Does Humankind Have Choices?

I was reading the first few paragraphs of an article at New Scientist that makes the statement, "Psychologists and psychiatrists persist in treating us as if we were helpless victims of our biochemistry." The author even brought God into the argument (which I thought was a positive and open-minded approach). But it does get you to thinking....

Is there any social choice or defect of character that "science" has not shown to be totally out of our hands to control... and there's nothing we can do so except it and get over it!

That sort of thinking intimates that free-will is a non-factor. Free-will must be something someone dreamt up a long time ago to pacify a larger audience and it took hold. I could agree that each person is made up of a unique combination of DNA, cells, and so on. That means in all of us there are more of some things and less of others. Each combination contributes to how we deal with who we become. I do not think that "becoming" is an end destination but an ongoing process that ends only when we die.

In the history of mankind there have been billions of people who've overcome "defects of character", who've regained social acceptance through their own efforts, who are recovered addicts or have turned their life to entirely new directions.

I think some people are fortunate to have in themselves and in the people around them the tools to exercise their free-will to accomplish something wonderful. I also think others are less fortunate because they choose to use self-pity, self-persecution, narcassistic behaviors and manipulation as their tools to make everyone else change around them. That's not free-will, it's "my-will".