Constructivist · 2005
Theory of Moral Development
Psychotherapy promotes autonomy when it helps the person reorganise their criteria for living, moving from dependence, impulsivity or obedience towards responsible authorship.
Manuel Villegas Besora's Theory of Moral Development is a psychotherapeutic and psychopathological framework that understands human suffering through the progressive construction of the moral dimension of the psyche. Its central thesis is that human psychological life is shaped by the need to regulate behaviour according to criteria: biological, impulsive, normative, relational or autonomous criteria. Moral development is not limited to learning social norms or reasoning about ethical dilemmas; rather, it describes how a person comes to organise their freedom, responsibility, desires, bonds and decisions. From this perspective, psychopathology appears when moral regulation becomes fixed, blocked or split at immature or conflicting levels: prenomy, anomy, heteronomy or socionomy. Psychotherapy is therefore conceived as a process of reconstructing psychological autonomy: helping the patient move from a life determined by impulses, external mandates, emotional dependence, guilt, fear or invisible loyalties towards constructing a position of their own, capable of integrating need, desire, bonds, limits, responsibility and a life project. The model is especially relevant for understanding disorders involving emotional dependence, couple conflict, guilt, submission, narcissism, irresponsibility, existential dilemmas, identity crises and difficulties in assuming personal freedom. The full formulation distinguishes a developmental dimension—the successive construction of prenomic, anomic, heteronomous and socionomic systems—and a structural dimension—the way these systems coexist, come into tension, disaggregate or become integrated in adult life. Autonomy acts as a synthetic function and personal criterion, not as the suppression of needs, desires, norms or bonds, but as the capacity to coordinate them in one's own contextualised and responsible decisions. The therapeutic method combines reception, alliance and analysis of the request for help with exploration of the biographical and relational context, narrative and emotional expression, hermeneutic understanding of discourse, analogical resources and a resolution phase aimed at integrating the subsystems of moral regulation. Later works apply this architecture to depression, phobias, obsession, emotional dependence, eating disorders, forms of narcissism, the regulation of anger and guilt, and couple conflicts, retaining the recovery of spontaneity, self-possession and self-determination as a cross-cutting criterion.
Theory of change
Therapeutic change occurs when the person can recognise the criteria by which they are living and reorganise those criteria towards more integrated psychological autonomy. The process culminates when needs, desires, norms and bonds can be coordinated under a personal criterion that makes the patient an agent of their decisions.
Core ideas
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Psychopathology can be understood as a difficulty in constructing autonomy
Manuel Villegas's Theory of Moral Development places psychological autonomy at the centre of maturation and clinical work: many symptoms express not only cognitive distortions, behavioural deficits or isolated emotional conflicts, but forms of self-regulation that still depend excessively on need, impulse, external norms or relational approval. Psychopathology appears when the person cannot become the author of their life because they remain fixed at earlier moral levels or caught in conflicts among desire, duty, bond and responsibility. This reading makes it possible to understand problems such as emotional dependence, chronic guilt, submission, impulsivity, narcissism or decisional paralysis as failures of autonomy rather than mere symptoms. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2005, *Psicopatología y psicoterapia del desarrollo moral*; Villegas i Besora, M. 2008, *Psicopatología y Psicoterapia del Desarrollo Moral*).
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The moral dimension in psychotherapy is not moralism
In this model, the moral dimension does not mean judging the patient according to external norms or deciding which conduct is good or bad, but analysing the criteria from which they regulate their existence. The moral dimension denotes the psychological architecture of freedom: how the person authorises and blames themselves, imposes obligations on themselves, desires, cares, forms bonds, repairs, decides and assumes consequences. This distinction is crucial because it allows guilt, responsibility, boundaries and decisions to be addressed clinically without turning therapy into a normative authority. The therapist does not moralise; they help the patient become conscious of their system of criteria and construct a more autonomous position. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2014, *Origen, construcción y desarrollo de la dimensión moral en el psiquismo humano*; Villegas, M. 2019, *Ética y desarrollo moral*).
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Moral development organises levels of self-regulation
Villegas proposes a sequence of moral levels describing modes of psychological regulation: prenomy, centred on need and primary dependence; anomy, centred on impulse and the absence of an internalised norm; heteronomy, centred on obedience to external mandates; socionomy, centred on approval, bonds and belonging; and autonomy, centred on responsible authorship. These levels are not merely chronological stages but structural ways of organising experience, conduct and identity. Clinically, an adult may function autonomously in some areas and be captured by earlier levels in others, especially under emotional stress or moral conflict. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2005, *Psicopatología y psicoterapia del desarrollo moral*; Villegas, M. & Mallor, P. 2011, *Aplicación didáctica del modelo del desarrollo moral*).
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Prenomy expresses regulation through need
Prenomy refers to a psychological organisation preceding the full internalisation of norms, in which basic needs for care, protection, support and safety predominate. Its adult clinical presence appears when the person experiences a bond as a condition for emotional survival, demands absolute availability from another person or feels incapable of tolerating frustration, separation or waiting. Therapeutic work does not consist in denying need, but in recognising and differentiating it and helping integrate it within an adult self. Mature autonomy does not eliminate vulnerability; it places it within an organisation capable of asking, waiting, tolerating limits and caring for itself. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2008, *Psicopatología y Psicoterapia del Desarrollo Moral*; Villegas, M. 2013, *Prometeo en el diván*).
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Anomy expresses regulation through impulse
Anomy describes a form of organisation in which conduct is governed by immediate desire, discharge, transgression or the absence of stable internal criteria. Clinically, it manifests as difficulty recognising limits, assuming consequences, repairing harm or considering another person as a subject. This level may appear in narcissistic, impulsive, irresponsible forms or in avoidance of commitment. The intervention does not seek to replace anomy with external obedience, but to transform impulse into recognised desire and desire into responsible choice. Autonomy entails being able to desire without overwhelming others and to act without disregarding consequences. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2005, *Psicopatología y psicoterapia del desarrollo moral*; Villegas i Besora, M. 2014, *Origen, construcción y desarrollo de la dimensión moral en el psiquismo humano*).
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Heteronomy expresses regulation through external mandates
Heteronomy organises psychological life around internalised norms, duties, prohibitions, ideals or authorities that dictate what the person should be, feel or do. It may produce social adaptation, but when rigid it generates guilt, self-demand, inhibition, fear of making mistakes, obedience and submission. The heteronomous patient may appear responsible, but their responsibility is captured by the other's gaze, anticipated punishment or internalised obligation. Therapy seeks to differentiate imposed duty from chosen value, punitive guilt from actual responsibility, and obedience from autonomous commitment. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2008, *Psicopatología y Psicoterapia del Desarrollo Moral*; Villegas, M. 2019, *Ética y desarrollo moral*).
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Socionomy expresses regulation through the bond
Socionomy represents an advance beyond pure external obedience because it introduces reciprocity, interpersonal sensitivity and care for others, but becomes problematic when approval, love or belonging becomes the principal criterion of identity. At this level, the person may abandon their needs, boundaries and desires to preserve the bond or avoid abandonment. Emotional dependence is a paradigmatic clinical expression of this socionomic capture: the self is organised around another person until it loses authorship. The intervention seeks to preserve the capacity to love and care while reorganising it from a position of one's own. (Villegas, M. & Mallor, P. 2011, *Aplicación didáctica del modelo del desarrollo moral*; Villegas, M. 2013, *Prometeo en el diván*).
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Autonomy integrates need, desire, norm and bond
Autonomy does not consist in self-sufficient independence, rebellion against every norm or withdrawal from bonds. In Villegas's theory, autonomy is a higher organisation capable of integrating earlier dimensions without being dominated by them: it recognises needs without becoming infantilised, welcomes desires without impulsivity, respects norms without submitting and cares for bonds without self-abandonment. This idea is essential because it avoids confusing autonomy with defensive individualism. Mature autonomy is relational and responsible: it enables decisions according to personal judgement while considering the other person, consequences and personal values. (Villegas, M. 2018, *La teoría del desarrollo moral en el marco del análisis existencial*; Villegas, M. 2019, *Ética y desarrollo moral*).
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Guilt must be transformed into responsibility
Guilt occupies a central place in moral-development psychotherapy because it may function as an ethical signal, a heteronomous mandate, a socionomic fear of losing love or internalised punishment. The clinical aim is not to eliminate all guilt, but to discriminate its origin and function: some forms of guilt orient towards reparation, while others maintain submission, inhibition or infinite debt. Autonomous responsibility appears when the person can acknowledge their part, repair what can be repaired, accept limits and stop paying through self-punishment for what is not theirs. Therapy thus transforms paralysing guilt into concrete authorship. (Villegas i Besora, M. 2008, *Psicopatología y Psicoterapia del Desarrollo Moral*; Villegas, M. 2019, *Ética y desarrollo moral*).
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Moral conflict is a conflict in the organisation of the self
Moral conflicts relevant to psychotherapy are not simple rational debates about the best course of action; they are structural tensions among parts of the self, bonds, mandates, desires, fears and values. A patient may want to separate and simultaneously feel guilty, desire freedom and fear abandonment, care for another person and resent their own self-abandonment, obey a mandate and feel they are betraying their life. The clinical task is to make these poles explicit, process the emotions involved and construct an integrating position that is neither submission, impulsivity nor false compromise. A well-worked moral conflict becomes a path towards maturation of the self. (Villegas, M. 2013, *Prometeo en el diván*; Villegas, M. 2018, *La teoría del desarrollo moral en el marco del análisis existencial*).
Influences
- Constructivism
- Phenomenology / Existentialism
- Hermeneutics
- Systemic approaches / Cybernetics
- Jean Piaget's genetic psychology
- Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development
- Carol Gilligan's ethics of care
- Existential analysis
- Social-cognitive psychotherapy
- Person-centred therapy
- Personal Construct Theory (PCT)
- Humanistic psychology
Key references
- Villegas i Besora, M. (2005). Psicopatología y psicoterapia del desarrollo moral. Revista de Psicoterapia, 16(63/64), 59–132.
- Villegas i Besora, M. (2008). Psicopatología y psicoterapia del desarrollo moral. Apuntes de Psicología, 26(2), 199–228.
- Villegas, M., & Mallor, P. (2011). Aplicación didáctica del modelo del desarrollo moral. Revista de Psicoterapia, 22(88).
- Villegas Besora, M. (2011/2013). El error de Prometeo: Psico(pato)logía del desarrollo moral. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-3163-0.
- Villegas Besora, M. (2013). Prometeo en el diván: Psicoterapia del desarrollo moral. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-3235-4.
- Villegas, M. (2015). El proceso de convertirse en persona autónoma. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-3452-5.
- Villegas, M., & Mallor, P. (2017). Parejas a la carta: Las relaciones amorosas en la sociedad posmoderna. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-3941-4.
- Villegas Besora, M. (2018). Psicología de los siete pecados capitales. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-4135-6.
- Villegas Besora, M. (2014). Origen, construcción y desarrollo de la dimensión moral en el psiquismo humano. Revista de Psicoterapia, 25(98).
- Villegas, M. (2018). La teoría del desarrollo moral en el marco del análisis existencial. Revista de Psicoterapia, 29(109).
- Villegas, M. (2019). Ética y desarrollo moral. Revista de Psicoterapia, 30(113), 3–50.
- Villegas, M. (2020). La mente emocional. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-4545-3.
- Villegas, M. (2022). Atrapados en el espejo: El narcisismo y sus modalidades. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-4933-8.
- Villegas, M. (2024). Atrapados en la mente: Las obsesiones. Barcelona: Herder. ISBN 978-84-254-5122-5.