Freedom and Health Promotion

Inner contradictions in ourselves, our programs, and our policies are often catalysts that create questions, stimulate thought, and motivate search for some resolution. It was just such a contradiction that jolted me into questioning relationship between health and human freedom. I worked in two different health promotion/wellness programs in which a philosophy, most often implicit--but sometimes explicit--emphasized personal responsibility for health. At same time, however, we were using behavioristic methods, in which underpinnings are based on nonexistence of human freedom; we were exhorting participants to make healthy choices while we were trying to condition them to behave in manner that suited us. In practice, we thought we knew how program participants should behave, and it was above question. The espoused philosophy was based on assumptions of human freedom and responsibility; philosophy in use was based on lack of freedom to choose. This kind of contradiction often goes unnoticed, but for me it created an uneasiness for which long walks and long talks were palliative. Even with such soothing activities, however, ghost of freedom continued to haunt me. After some years of continued practice and reflection, I can now begin to identify a variety of issues related to. freedom and health. One of issues is zeitgeist, an apt German word meaning the spirit of times. In these times, we tend to focus on that which is most material: ourselves as objects. 1-3 Because this focus, or paradigm, is commensurate with dominant paradigm of physical science and belief in technology as our savior, this view is widely accepted and works cleanly to a point. The problem is that, in this view, humans are reduced to mere biomachines in a deterministic and indifferent universe wherein only