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Personal Agency Composition

  • Writer: Deric Hollings
    Deric Hollings
  • Feb 25
  • 7 min read

 

When practicing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in my personal and professional life, I advocate use of thinking that is logical and reasonable (collectively “rational”). As well, I invite people to consider personal responsibility and accountability (collectively “ownership”).

 

Being responsible means remaining able to answer for one’s conduct and obligations. Being accountable means fulfilling an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.

 

Simply stated, responsibility relates to one’s obligation to or not to do something. Accountability concerns accepting responsibility by remaining answerable for having or not having fulfilled one’s obligation to or not to do something.

 

As an example, I’m personally responsible not to engage in sexual relationships with my clients. If I were to foolishly violate this obligation, I’d remain accountable for having neglected my responsibility. For instance, I could lose my clinical licenses for having violated client trust.

 

Given my approach to care for mental, emotional, and behavioral health, I assert that people have personal agency—the ability to make choices, control one’s own actions, and actively influence life circumstances. This includes males (i.e., men) and females (i.e., women).

 

Having agency relates to the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power. Although each and every one of us is a fallible human being, with noted exceptions in adulthood, each of us has obligations, remains answerable, and retains some power to act accordingly.  

 

From an REBT perspective, personal agency essentially infers that people perceive themselves as the source of their own behavior and are empowered to alter undesirable consequences which follow irrational beliefs. In this way, personal ownership and agency function in unison.

 

Nothing I’ve said thus far excludes women from obligations, answerability, or power to impact elements of their lives. Even though I maintain that males and females aren’t exactly equal – in composition, socially, politically, economically, legally, etc. – women have personal agency.

 

For the relatively brief time when I self-identified as a feminist, I encountered many other feminists who apparently didn’t believe that women had personal agency. They also ostensibly argued against feminine personal ownership. Using a syllogism, such irrationality is as follows:

 

Form (hypothetical) –

If p, then q; if q, then r; therefore, if p, then r.

 

Example –

If feminism represents belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests, then feminism doesn’t represent equality.

 

If feminism doesn’t represent equality, then feminism advocates special privileges, liberties, rights, and freedoms for women.

 

Therefore, if feminism represents belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests, then feminism advocates special privileges, liberties, rights, and freedoms for women.

 

The feminine supremacist ideology with heavy focus on gynocentrism that is feminism was presented to me as a movement for equality. However, it’s illogical and unreasonable to maintain such a proposition when considering the aforementioned syllogism. Now consider the following:

 

Form (composition) –

If p, then q; and if p, then r; therefore, if p is true, then q and r are true.

 

Example –

If women have personal agency, then feminists can stop making excuses for poor behavior exhibited by women.

 

And if women have personal agency, then sentencing disparities regarding crimes committed by men and woman recommendatorily should be balanced.

 

Therefore, if it’s true that women have personal agency, then it’s true that feminists can stop making excuses for poor behavior exhibited by women and sentencing disparities regarding crimes committed by men and woman recommendatorily should be balanced.

 

The second syllogism is rational and, in my opinion, refutes the proposition that feminism regards equality. Noteworthy, REBT is a scientific approach to mental, emotional, and behavioral health. In specific, it uses the scientific method to test hypotheses.

 

As an example, and in consideration of the second syllogism, I suspect that a 31-year-old female educator in Indiana who’s been accused of sexually assaulting underage students likely won’t receive a comparable period of incarceration to males if she’s found guilty. Per one source:

 

A married teacher with a stripper pole in her home blamed her weight loss for claims she’d raped up to 10 underage boys […] who apparently told police that she regrets the day she lost 150 pounds because if she was still heavier she would not have run into any issues.

 

Ostensibly blaming one’s weight loss on allegedly sexually-assaultive and rapacious behavior is the antithesis of personal agency. Without accepting personal ownership for one’s behavior, does weight loss also cause a woman to allegedly ply children with substances? Per another source:

 

The grandmother [who reported the matter] also claims that [the educator] gave the [15-year-old] minor drugs, per the court documents. She further alleged that [the educator] told the boy that if they told someone she would kill herself.

 

The detective later spoke with the minor who claimed that the suspect added him on Snapchat. The male minor alleged that [the educator] molested him multiple times, took him on an out-of-town trip, and took showers together. The student estimates that at least five and as many as 10 children have been victimized by her attacks.

 

Aside from allegedly supplying children with drugs, does 150 pounds of weight loss cause a woman to ostensibly manipulate children into sexual relationships through use of suicidal threats? Or is it perhaps possible that women have personal agency regarding their behavior?

 

Bear in mind that anyone referenced herein is presumed innocent until or unless proven guilty by applicable legal standards. Therefore, the testing of my hypothesis is contingent upon a guilty verdict—of which there currently is none. Thus, this post may be worth revisiting in the future.

 

Ultimately, the proposition outlined herein remains unchanged. I propose that in the interest of equality – if nothing other than for legal consideration – women have personal agency. If you bigotedly disagree, I unconditionally accept this possibility.

 

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

 

As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

 

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

 

 

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW


 

References:

 

Hollings, D. (2024, May 24). A scientific approach to mental health. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/a-scientific-approach-to-mental-health

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Sexton, B. (2025, February 25). Shocking excuse of female teacher with stripper pole ‘who dreamt of sex with boys then raped 10 of them’. Daily Mail. Retrieved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14435277/Married-female-teacher-stripper-pole-home-dreamed-sex-students-raped-10-boys.html

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