Autonomy

Autonomy (SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY) - IResearchNet

The Desire for Autonomy | Psychology Today

This idea of autonomy was a concept that I was clueless about when I started therapy,yet it was the concept that my therapist very pointedly brought to my attention. Ultimately, finding and honoring my own autonomy, realizing I have the power to make choices about how I react to events and obligations, and learning to advocate for myself on behalf of my own autonomy were the skills that were intimately intertwined in my work in therapy and my ability to get unstuck from my own crap.

I’ve attached two articles that address what I’m talking about. So many articles about autonomy are solely focused on Erickson’s stages of development in children, but these two speak to autonomy in adults.

Omg my... that psychology today one sounds like it could have been written by my T... even started to read it in T’s voice. Thanks for the free session :

I'm with Omers omg - that psych today one - I think that's kinda what's going on between me and t right now - I'm digging my heels in about going back for more and it's because I feel internal pressure to do so - like i have no choice - no autonomy. Thanks this is helping me do some more thinking about the heel-digging.....

Thanks for sharing, these are interesting

I feel like much of my therapy in this last decade-old round has been with autonomy as the background. Why do I think I "have" to do certain things, including other people before myself? Turns out I don't. Why do I "automatically" make certain choices rather than considering how to approach something with intention and strategy, rather than reactivity? Turns out I can be intentional, at least some of the time.

There's some kind of cliche about how you have more power than you know. This is just another way to say that empowering yourself means seizing your autonomy and carrying it around with you.

I was the opposite, having strong survival skills and overcoming adversity, but that wore down after so many years. Now I have more of a Maslow's hierarchy of needs take on this subject (thinking self actualization is related to autonomy).

Sometimes not getting basic needs met can make it difficult to use your personal power-it can be exhausting.

Very interesting, thank you.

I’m glad these were helpful.

I like this:

“In fact, recognizing my need for autonomy has measurably improved my ability to enjoy all of my relationships, helping me to realize that when I have a negative reaction that seems out of proportion it often means I'm feeling a compromised sense of autonomy. Identifying the cause of that then usually helps to prevent me from saying or doing something needlessly damaging. For once I recognize I'm actually reacting to a diminished sense of autonomy I'm able to realize that my reaction is my problem, not someone else's. ”

This is what often was the lead-in to many a therapy session. Something happened and I was reacting way out of the realm of proportion to the event (sometimes seriously small things), and I would have to figure out what the heck was setting me off, and realize I had choices about how to react; I was flying off the handle instead of generally several other options. Usually this led to a discussion of why I was responding with such intensity; it was almost never about the actual situation and almost always about some kind of triggered reaction to old self-talk and mistaken beliefs that were butting in. When I could acknowledge that old stuff was really the issue, then I could choose pretty easily to stop being bent out of shape about the current issue (which really wasn’t much of an issue to start with; I had just reacted automatically that way). I could then address the old issue as needed and eventually those old issues became less of a trigger once I realized they were even there. So many of my reactions used to be automatic, triggered, impulsive responses. Still happens, but I’d say I’ve reduced those kinds of out-of-proportion reactions by a fairly large percentage, and when they do happen, I know how to work through them more quickly and more effectively.

I had started to post about autonomy on the power thread because I thought it was related but was unable to, so I started this thread as a way of expressing how, for me, regaining my power was about my personal autonomy, and feeling powerless is generally a reaction to somehow not honoring, holding, and utilizing my personal power of autonomy.

Thank you. It is validating to hear other people react similarly to me, and how autonomy is involved. You have some really interesting thoughts here.

I find this pings with me as reactions out of proportion to the situation are more easily identifiable to me than they used to be. Perhaps one of the most helpful therapeutic concepts I've learned is that my reaction can both be about the situation (perhaps a person who states something in an inelegant or otherwise troubling way) but also that my internal response reacts to it more strongly than warranted. Both/and.

Maybe there's a part of autonomy that is about paradox. I used to think it was about independence, and I value my independence so strongly I didn't think I would ever be able to share or create a home with a partner, much less parent a child. Even now, I think a long distance relationship might suit me. And I used to think autonomy was more about a kind of kick-*** relationship with other people and the world, warrior like, telling people to go f-off or otherwise drawing huge lines, or building walls between me and others, a psychological "stay off my lawn" approach.

But now for me autonomy isn't really much about other people at all, it is internal, at least for the most part, even when it includes saying no directly to others. It's about making sense of what I'm trying to go for in my life and trying to live up to my intensions and goals. Whether it's in the moment or a more distant response to the choices I have, I'm inching a little closer. Most difficult situations are less of a "fight" and a more say my piece, walk away after listening.

Thanks so much, Artley.

The last three paragraphs of the Psychology Today article were right on, for me. And the definition of autonomy as "self-governing" in the first article was really cool, too.

Trauma and dissociation, however it manifests, has meant for me that certain parts were split-off. And while I "got in touch" with them in therapy, integrating those and having them learn to regulate and coordinate with each other has been another challenge altogether.

The notion of autonomy -- and that I have a desire, a need for that -- again a cool idea. Makes sense to, and resonates with, me.

In thinking of times when I have surrendered to others' "dominance", for instance, the last paragraph of the Psychology Today article seems right on.

When parts of me were more dissociated, I didn't always realize or know the reasons that I did, or wanted to do, things that other parts of me didn't want to do. Or the consequences, necessarily, of not doing them. The consequences were sometimes horrendous, and dysregulating in their own right, once I started to say "no" to over-compliance with some things.

Learning what was "in proportion" and what was not has also been a learning task for me. I had learned growing up how to behave appropriately by cutting off the "inappropriate"/frowned-on impulses. So there was a dimished awareness, and some "choices" were unconscious, seems like, or at any rate didn't participate in my everyday, "apparently normal", way of being. It's better now, I think, but still difficult sometimes.

I have a question. I didn’t run into this word until my last therapist brought it up. My understanding of it was very limited to what I’d been taught in education courses (which isn’t really the quite the same thing) and my own misperceptions of what autonomy meant (independence, for instance).

Is this a concept that your therapists have addressed? If so, did they put a name on it, like “autonomy” or was in more nebulous? (It’s a bit nebulous as it is, but having a word for it is helpful for me.)

The first article seems to suggest it is a term more used in Self-Determination Theory, so I did a bit more hunting. I found this article: Self-Determination Theory: How It Explains Motivation . This isn’t so much a therapy method as it is a theory of human development and learning concept.

When I read these articles, I hear my last therapist a great deal. He was very eclectic in his therapy approaches, but highly well-read with a doctorate in philosophy as well as psychology which may explain perhaps where he was coming from. All I can say is it makes sense to me.

I found another site which I am highly curious about: selfdeterminationtheory.org - An Approach to human motivation & personality This site has tests on it that I’m tempted to access; unfortunately, you have to register and I’ll have to think on that a bit.

This site has mention of some books on the topic that I may need to explore: Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan) - Learning Theories.

This quick video is simple and cool: YouTube

This is great stuff. Good theory, makes sense, well-presented. Basic "needs" I didn't really know about myself, certainly not when I went into therapy, because so much was cut off?

So -- where is the camp for adults?

My mind keeps returning to this topic. I thought the video was very helpful and presented a model of what emotionally healthy and effective living might be like. Three basic factors that are needed for that.

No therapist ever addressed this, or any model, of what it might be for me to be and live with more emotional health and effectiveness. They did talk about it being important to be "authentic".

In my life I could be fairly competent and autonomous in some ways, as far as it came to getting things done physically or intellectually. But my relatedness was definitely "off". I avoided conflict by having submerged a bunch of emotions that challenged other people. Or, when I allowed myself to have, think about, and try to act with those emotions involved I was very uncool or uncouth, sometimes. Not socialized, because those basic emotions had been cut off for so long. Years and years of therapy hadn't helped a lot, and IOP programs didn't either.

I said for a long time, especially with my last therapist, that what I felt I needed was a "social playpen", where I could practice having, and sometimes acting on, certain emotions and get to experience the consequences, see and understand the results, and hopefully also learn how to moderate and integrate those emotions in myself. Without the enormous real world consequences that might happen where everybody is expecting others to be "responsible" and "adult".

I don't think I'm the only person who may need this kind of thing. Interpersonal trauma therapy probably helped me get in touch with stuff, but what to do with it after that?

If you're self-determined already, then it's not really a question, because you self-determine that. But if your relatedness module doesn't work well, as mine did not, then what? How do you help to GET it functioning? Relatedness isn't just about a relationship between a client and a T. It's about a person in relationship with the rest of humanity and the world. Even though we focus on and interact with mostly a small group of other people.

Right now, I don't have enough other people that I feel connected to, cared for by, and care about so that I have a sense of belonging. I can "fake it" -- go by the social rules so that I seem, sort of, to fit in and therefore have some sense of belonging. That's how I did it as a little kid -- because a sense of belonging was so important to me. AND because it sometimes conflicts with autonomy and authenticity, I "sacrificed" them -- unconsciously, of course. A little kid's priorities that became habitual.

Maybe all my years of therapy helped create the "condition" or maybe it was there all along and the last therapist just finally diagnosed me as having Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. I think a more positive approach -- what is healthy self-determination and how do you develop it -- could help lots of people who have personality disorders, non-BPD in particular since that's what I had/have. There really needs to be something better to help us, I think.

I've been self-determined as best I could, with the defective relatedness module. But without a better one -- I'm limited in what I can do. So, frankly, if anybody could come up with something that would help, I think that would be great. I can't determine or control that, since it's outside my self. So I -- and others, I think -- need to depend on others to help to come up with something that will help. If they want to. Which some probably do. So -- having processed and said all that, I feel a little bit better "related". Still a pretty amorphous experience for me, though.

here today, this is addressed in object relations (alsoself psychology). The autonomy doesn't exist when dependent on another person as that sort of means the person is enmeshed.

The way this is addressed in my therapy is working through the the transference and also therapist neutrality, which allows you to become separate through cognitive restructuring that results from establishing new self object patterns.

Thanks, that makes some sense.

Unfortunately, I probably enmeshed with the last T -- and the others -- as well. It feels like it was the safety mechanism I had developed with my family and culture of origin and which I never got to a T to help me out of it. And I couldn't tell when I was in the thick of it. Although over time I did begin to get inklings.

And the T's were unable to help because. . .I didn't luck out, or. . .because I tended to pick T's who enmeshed, too? It's rampant in my culture, and many T's are more conventional in temperament than I am. And I thought being able to get along with them was a sign of "health". Because I didn't know better. At any rate, they couldn't deal with working through the transference because of their own stuff?

So -- it's the chicken and egg. How could I have the autonomy and self-determination to go find another T when (aspects of) the self were so cut off and/or submerged? And dependent on the other to determine who I am, sort of?

I COULD NOT do that myself. Well, OK, so maybe the last T, or her consultation group, did see that -- and she terminated me.

Only, before that, I did lie on the sofa, after she shamed me for calling her a b***h, and logic said that was her error although emotion and relatedness disagreed, and habit would have me be the "bad guy" again, for the sake of the relationship and -- her approval?

I did decide that logic was the best path to take, so I guess that was a form of self-determination eventually, although the emotion and would-be relatedness have had a hard time going along with that.

That's been almost 3 years ago.

There's GOT to be a better way.

This was very interesting and good article too! I wonder how much autonomy has to do with children that suffer emotional abuse or someone who is working through ptsd? Like maybe realizing that we are allowed to be different from our parents, that we do not have to please them OR that the trauma we experienced doesnt have to continue governing our choices?

I struggled with PTSD for decades, beginning when I was about 12, until a few years ago. One way I understood how autonomy was related to certain symptoms, especially that automatic triggering of flashbacks, memories, or just psychophysiological, was in identifying the source of my symptoms and then trying to stop that automatic triggering. For me, they often occurred in moments of parenting (especially when my child was young and needed holding and other physical care and was very cuddly, feeling physically "touched out") or in conflictual conversations with my spouse. Because as the PTSD "groove" in my neurology was triggering an emotional response, my reactive behavior that was dysfunctional would follow. So my responses were not the product of my "autonomy" (my choice or intention to say/do) but a reaction to the triggers to my past. Being able to interrupt this neurological groove and feel safe under emotional arousal, then eventually being able to tolerate the arousal more productively, I could speak and do from my heart and mind rather than my past. So for me autonomy and recovery from PTSD went together.