Stoic News

By Dave Kelly

Monday, May 30, 2022

Stoicism is not Therapy, but Training (Part 3)

 This email message from Grant Sterling to the International Stoic Forum is the third of a three part discussion he had with Jules Evans.


At 05:47 PM 2/25/2008, Stoic Stoic wrote:


>this would be a pity, because the core stoic

>insight - that our suffering often comes from

>our own thoughts and beliefs rather than from

>externals - is much easier to accept for most

>people. its much more practically useful.

>stoicism has survived because of that insight,

>not because of the more radical idea that the

>only real source of happiness is inner virtue.


Slow down. The belief that our suffering comes from our own

thoughts and not from externals is equivalent to the belief

that externals are neither good not evil. If externals were

genuine goods or evils, then our perception of a genuine evil

would cause suffering, as would the loss or absence of a genuine

good. So you cannot coherently believe that our suffering

never comes from externals without holding that externals

are neither good not evil.

Now, as I said, you can phrase this doctrine in whatever

way will help the other person learn it. You don't have to use the

_words_ "good" or "evil". But that's the doctrine.

It would be a shame to teach someone that externals have

no value [in whatever way you wish to phrase it] and not teach them

that Virtue _does_ have value. It would be odd to teach them that

suffering comes from our thoughts and beliefs and not from externals,

and not teach them that _happiness_ comes from having the proper

thoughts and beliefs. I see no reason why this "more radical idea"

would be hard to swallow for anyone who swallowed the "core

insight". Why would that be?



>and the techniques of stoicism - training

>oneself to stay mindful, to stay in the moment,

>to keep thought journals, to challenge negative

>thoughts etc - are also much more generally

>accessible and applicable than the more radical

>idea that the only source of happiness is inner virtue.


Train oneself to stay mindful _of what_? To keep thought journals

_about what_? All these techniques, it seems to me, either reflect the

underlying Stoic doctrine [we are to challange negative thoughts _because_

negative thoughts are based on the false belief that externals have value],

or else they are in no way distinctively _Stoic_ techniques [many other

philosophical systems recommend that you stay mindful of something, etc.]


>stoicism can actually help people to achieve

>their external goals. they decide they would

>like to overcome their shyness with the opposite

>sex and try to meet a nice girl or boy, for example.


That's great. I do not deny that Stoic techniques can

make people happier.


>the 'pure' stoic therapy would be to tell them

>that a girlfriend or a boyfriend is an

>indifferent, it's not a source of real

>happiness, so they should rather spend their

>time trying to accept the will of the Logos. so

>they accept the will of the Logos and don't change their situation.


This is false. This is a misunderstanding of the nature of

goodness that results from not understanding the doctrine of

preferred indifferents. Pure Stoic therapy would tell them no such

thing. [Although it _would_ tell them to accept the will of Logos

if they try to meet someone _and fail_...but you'd better be teaching

them that, or else your method won't be relieving their suffering at all.]


>but a more practical form of stoic therapy would

>treat the attempt to get a girlfriend /

>boyfriend as a stoic exercise, as a way to

>challenge one's shyness and conquer one's fear,

>which achieves the stoic goal of conquering fear

>and getting closer to a state of inner balance,

>as well as, hopefully, the practical goal of

>getting one to be more calm and confident with

>the opposite sex, so that you do actually find a nice girlfriend or boyfriend.


I have no trouble with this.


>this more practical form of stoic therapy is

>what CBT, REBT and positive psychology has

>incorporated. because it has retained the core

>insight of stoicism (thoughts often cause

>suffering) without the more radical claims (only

>source of happiness is virtue) it has gained

>great acceptance with the medical community,

>with governments, and with ordinary people.


The success it has had is the result of incorporating

Stoic _doctrine_. I see no reason to suppose that it

would have less success or popularity if it incorporated _more_

Stoic doctrine. :)

[This is no different from the way in which Freudian

psychotherapy is based on Freudian _doctrines_ about

the nature of the unconscious, repression, etc. The only

difference is that Freudian psychotherapy doesn't work,

because they underlying doctrines are false.]


>The waiting lists of people trying to get CBT in

>the UK are still huge - you have to wait at

>least six weeks in many places. But the

>government has now put in £400m to train more

>therapists and get waiting lists shorter.

>

>There are six million people with depression in

>the UK, and about 4 million with anxiety

>disorders. you can't wait for them all to accept

>that the only source of happiness is inner

>virtue. if they don't, i still believe stoic

>ideas and techniques can help them.


Indeed, it can help them because they will then be "making

progress", by adopting the first and most basic Stoic principles

and working upwards. More power to them. I have no objection

whatsoever to the expansion of Stoic-based psychological programs.


>All the best,

>

>Julian


Regards,

Grant

Stoicism is not Therapy, but Training (Part 2)

 This email message from Grant Sterling to the International Stoic Forum is the second of a three part discussion he had with Jules Evans.


At 12:07 PM 2/25/2008, Stoic Stoic wrote:

>Well, I don't agree with you, Grant. Im not saying that you havent

>done useful and helpful work with others, but I dont agree that to

>get the benefit from Stoic techniques and ideas, you must accept all

>of Stoic theory.


I never said that. I said you must accept the core Stoic

beliefs.


>Imagine you went to the doctor with a terrible fever and they said

>'now, before i can treat you, ill need you to accept in entirety all

>of my theories'!


If the fever was _caused by_ false medical beliefs, that's

exactly what I'd expect him to say. [Leaving out the "in

entirely all" part.]


>imagine if buddhists said, 'before you come in and learn this

>meditation technique, you must accept all buddhist doctrine and metaphysics'.


Again, Buddhists do not hold the same view as Stoics

with regard to the origin of the ills meditation is meant to deal

with.


>In fact, millions of people have been greatly helped by learning the

>basic insight of Stoicism - that much of our suffering comes from

>our interpretation of external events, rather than the events themselves.


Specifically, that the events themselves are never worth

suffering over. yes, I quite agree. That is why the only doctrines

I claimed most be accepted to derive benefits from Stoicism are

the ones connected with this concept. Please re-read my post.


>People can grasp that quite quickly, and take a leap forward in

>terms of how they view the world and their own minds.


I quite agree. I never said otherwise. But what you're saying

is that to derive the benefits of Stoicism, what is needed is that the

person come to _believe_ the core principle of Stoic thought...which

is what I thought I was saying in my post. :) Stoic therapy does

not work without this belief.


>of course you can use stoic techniques (thought journals, staying in

>the moment, visualizations, thought analyzing and

>challenging) without accepting all of stoic metaphysics.


I never said otherwise. But you cannot use these techniques

(or, at any rate, there won't be anything remotely _Stoic_ about

your use of these techniques) if you don't accept the core

principles of Stoicism.


>i have experienced this myself - i dont sign up to all of stoic

>metaphysics, i dont believe in a Stoic Logos, i dont think all good

>is equally good and all bad is equally bad, i dont believe in the

>dignity of suicide, and various other stoic dogma.


I, too, do not believe everything the ancient Stoics believed.


>nonetheless, i used stoic techniques to overcome social anxiety, by

>focusing on how my own thoughts caused my anxiety, rather than the

>people around me; and then learning to control those thoughts.


That's great. But, as you say, that is a direct and simple

application of a basic part of the Stoic belief system. Unlike

the doctor's fever medicine, or even the Buddhist's meditation

techniques, this method _does not work_ unless you believe the

principle upon which it is based. If you believe that our desires

and emotions are casued by external events, or that they are not in

our control, or that the external events are truly evil and so the

anxiety is justified...then you can't relieve the anxiety "Stoically".


>yes, modern psychotherapy is parasitic of stoicism, just as stoicism

>is parasitic of cynicism and platonism.


The relationship is not the same.


>thank god psychotherapy has taken parts of stoicism and put them to

>use in the real world. if they hadn't, all those millions of people

>wouldn't have got past the door, because they don't understand

>eupatheia or they don't accept that virtue is the only good...


So do they believe that external things are truly good, thereby

having desires for them, thereby becoming distressed when things

don't go exactly as they desire them to go? If so, then the

psychotherapy isn't helping them much. It would have been better

if they'd learned philosophy instead.


>As to stoicism only working as an immunization rather than a cure,

>there are literally millions of modern examples which disprove that,

>millions of examples where people have used stoic techniques to

>overcome emotional disorders which they are already in the grip of.


Not without chaning their beliefs, they didn't.


>and in the ancient world, cicero used stoic teachings to get over

>his breakdown when his daughter died. if he had fully accepted stoic

>teachings before she died, he wouldnt have had a breakdown. but he

>still found stoicism very helpful to get over his bereavement.

>

>stoicism is a therapy - its a cure. if we werent sick in the first

>place, we wouldnt need the cure.


We are sick in the sense that we have an underlying condition that

breaks out in incidents of distress. No real cure for the distress exists that

doesn't address the underlying condition.


>All the best,

>

>Julian


Regards,

Grant



Stoicism not Therapy, but Training (Part 3)


Stoicism is not Therapy, but Training (Part 1)

 This email message from Grant Sterling to the International Stoic Forum is the first of a three part discussion he had with Jules Evans. 


A useful exercise londonstoic 


At 03:12 AM 2/25/2008, Stoic Stoic wrote:

>OK...but I still think there's a question of how to open up

>Stoicism, so that it isn't merely a specialist conversation among

>academics, but is something that helps ordinary people with their problems.

>

>I think this forum could (and occasionally does) help give people an

>idea of how Stoicism can help with their emotional suffering, in

>practical examples, like Seneca's practical advice on dealing with

>rage, or Cicero's on bereavement, or Marcus Aurelius' on worrying

>about fame, etc

>

>This is why Stoicism is so enduringly popular - because of its

>practical and concrete applications to real emotional problems.

>

>Thanks for the heads up on the book, I will give it a read.

>

>All the best,

>

>Julian


As one of the professional philosophers on this List, and someone

who has often engaged on this list in highly technical discussions, I

thought I should say something on this topic.

My position, which I am sure is unpopular, is that it is _impossible_

to give people an idea of "how Stoicism can help their emotional sauffering"

without having a clear grasp on what Stoicism _is_.

Suppose my neighbor has lost a loved one. What does Epictetus

advise? Simply that I console him and pretend to grieve with him. In a

situation like that, it is highly unlikely that Stoicism [or, I

think, virtually

any other belief system or therapeutic method] will be able to do much

for him.

I didn't say that Stoicism is helpless to deal with such grief. It

is not. The problem is that the Stoic medicine has to be administered

before the shock. Stoicism functions as an immunization, not as a

cure. Let me have a chance to convince my neighbor of the truth of

Stoic doctrine long before the loved one dies, and he will feel no debilitating

grief when it occurs--or, at least, he will be in a position where he can

feel no grief, and where I can help him by reminding him of the Stoic

truths he has embraced.

So what would this Stoic immunization therapy look like? It

will and must take the form of nothing other than convincing him of

the truth of the core doctrines of Stoicism. If I can convince him that

things not in our control are neither good nor evil, and that Virtue is

the only Good and source of happiness, then he will be able to have a better

life. But if he does not make these beliefs part of his belief system,

Stoicism can do little or nothing to help him with his distress _from the

outside_. That's why I disagreed with Malcolm's claim that a modern

day Stoic would be a psychologist and not a philosopher--all psychological

benefits that Stoicism conveys can come only to those who believe

Stoic principles. [The psychological systems that most resemble

Stoicism do precisely this--they teach some basic Stoic _doctrines_,

sometimes with direct quotes from Stoic philosophers.] The psychology is

parasitic on the philosophy.

Now of course I need not convince him of these things using

Stoic technical terminology. But such terminology is helpful on

this List in allowing us to say things quickly and precisely. But

if I begin to discuss Stoic thought with my neighbor, I will bet [given

my experiences doing this sort of thing with friends and students]

that he will ask questions like "but doesn't this mean that I'd have to

be an emotional zombie?" and "doesn't this mean that I'd never eat

or doing anything else, since it wouldn't be good or evil to do so?",

etc. If he is persuaded of these things, he will never believe in

the principles of Stoicism, and will never rid himself of desires for

external things, and will therefore continue to suffer distress. How

can I answer such questions? By understanding the doctrine of

eupatheia, and the doctrine of preferred indifferents. Again, I need

not use that terminology with my neighbor, but I will have to explain

those ideas if I wish to convince him that Stoicism is not absurd.

"But", he will object, "I cannot change my desires." So I will have

to explain to him [in whatever words I choose] the Stoic doctrine that

desires follow from beliefs about value, that such beliefs are in our control,

that I can refuse to assent to impressions that I have been harmed,

etc.

So, speaking for myself, all my successes at making other

peoples' lives better through Stoicism have come from convincing them

of the truth of Stoic ideas...in other words, by engaging in exactly the

kind of conversations we have on this List. While [e.g.] Epictetus talks

a great deal about dealing with distressing circumstances, in every

case that I can think of off the top of my head his comments are

addressed _to someone who already accepts Stoic doctrine_. He

offers little or nothing in the way or advice as to how to deal with the

suffering _of someone who does not know and accept Stoic ideas

already_. Indeed, I don't think he _can_ say anything about that,

because at the bottom Stoicism says that distress comes from

false beliefs about the world, and the distress will not go away while

the false beliefs remain. If your problem is dealing with the suffering

of someone who is not able to rationally consider these fundamental

truths, then Stoicism has nothing to offer you--look elsewhere for

that advice. But even then, if Stoicism is true [and I think it is], you

will look elsewhere in vain--unless the sufferer changes his beliefs

about being harmed, he will continue to suffer.

Now I am not very good at offering general advice to people

who already have Stoic beliefs but fail to follow them in some

area or other. So if that's what you want--advice on dealing with

anger for someone who is convinced that Stoicism is true but

still gets upset--then of course it will be fine for people on this List

to offer whatever suggestions they may [or to cite suggestions

from the ancients on such matters, some examples of which you

gave in this post]. But I claim no special expertise in such matters,

and in any case as I said such advice comes only after the person

has come to believe that Stoicism is true--and whatever small

contributions _I_ might be able to make to Stoicism will have to

come in that area--"Stoic Apologetics", if you will.



Regards,

Grant



Stoicism is not Therapy, but Training (Part 2)