ABSTRACT
Paul Dubois was perhaps the first modern “rational” psychotherapist to explicitly argue that emotional problems could be made worse by certain, often unspoken, philosophical assumptions about free will and determinism that prevail in modern society. Philosophical therapists in the Socratic tradition, running from the Stoics all the way down to Baruch Spinoza and Dubois, have argued that contemplation of the multitudinous causes of things, contemplation of determinism, tends to have a pronounced therapeutic effect upon the emotions. Albert Ellis’s portrayal of Stoic fatalism seems to echo a common misconception, but one which clashes with the historical facts that we have about the lives of famous Stoics. Dubois, like the Stoics, recognized that the mere notion of determinism potentially moderated our emotional reactions and increased our empathy for others. Contemplating psychological determinism is a key means of developing human empathy. Philosophical empathy serves crucial purpose: it acts as a potent inoculation against insult.
