ABSTRACT
The central method of cognitive therapy consists of monitoring one’s thoughts and challenging those ones that are irrational or unhelpful and the beliefs that underlie them. The cognitive therapists are probably justified in adopting the terminology in so far as more consistent parallels can be found between the Socratic method and their own approach to cognitive disputation. A number of additional parallels can be drawn between Socratic and Stoic methods, on the one hand, and the cognitive disputation methods employed in modern rational emotive behaviour therapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) on the other. Many of the specific tactics employed by the Stoics in disputing irrational beliefs resemble the therapeutic interventions used in different forms of CBT. The strategy common to both cognitive therapy and Stoicism is the practice of pausing to contemplate the consequences of different courses of action, or different attitudes of mind.
