Responsibility assumption

According to the doctrine of responsibility assumption, an individual has total responsibility for events and circumstances in their lives. Taken to its extreme, it can be used to justify absurd conclusions, such as "you chose to have cancer and can just as easily become well if you choose".

In more moderate forms, responsibility assumption appears in nearly all motivational programs, some psychotherapy, and large group awareness training[?] programs. It is used as a mechanism to point out that each individual does affect the world they perceive by the decisions they make each day and the choices they made in the past.

"I must have wanted this" is a mantra used by some advocates when encountering an unpleasant situation. The phrase is a reminder to them that, according to their world view, their own choices led to the present outcome.

The est seminars popularized the concept in the 1970s. John Denver, who was a proponent of est, wrote two songs about it: Farewell Andromeda (1973) and Looking for Space (1975). The opening lines of Farewell Andromeda capture the essence of responsibility assumption:

Welcome to my morning, welcome to my day

I'm the one responsible, I made it just this way

To make myself some pictures, see what they might bring

I think I made it perfectly, I wouldn't change a thing

The same theme is one of several present in Richard Bach's bestseller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970). The same author addresses the topic more directly in a less-popular later book, Illusions.

Though these are among the most direct examples, varying degrees of responsiblity assumption were a minor theme of the U.S. cultural landscape after the decline of the 1960s counterculture.

Spiritual/Religious roots

The doctrine has spiritual roots in the monism of Eastern and New Age religions, which hold that there is only one true being; all people are one with each other and with God and hence have Godlike power within them. Among Christian churches, Quaker and Unitarian Universalist denominations have belief systems that incorporate similar doctrinal elements.

Nonfiction References

Yalom, Irvin D. Existential Psychotherapy.

Literary references

Bach, Richard. Illusions - Confessions of a Reluctant Messiah.

Ibid. Jonathan Livingston Seagull.