Sartre vs. Freud: Are You Free or Are You Driven?
Is the person radically free to choose who they become, or are they shaped by unconscious forces beyond their awareness? This determines whether therapy liberates choice or reveals the hidden causes of behavior.
The Positions
Existence precedes essence. There is no human nature that determines what you are — you are what you make of yourself through your choices. Bad faith is the lie that you had no choice. The unconscious is an alibi for freedom refused.
The ego is not master in its own house. Unconscious drives, defenses, and early relational patterns determine far more of behavior than conscious choice. The feeling of free choice is itself often a rationalization for actions whose real motives remain hidden.
Clinical Implications
This debate shapes how clinicians understand 'resistance.' For Sartre, a client who cancels sessions is making a choice and must own it. For Freud, the cancellation is overdetermined — anxiety about what might emerge, repetition of an attachment pattern, unconscious aggression toward the therapist. Existential therapy holds the client responsible. Psychoanalysis holds the client's unconscious responsible. These are not the same move.
In Session
An existential therapist: 'You chose not to come last week. What were you choosing?' A psychoanalytic therapist: 'I wonder what it means that you didn't come last week — what might have felt dangerous about continuing.' The first trusts the client's agency. The second trusts the client's unconscious.
Toward Resolution
Both positions contain a clinical danger. Sartre's radical freedom can become blaming — if you're free, your suffering is your fault. Freud's determinism can become excusing — if the unconscious did it, you bear no responsibility. The most honest clinical position may be that people are both freer and more determined than they know, and that the proportions shift depending on what is being examined.