession of a ruler, not only in case of a marriage, a journey, or a change of domicile; but the most trifling acts of every-day life were gravely submitted to his sagacity. People would no longer take a bath, go to the barber, change their clothes or manicure their fingernails, without first awaiting the propitious moment (Cumont, 1956, p. 165).

This pessimistic view caused despair among the ancients who felt themselves "dominated and crushed by blind forces that dragged [them] on as irresistibly as they kept the celestial spheres in motion" (Cumont, 1956, p. 181). People felt hopeless to change their situation. They were powerless to change their destiny. They were robbed of motivation and devoid of responsibility. Of course, many people today follow the popular form of astrology but ignore the logical and dismal implications of it.

Paul roundly rejects this view. First, he asserts that Christ actually created these astrological powers: "For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him." Second, he asserts that any of these powers, both earthly and heavenly, that have strayed from God's will and sought to dominate people have been subdued by Christ's death on the cross: "[Christ] disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it" (Col 2:15). Christ's death has stripped, disarmed, exposed, and unmasked these pretenders to his sovereignty. Paul lets his readers know that their destinies are not controlled by impersonal spiritual beings or by heavenly bodies. Christ has set them free to choose their own destiny.

II. Genetic Determinism

This fatalistic view is of more recent origin. Since the discovery of genetic heredity by Malthus and others and the more recent discoveries of genes, chromosomes, and DNA, many scientists have propagated the view that our lives are largely determined by genetics. Genetic research is identifying certain genes that result inevitably in certain physical conditions.

For example, the genes identified as BRCA1 and BRCA2 are known to be tumor suppressors. If a woman inherits one of these genes in a mutated form, her risks of breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer greatly increase. Tests are now available to identify these mutations so that bearers can taken preventative actions.

We understand that many of our physical characteristics (eye color, skin tone, hair texture, etc.) are largely determined by genetic endowment. But how much is genetics responsible for our personality? Our preferences? Our likes and dislikes? Our vices and virtues? And is it possible to overcome any of these genetic influences? This raises the nature-versus-nurture debate that has raged for the past century in psychology. Is who I am today determined more by how my parents treated me in childhood or by my genetic heredity? Studies of twins who were reared together and apart have shown that many aspects of personality, such as IQ, are inherited. These studies have suggested that perhaps parents do not have as much influence on the development of a child as psychotherapists have often assumed.

Perhaps our genes can provide explanations for some of our behaviors, but many people use them as excuses for their behavior so that they don't have to accept personal responsibility for their actions. Like the followers of astrology, they seem themselves as victims of cruel fate. Such excuses have been offered for alcoholism, homosexuality, other sexual aberrations, obesity, and the list goes on and on.

A cartoon in the New Yorker showed a father scowling over a very bad report card while his little boy stood by, asking, "What do you think it is, Dad? Heredity or environment?" Whether we blame our problems on how were conceived or how we were raised, we often absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions.

Using genetics as an excuse for irresponsibility, addictions, and immoral behavior brings human beings down to the level of animals. Animals are driven by instincts. They do not have the consciousness that enables them to control and manage their instincts. Their behavior can be modified by a superior intelligence utilizing positive and negative reinforcement, but they cannot modulate, regulate, or modify their own behavior. For example, I recently read a tragic story about an 85-year-old woman in Etowah, Tennessee, who had owned a pit bull terrier for nine years, and it never showed any signs of aggression. One morning she walked into her house to check on the dog and without warning it attacked her and killed her. The dog would not let go of her until the police dragged it off of her and shot it. The dog's genetic inheritance kicked in, and it could not control itself.

I used to see this genetic influence in my Norwegian Elkhound, who would prepare to lie down in the living room by first walking sideways in a circle about six times before lying down. This strange behavior was how his wolf ancestors prepared their beds in the tall grasses of the savannah. He would also rub his nose around his food bowl as if he were trying to bury it because dogs in the wild knew to bury meat in order to cure it so that it would not spoil.

Humans possess inherited instincts also, but we assume that humans are able to control them, and even change them, because we have higher thought processes than other animals. For example, we are genetically programmed to eat until we are filled to capacity because our ancestors often did not know when their next meal would come. But we must learn to control this instinct in order to remain healthy. We are genetically programmed to copulate with just about every member of the opposite sex who passes in front of our vision, which was an instinct necessary for survival of the species. But we know that such instinctual behavior is damaging to us, so we try to control it.

Francis Collins, who headed the Human Genome Project, does not view his faith in Christ as incompatible with his studies of genetics (Collins, 2006). He was raised an atheist, but the key argument that drove him to belief was the fact that human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong that other animals do not have. And this moral sensibility cannot be explained by genetics. He came to believe that right and wrong are grounded in the character of God and instilled in us because we are created in his image.

Some Christian theologians beginning with Augustine have argued that people inherited original sin as a genetic endowment. In their view, babies are born already guilty of sin and therefore must be baptized to cleanse themselves of original sin. However, Paul seems to suggest he was born spiritually alive but then reached the age of awareness of sin and chose to rebel against God, at which point he died spiritually (Rom 7:9-10). Paul does talk about the "flesh" that makes it difficult for us to choose to do the right thing. I side with those interpreters who think it is more accurate to say that we are born with the propensity to sin but not the guilt of it. We have a genetic disposition to sin, but we are still responsible for own choice to rebel against God.

Reflection Questions:

1. What aspects of yourself do you feel that you cannot change? What aspects do you feel are open to change?

2. When have you felt like you were the victim of circumstances or fate?

3. What aspects of your personality and character were inherited from your parents?

Next Topic: Is Change Really Possible?, Part II

Sources:

Collins, F. S. (2006). The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief. New York: Free Press.

Cumont, F. (1956). Oriental religions in Roman paganism. New York: Dover.

Mahoney, M. J. (1991). Human change processes: The scientific foundations of psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). What you can change—and what you can't: The complete guide to successful self-improvement. New York: Vintage Books.

Wheelis, A. (1973). How people change. New York: Harper & Row.