Are You Your Own Person?
Are you your own person?
There are lots of ways to understand (or not understand) this question. Looking at it through a psychological lens, I’m talking about the idea of autonomy: possessing your own concept of yourself, knowing where you end and others begin, knowing what’s a true depiction of yourself and what’s a mask for others to see. These are the kinds of things that a person who is “their own” handles and holds.
What is autonomy?
Philosopher Immanuel Kant described autonomy as the ability or condition of something to behave in a way that is separate from outside external forces [1]. An autonomous government, for example, acts and makes decisions separate from the influence or control of another country’s government.
On the individual level, to exhibit autonomy means to move about the world in a way that is consistent with oneself and one’s convictions—to feel as though you’re living as you would like to live and believe is right and not simply as others want you to.
There are barriers to this; often external forces are inescapable. Persecution from a government, mistreatment by an organization, strong-arming by others with personal vendettas, chronic illness that inhibits functioning—individuals are always susceptible to forces outside themselves.
However, autonomy can still exist despite external limits. Friedrich Nietzsche said it and Viktor Frankl embodied it: “Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how.'” Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi showed autonomy in saying, “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” Despite persecution and physical harm, he would remain true to what he saw as fundamentally right. Limits may be external, but autonomy is internal.
What autonomy looks like
Sometimes we see autonomy most clearly when we see where it’s not.
Do you know someone who always makes decisions based on the opinions of others? Sometimes we care so much about what others think of us—be they strangers, friends, partners, parents, or coworkers—that we don’t know what we ourselves want, think, or feel. We act in ways we know will be consistent with the wishes of others, regardless of what we actually want, to stay in good standing with these external forces. This is a clear example of lacking autonomy.
What is self-differentiation?
A major part of autonomy is self-differentiation, or the ability to distinguish between oneself and someone else. Therapists can sometimes struggle with this. As empathic, caring people seek to help others with their problems, therapists can begin to feel as though the pain their clients feel is their own. Helpers can unknowingly sneak into thoughts like, “My client’s intense sadness in grief is also my sadness.” There is an identification with the client’s emotion: “My client was very angry today. I must have done something to upset him.” Here a therapist would rightly consider, did I do something to upset my client? Or is there something else happening outside of therapy or inside the client that is bringing this anger into the session?
Effective therapists do empathize and, to an appropriate degree, bear the burdens their clients bring. However, the work of a sustainable, healthy therapist is to separate—to self-differentiate—oneself from what clients bring to therapy. Otherwise, therapists will likely end up spent and burnt out from this consistent emotional weight.
But self-differentiation isn’t just for therapists. The person with a continually angry and demanding mother needs to differentiate their own happiness from their mothers; otherwise, their unappeasable mother will keep them on the neverending hamster wheel of strife. Similarly, in the wake of bad news and sad realities in the lives around us, we must differentiate ourselves from the whole of humanity periodically. There are indeed incomprehensible horrors and heartbreaks in the world; at the same time, there is love, joy, humor, celebration, and beauty. We’re all experiencing pieces of those at the same time. Without the ability to self-differentiate, we risk being absorbed into the inevitable emotions all around us.
Considering our limitedness
Autonomy does not separate us from things like right and wrong, caring deeply for others, or social responsibility. Humans also have blind spots—acting in a way that is consistent with our own sense of right and wrong can also go awry. Healthy autonomy includes room for correction and outside input without overruling our own internal locus of control—our ultimate personal control over how we respond to the world. Autonomy and self-differentiation act as tools to help our healthy and fulfilling functioning, not rigid rules that bar us from others and the world.
Are you your own person? How do you let others affect the way you think, feel, and behave? What voices have you internalized, and how are these helping or hurting you? By developing autonomy, we can more fully live in a way that is good, right, and true.
[1] Taylor, J. Stacey (2017, June 20). autonomy. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/autonomy
