ABSTRACT

What human beings most want is freedom. I have tried to sketch out the rationale for this in Chapter 1. I believe that much psychological theorizing has gone wrong because the central aim of human endeavour has been thought to be either the drive for survival or the pursuit of happiness, and that if you take either of these two to be the human goal, then it is not possible to explain many of the weird paradoxes that confront us once we begin to study human beings in any depth. The instincts that ensure our survival are a necessary given. They are like gravity in the natural order. Without gravity, there would be no stable beings on the earth. Without instincts, animals and humans would 38not be held together as living entities, but we take this for granted, just as we take gravity for granted. The psychological distress that lands people in a mental hospital, that takes human beings to the psychiatric clinic or for psychoanalysis, is the suppression of their freedom. It is not just what brings a few individuals to seek treatment for their ills; it is the cause of human distress. The ability to love is concurrent with it. If freedom has been achieved, then physical survival is less treasured. Happiness is consequent upon the achievement of freedom, and it is not therefore the psychological aim of human beings.