ABSTRACT
During the Hellenistic period, most schools of philosophy had explicitly therapeutic goals. Of course, this largely meant psychological rather than physical therapy: “It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body, for it is better to die than to live badly” (Epictetus, fr. 32, in Epictetus 1995). The conception of philosophy as medicine for the soul, the root meaning of “psychotherapy,” goes back at least as far as Socrates, and was a commonplace by the Hellenistic period. Of these ancient schools of philosophy, Stoicism is the one most obviously related to modern psychotherapy. Although the Stoic goal was “living in agreement with nature,” meaning in accord with reason and virtue, it was considered self-evident that the eudaimonia of the ideal Sage was incompatible with the presence of emotional turmoil, and irrational fears and desires. The Stoics therefore developed a fairly extensive and sophisticated armamentarium of psychological strategies to help themselves progress toward not only virtue but also apatheia, freedom from irrational and unhealthy passions. What Epictetus called the “discipline of desire and aversion” can also be described as a, primarily self-administered, “therapy of the passions” or “Stoic psychotherapy.” Moreover, he advised his students that it was necessary for them to master this form of self-discipline before proceeding to study other aspects of Stoic theory and practice. He could therefore assert the medical analogy quite bluntly: “the philosopher’s school is a doctor’s clinic” (Diss. 3.23.30).
