--Epictetus
By Wayne Froggatt
https://www.scribd.com/document/21415924/Brief-Intro-to-CBT
1. learning how to recognize habitual emotional response patterns, then
2. learning to interrupt them when they interfere with concentration on important parts of the moment and
3. slowly develop long-term replacement thinking habits which don’t cause such distracting arousal?
Many critics incorrectly believe that by learning to control emotional habits the learning process causes one to censor important aspects of life, but in reality uncontrolled emotional habits might cause one to more easily lose their life.
--Epictetus
When you make the decision to seek counseling or therapy, you are in part making the decision to consult an applied philosopher — your therapist just may not know it! Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most well-known treatment models for anxiety, depression, and substance abuse — you’d be hard-pressed to find a psychotherapist who does not use any aspect of CBT in his or her practice. But CBT is also deeply indebted to the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece.
Ellis, Albert; Debbie Joffe Ellis (2011). Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. American Psychological Association.
Epictetus; Long, George (trans.) Enchiridion. New York: A. L. Burt, 1955 (reprint: New York: Dover, 2004)
Robertson, Donald. (2010). The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. Karnac Books.
Stoicism and CBT: Is Therapy a Philosophical Pursuit?
https://www.vacounseling.com/stoicism-cbt/
Stoicism Ellis & Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
http://philosophy-of-cbt.com/the-philosophy-of-cognitive-behavioural-therapy/
Chapter Summaries
Abstract
While few soldiers may have read the works of Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, it is undoubtedly true that the ancient philosophy known as Stoicism guides the actions of many in the military. Soldiers and seamen learn early in their training “to suck it up,” to endure, to put aside their feelings and to get on with the mission. This book explores what the Stoic philosophy actually is, the role it plays in the character of the military (both ancient and modern), and its powerful value as a philosophy of life. Marshaling anecdotes from military history—ranging from ancient Greek wars to World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq—the book illuminates the military mind and uses it as a window on the virtues of the Stoic philosophy, which are far richer and more interesting than our popularized notions. The book explores the deep, lasting value that Stoicism can yield, in issues of military leadership and character; in the Stoic conception of anger and its control (does a warrior need anger to go to battle?); and in Stoic thinking about fear and resilience, grief and mourning, and the value of camaraderie and brotherhood. The book concludes by recommending a moderate Stoicism, where the task for the individual, both civilian and military, youth and adult, is to temper control with forgiveness, and warrior drive and achievement with humility and humor.
Chapter 1; A Brave New Stoicism
This chapter provides an overview of the philosophy of Stoicism and its influence in the military. The experience of James B. Stockdale is an extreme application of Stoicism. Stockdale, a senior Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam, became a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He credits Epictetus as the key to his survival for seven-and-a-half years of his life in military prison. For Stockdale, prison can offer an extreme experiment in Stoicism. It was there that even the most brute external forces—such as repeated, severe torture—still demanded something of the will and mind, something that could be parlayed into the Stoic category “what belongs to oneself” and “what is within one's power.” On his telling, it was his Epictetan Stoicism that enabled him to regain his dignity if and when he broke in torture.
Chapter 2; Sound Bodies and Sound Minds
This chapter discusses the issue of discipline as it affects the development of both mind and body. It explores whether Stoic teachings about our relationship with our bodies offer sage counsel. Americans have become a culture obsessed with physical fitness and the demands of fashioning a hard, strong body. The stripped-down life of military endurance offers something of a model of discipline and control. The view seems Stoic, but ancient Stoics view bodily health and vigor as “indifferents,” that is, external goods, not valuable in their own right or fully within our control. Stoic doctrines force the questions of how we are to live with the fragility of our bodies, what efforts we are to put into their adornment and sculpture, and what attitudes we are to take when our bodies fail us.
Chapter 3; Manners and Morals
This chapter considers the important role that manners and demeanor play in the cultivation of virtue. It explores the emphasis in military training on things that are “outer”—appearances, decorum, deference rituals, and demeanor. The issue is central to the military and its core belief that training in decorum is an integral part of training character. This chapter also discusses Stoic texts and the insights one can glean from Stoic theory on issues of decorum and emotional demeanor. Cicero, in On Duties, reports a Stoic view that decorum is inextricably woven into the fabric of virtuous character. Seneca, in On Favors argues for the crucial role of emotional demeanor in acts of kindness and gratitude. Both accounts recognize an individual's propensity for emotional expression and the reasonable expectation of it as part of respectful social exchange.
Chapter 4; A Warrior's Anger
This chapter discusses the Stoic conception of anger and the control of anger. It examines the Stoic view that anger is a dangerous emotion that can torment both its possessor and the human beings who are its object. In response to the excesses of anger, the Stoics proposed their own extreme measure: to do away with anger entirely. They proposed an apatheia—a freedom from passions in which there is no frenzy or rage, no annoyance or bitterness, no moral outrage. The recurrent question in ancient texts from Homer to Seneca is whether a warrior needs anger to go to battle or not. Seneca, like many moderns, says no, but then he proceeded to eliminate other, more constructive forms of anger that might be essential to good moral character in general.
Chapter 5; Fear and Resilience
This chapter explores Stoic conceptions of fear and resilience. It assesses the notion of replacing fear with a sage's rational caution, and the cost in terms of acknowledging human vulnerability. Both Seneca and Cicero, in quite different ways, shed light on understanding these fears. This chapter also illustrates some concrete examples of fear in battle and considers both the fear of killing and being killed and the challenge of transitioning from the role of soldier to civilian. Finally, this chapter discusses contemporary notions of war trauma and the insights ancient Stoicism sheds on the nature of resilience in the face of extreme terror and stress.
Chapter 6; Permission to Grieve
This chapter discusses grief and the Stoic notions of mourning and appropriate decorum in grieving. Cicero's candid reflections about the loss of his beloved daughter Tullia in letters, and his developed ideas about a therapy of grief in the Tusculan Disputations, provide some of the most insightful writings on this subject. This chapter argues that the question of how and whether one should grieve is reflected deep in the dialectic of Stoic discourse itself. It begins with several objections Seneca raised to specific forms of grief as well as his own proposals for acceptable forms of grief. It then turns to Cicero's analysis and his recommendations for both the reduction of grief and its cure. Throughout, this chapter generously draws on illustrations from the military as ways of assessing Stoic claims.
Chapter 7; The Downsized Self
This chapter discusses camaraderie, empathy, and respect. It looks at camaraderie as a critical element in combat courage and resilience, and as essential to psychological recovery in the aftermath of war. Here Stoicism is extremely illuminating, with clear lessons about the roles of respect and empathy necessary for building a sense of humanity and global community. This chapter examines many expressions of human fellowship central to the military, from the camaraderie and twinship of war buddies to the therapeutic bond between shell shock patient and psychiatrist, and to notions of ourselves as citizens of the world who share in reason. Diogenes the Cynic's ideal of a cosmopolitan community remains an ideal toward which the international community is only slowly making progress. And yet each of us, civilian, or soldier, as citizen of the world, must do his or her part to realize the ideal.
Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind - Oxford Scholarship
Nancy Sherman, Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind, Oxford University Press, 2005, 256pp, $26.00 (hbk), ISBN 0195152166.
Reviewed by Christopher Toner, Air University
Nancy Sherman notes at the outset that the idea of "being stoic" resonates with military officers, but notes also that there are severe costs to being Stoic in a rigorous, orthodox fashion. Interweaving an investigation of topics in Stoic philosophy with an exploration of "the military mind" and its ways of dealing with the rigors of military life and combat, she argues that a modified or "gentle Stoicism" provides the psychological and moral outlook suitable for the military, and in many ways for the rest of us as well. This view, culled largely from the Roman Stoics, still stresses and seeks to empower autonomous rational agency, while acknowledging human limits and human sociability in ways alien to some of the more rigorous Greek Stoics -- indeed in ways that frequently invoke Aristotle. So much is this the case, in fact, that I will finally ask how Stoic Sherman's warriors will really be: might they instead be, in a phrase no publisher would accept in the title of a book, Peripatetic Warriors?
Before asking this question, of course, I should examine Sherman's treatment of the broadly if pre-philosophically stoic nature of the military mind, and how she thinks it could profit by becoming in some respects more, and in others less, Stoic. As the book is a (successful, I think) attempt to write for at least three audiences -- philosophers, military officers, and a wider morally reflective public -- she begins with an overview of Stoic moral thought (their notions of happiness, self-control and the emotions, choosing goods as contrasted with selecting indifferents) and an introduction to her key sources: Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. She focuses on the Romans because we have their complete texts, and because they took it as their object to present a publicly accessible and practical philosophy. Her broaching the topic of the bearing of Stoic philosophy on military life with the story of Admiral James Stockdale's reliance on Epictetus as a prisoner of war in Vietnam is typical of her approach in this book, and it is effective: Stoicism is not merely a theory, but can powerfully inform a practical outlook on life and can guide and strengthen vulnerable human beings facing extreme hardships and the violent emotions attendant upon them.
The second chapter contrasts current obsessions with physical fitness (taken to dangerous extremes by some body builders) with Stoic indifference to the body -- the body is external to happiness, and is to be regarded as a tool, to be kept in good condition, to be sure, but not valued for its own sake. Here the resonance with a military outlook is clear: physical fitness is a duty because of its role in mission readiness, and further, given the high risks to which the body is subjected, one can see some appeal in regarding it as a preferred indifferent. Yet Sherman pulls back: Drawing on anecdotes of soldiers who have lost limbs or suffered other disfiguring injuries, she argues that while Stoicism has much to offer in service of recovering or at least adapting, we should be prepared to admit, as even the most stoic of the veterans do, that such injuries can indeed affect our happiness and even our sense of identity.
Sherman then turns to the role of decorum in instilling military bearing of the sort that can maintain good order and discipline even in combat conditions, largely defending the military's use of manners to instill morals, if I may so put it. In doing so, Sherman draws on Cicero's notion of decorum being indexed to our roles or personae (noting that this notion usefully allows us to separate the deferential respect due to rank and based on one's professional role, from the dignitary respect due to all and based on our shared, and most fundamental, role as rational agents), and Seneca's account of how decorum and emotional demeanor can help "weave the fabric of community." The decorum insisted upon by the military, focusing on stolid determination, respect and obedience, and camaraderie and friendship between soldiers, can cement the bonds within military units (bonds shown in many studies to be essential to combat effectiveness); the approach to decorum taken by enlightened commanders can be enriched by familiarity with Stoic treatments of the subject. It is in this chapter that we find the most direct and unmixed recommendation of Stoic views; the remaining chapters deal largely with emotion in Stoic theory and in the life of the warrior, and while Sherman certainly finds much of value in the former, she repeatedly softens or even controverts key Stoic claims, often leaning in the direction of Aristotle.
Her first topic is anger, and she begins by noting the Stoic view that apatheia must replace anger, which is both destructive and a sign of vulnerability. Following an interesting discussion of how mock anger can be more effective than real anger in military training and inculturation (in Boot Camp, e.g.), she turns to Seneca's famous treatment of anger and its role in frenzy and cruelty in De Ira. But while she endorses some of his warnings about anger, she insists that some forms of anger, such as righteous indignation, can, as protests of moral violations and expressions of commitment to value, be healthy and just. This she illustrates with two stories. The first is that of Hugh Thomson at My Lai: the Army warrant officer, acting in part from a sense of moral outrage, had his crew train their guns on involved American soldiers and was able to prevent part of that day's massacre. The second, perhaps of particular interest to philosophers, is that of John Rawls's experience of anger during the Second World War, an anger directed not at civilians or even at foot soldiers, but at the Japanese leaders. Sherman concludes that while the Stoics are certainly right that anger cannot simply be given free reign, neither should (or can) it be simply eliminated or even repressed and compartmentalized. The emotions will find expression in some form, and we should work toward ensuring that that form is rational. As Aristotle said, in a passage Sherman cites in this chapter, we must be angry in the right way with the right people for the right reasons.
Sherman turns next to another emotion prominent in war: fear. The rigorous Stoic view is that all fear is irrational because it treats external dangers to life and limb as genuine evils that can affect our happiness. Sherman rejects this view -- "the unacceptable face of orthodox Stoicism" -- because it alienates us from our humanity in the sense that it regards our commitments to bodily integrity and to family and friends, all things that can be lost suddenly and terribly in war, as indifferents. Fear of such things is natural and just -- so also is the fear of killing others (surely we do not want to eradicate this entirely even in soldiers). But drawing on Seneca and Cicero she proposes that a moderate Stoicism can brace us for tragedy and help us recover from it without compromising our humanity. Of particular interest here is her suggestion that soldiers need become adept at "role switching," between their professional role as warrior and their more fundamental role as human beings, a role they should be always ready to bring back to the fore. Sherman closes with a discussion of how some Stoic ideals, such as a resumed sense of empowered agency, have proven effective in recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The last two chapters, on grief and camaraderie, both focus on the importance of solidarity in military life, and play out largely in the pattern we have seen so far: the orthodox Stoic claims are stated, rejected as too strong (Sherman notes a tension between the Stoic conception of agents as both self-sufficient and as social beings), and a modified position with recognizably Stoic features advanced in their place. In softening the Stoic view that grief, as an expression of distress and vulnerability, is to be eliminated, Sherman draws on Seneca's and Cicero's writing on grieving with proper decorum, and interestingly links their ideas to traditional forms of military grieving, such as military funeral services and war memorials. Yet she seems to go further than they do, and to endorse Aristotle's idea that "the expression of certain emotions can be cathartic and a medium for enlightenment and purification." This point too, she shows, is borne out by military experience. Turning to camaraderie, she rightly notes that military life "requires a self-sufficiency that is social to the core," and allows that on "appreciating the role of friendship and the contribution of attachment emotions to psychological and moral sustenance, Aristotle and his followers simply do better": Stoics cannot admit, as they should, that friendship is essential to our self-sufficiency and well-being. Yet Sherman does insist that the Stoics outdo Aristotle on one vital form of commitment to community: the universal community of all rational agents, cemented by respect for human beings as such, whether or not we are emotionally attached to them. She connects this Stoic idea of human agents as citizens of the cosmos to Michael Walzer's idea of all combatants as moral equals participating in a hellish but still norm-governed activity, and points out that here is a lesson the military mind would do well to internalize (invoking, of course, the shameful story of Abu Ghraib). Realizing the ideal of a universal community, she concludes, "requires cultivating humanity through empathetic identification and respect," something that "should be a part of any warrior's code."
This is an impressive book, and in many ways a moving one, even a personal one (the stories related, occasionally with illustrating photographs, are powerful; some of them involve protagonists she came to know through her connection to the Naval Academy; one story relates her father's experiences as a medic during the Second World War). It offers a valuable treatment of Stoic philosophy, and of military culture, which she clearly understands and respects. Indeed readers will find here not so much groundbreaking research on Stoic texts or their interpretations as something more like a philosophy, or the core of a philosophy, of military service -- a philosophy of one of the fundamental professional roles in our culture, with implications for our most fundamental role of all, human agency. It is a practical book of philosophy -- in this too, then, Sherman follows the Roman Stoics. Still, the book does not leave us without a few points for critical notice.
Although the book is wide ranging (and I have not done justice to some of its features, such as the dialogue she opens between Stoicism and contemporary psychology), I believe it could usefully have ranged just enough further as to take up two other topics important in military life. Sexuality intermittently gets the military in trouble, and I suspect Sherman's modified Stoicism (perhaps taking Marcus Aurelius's views as a starting point) could shed some light on the subject. The other topic is religion: Sherman occasionally takes up religious themes (the religious beliefs of certain protagonists of her anecdotes, the kaddish or Jewish prayer of mourning), but I believe religion is rather more central to "the military mind" than she lets on: it is an old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes.
Finally, we have noted Sherman's reliance upon the Roman Stoics, something she herself stresses. But, does she follow them so far as to be Stoic herself? I think actually not. Her borrowings from Aristotle are not merely in service of filling in gaps in a Stoic account, but at times are in direct opposition to some quite central Stoic positions, as Sherman herself points out: "We might ultimately wish Seneca to concede a similar point: that loss of a beloved … can diminish our overall good or happiness (eudaimonia). But to concede this would undermine a cornerstone of Stoicism." Yet, as we have seen, she does concede it, e.g. in seeing friendship as actually part of happiness. It seems to me that it is Stoicism that is filling in gaps (sometimes important ones, to be sure) in an account that is fundamentally Aristotelian. Or perhaps we should say that her Stoicism is not merely unorthodox, but heretical, rejecting some quite central doctrines and occasionally following after strange gods. At the very least, Stoicism is not the (sole) ancient philosophy behind the military mind. I do not of course mean that Sherman is unaware of this, but neither do I mean here merely to quibble over words (and I am not seriously suggesting re-titling the book Peripatetic or -- heaven forbid -- Eclectic Warriors): Sherman leads us to take up the old question about how one should live, and I find it very interesting that, starting from a Stoic outlook, we continually find ourselves moving back to an Aristotelian one to get things quite right.
Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind | Reviews | Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews | University of Notre Dame
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/stoic-warriors-the-ancient-philosophy-behind-the-military-mind/
Stoic Warriors a reflective essay
by David J. Ladouceur
http://www.combat.ws/S3/BAKISSUE/CMBT04N4/STOIC.HTM
Another Long Review;
