What is meant by the dictates of personal responsibility?

This post in the blog series Chat with GPT is about the expression “dictates of personal responsibility” and why it is appearing more and more frequently in current discussions about mental health, work, and health. ChatGPT explains where the term comes from, how it differs from meaningful personal responsibility, and what it reveals about our society today. The text invites us to critically question the widespread notion that “everyone is to blame for themselves” without fundamentally questioning personal responsibility.

Disclaimer

In my blog series “Chat with GPT”, I ask ChatGPT on a variety of topics, from world politics to everyday issues, to get concise summaries and answers. The answers provided by ChatGPT are generated from large datasets, which may include biases, for example from Western perspectives. While the model strives for accuracy, it can sometimes produce incorrect or misleading information. I do not take responsibility for the validity of the content. Though I aim to ensure that the answers reflect common sense, I encourage you to cross-check facts and verify information through trusted sources. You are also welcome to reach out to me with suggestions for improvement.

ChatGPT’s answer

Where does the expression come from?

The term became known in German-speaking debate primarily through the psychotherapist Thorsten Padberg. In an interview about ADHD, depression, and the increase in mental health diagnoses, he describes how diagnoses can also have a relieving function. They make it clear that not everything that burdens people is simply a question of discipline or inner attitude. In this context, Padberg says that diagnoses can help people escape the dictates of personal responsibility. What he means by this is the experience that many problems today are very quickly interpreted as personal tasks and personal faults.

What is meant by the dictates of personal responsibility

It is important to distinguish between personal responsibility and dictates. Personal responsibility means that people have room for maneuver, make decisions, and take responsibility for their actions. This idea is central to self-determination and emancipation.

The dictates of personal responsibility, on the other hand, are about social and cultural pressure. The message here is that almost everything a person experiences is primarily their own business. Success and failure, health and illness, stability and excessive demands are explained primarily in individual terms. Those who are successful are considered hard-working, intelligent, or disciplined. According to this logic, those who do not keep up have not tried hard enough or have made the wrong decisions.

In the world of work, this manifests itself in unemployment or precarious employment conditions. Those affected are told that they need to improve their job applications, be more flexible, and broaden their horizons. Structural factors such as the economic situation, regional differences, discrimination, or a lack of childcare fade into the background. Social conditions become an individual problem that each person must solve for themselves.

A similar mechanism can be found in the field of health. There are many offerings related to nutrition, sleep, mindfulness, exercise, and self-organization. In itself, it makes sense for people to take care of their health. The problem arises when illness, exhaustion, or burnout are viewed almost exclusively as the result of individual mistakes. Those who live in permanently stressful situations are then mainly given advice on resilience and routines, while questions about work intensity, staff shortages, or insecure contracts are less prominent.

This criticism is particularly evident in the case of mental illness. Padberg describes how diagnoses such as ADHD or depression were often perceived as stigmatizing in the past, but are now sometimes sought after because they provide relief. They show that there are disorders and illnesses that cannot simply be remedied with willpower, productivity tricks, or a few lifestyle changes. The dictate of personal responsibility here refers to the pressure to treat even mental suffering as if it were completely controllable by the individual. People then feel not only sick or overwhelmed, but also guilty because they believe they should be able to cope with it on their own.

What this says about our society today

The concept refers to fundamental trends in modern, strongly market-oriented societies. Since the 1980s, an image of people as independent actors in a competitive environment has become widespread in many Western countries. Success is highly individualized. Those who succeed are seen as role models. Those who fail have not taken advantage of opportunities or have made the wrong decisions. Political, economic, and institutional conditions tend to be ignored in this perspective.

This trend is also clearly evident in the culture of self-optimization. Numerous digital tools and media formats support and fuel the idea that one’s own life can be comprehensively controlled and improved. Pedometers, sleep tracking, and productivity apps provide key figures that can be used for guidance. Social media is often dominated by images of controlled, successful, and balanced lives. On the one hand, this creates motivation, but on the other, it also creates a lot of pressure. Chance, bad luck, inequality, and structural obstacles are rarely taken into account. Those who cannot keep up easily experience their situation as a personal failure.

Socially, this strong focus on personal responsibility is by no means coincidental. When problems are declared to be individual responsibilities, the pressure to respond politically or institutionally decreases. Questions of distributive justice, working conditions, health care systems, or education policy take a back seat when the main message is that each person must work primarily on themselves. Concepts such as solidarity, social security, or shared responsibility lose their significance. In such a climate, seeking support or pointing out structural problems can quickly take on the connotation of personal weakness.

This creates tension. On the one hand, modern societies emphasize autonomy and self-determination. On the other hand, there is a growing risk that people with complex or chronic problems will feel doubly burdened: by their situation and by the unspoken expectation that they should basically solve it on their own.

Conclusion

The dictates of personal responsibility do not mean rejecting individual responsibility, but rather the exaggeration of an inherently important value. Personal responsibility remains a key prerequisite for people to be able to actively shape their own lives. It only becomes problematic when it is made so absolute that collective, political, and structural dimensions are lost sight of.

A balanced approach takes both seriously. People are responsible for their actions and decisions, but at the same time they live in circumstances that they cannot freely choose and cannot change on their own. Thorsten Padberg’s reference to the dictates of personal responsibility raises awareness of where a sensible appeal for self-determination becomes overwhelming pressure. A constructive approach to the issue begins where social and individual responsibility are not played off against each other, but are considered together.