Choice is often about control and decision making. Do I choose? Am I being forced to choose? Is someone else 'choosing for me'? Am I choosing for myself or for my family? Am I choosing for the good of the whole or the good of the individual, i.e., me? And what are the ramifications of my choices?
Related to the issue of choice is the issue of control. Who's got control? Is it me? Do I feel in control? Do I feel out of control? Do I feel someone else is in control? And what are the consequences of the 'control issue' if I'm not in control and someone else is?
In Western psychology, we talk about locus of control. What's that you ask? Here's a good definition:
“A locus of control orientation is a belief about whether the outcomes of our actions are contingent on what we do (internal control orientation) or on events outside our personal control (external control orientation)”, Zimbardo, 1985.
In other words when we act, do we believe we are in control? Or do we believe we act because we are controlled by things outside ourselves?
In the East, we seem to have an external control orientation or so it appears to me—our orientation comes not from within, but without. The gods, the fates, the family, a class or caste system; millennia of cultural history weigh on us and often we feel we are not in control of our lives.
Not everyone, but many think these things control our fate, our destiny; who we become, and so on. And yet I think we try to balance our sense of choice with all these opposing forces to develop; to become the person we want to be if we think things through; if we examine the evidence for or against our actions. Of course, I noticed this same principle in the West as well.
So, perhaps it’s not an issue of East or West; rather beliefs, whether East or West.
This brings me to a topic dear to my heart & research—The Psychology of Religious Coping.
I am a huge fan of Prof Dr Kenneth Pargament who is a leading practitioner-psychologist-researcher in the field of religious coping. What his research found—and not alone his as this field has come into its own in the last twenty years—is that people developed three approaches. These are a Collaborative Style, in which we co-operate with (a) God to deal with stressful events in life; a Deferring Style, in which we leave everything to (a) God; and a Self-Directed Style, in which we do not rely on (a) God and try to solve problems by ourselves.
Pargament discovered many other things as well, but these three styles apply across the boundaries of religious experience, whether Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jew. (Buddhism is a non-theistic religion but tell that to those who pray to Lord Buddha in Bangkok, Beijing and Boralesgamuwa!).
In my own study, survivors of great distress (such as tsunami,
civil war, and so on) find solace and comfort in the positive use of their
religious beliefs regardless of belief systems (c.f., E. Leembruggen-Kallberg, Psychotraumatology vis-à-vis Religious &
Spiritual Beliefs: A Sri Lankan Case Study).
Whether survivors of great catastrophes felt ‘in control’ of their circumstances or ‘acted upon’ by others—the fates, a government out of control, vicious neighbours, kith and kin, or even God—as they meditated, prayed, chanted, and ‘acted’, they gained control over their feelings of helplessness, victim-hood and their position as the ‘other’—not in control. Here we find religion working “functionally”, i.e., religion helping the individual “to cope with death, provide meaning to life, provide moral absolutes and overcome existential alienation” (Paloutzian, 1996).
This is the positive side of religious coping. To be sure, there is a negative side. And this, too, must be addressed. But as a counselling therapist, it is good to know that religious experience and one’s spirituality can be used in gaining positive outcomes for better mental health.
