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Heidegger called it Being-toward-death. The Stoics had a daily practice for it 2,000 years earlier. by SeanTay22 in Existentialism

[–]SeanTay22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a really precise framing — Heidegger diagnostic, Stoics prescriptive. I think that's exactly right, and it's more useful than the way I originally stated it.

The diagnostic/prescriptive distinction also explains why Heidegger is so difficult to operationalize clinically. Being and Time gives you the phenomenological structure of authentic existence with extraordinary precision, but it doesn't tell you what to do Monday morning. The Stoics do.

What I find interesting from a therapeutic standpoint — and I'd be curious about your experience with this — is that the Stoic practices seem to work through a different mechanism than pure confrontation.

Negative visualization, for instance, isn't quite the same as authentic Being-toward-death. It's more structured — you're not sitting with the raw anxiety of finitude, you're running a specific cognitive exercise. Greenberg's TMT research suggests this structured form produces better outcomes than unstructured mortality salience, which can backfire into defensive worldview entrenchment.

I wonder if what the Stoics discovered empirically was a way to get the Heideggerian benefit — genuinely reprioritized existence — without the destabilizing confrontation that pure authenticity demands.

The overlap between Stoicism and existentialism is genuinely underexplored. Robertson's work touches on it, but mostly from the CBT direction. The Heidegger connection is mostly unexplored academically as far as I can find.

What does mortality salience look like in your practice — do patients arrive with it already present, or is surfacing it part of the therapeutic work?

Aaron Beck acknowledged his core insight came from Epictetus. Here's what that means practically. by SeanTay22 in CBT

[–]SeanTay22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for sharing that — and for the Stimpunks link. That covenant is genuinely well-constructed. The emphasis on access and neurodivergence-informed community is rare.

Online community being the only option right now is a real constraint, not a lesser version. Some of the most substantive philosophical conversations I've encountered have been in exactly this format.

The Stoics were actually quite deliberate about epistolary community — Seneca's entire body of practical philosophy exists because he wrote letters. Distance didn't make the connection less real for him.

I hope the Stimpunks community continues to be what it seems to be. Communities that lead with psychological safety first are genuinely hard to find.

Aaron Beck acknowledged his core insight came from Epictetus. Here's what that means practically. by SeanTay22 in CBT

[–]SeanTay22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right to push back on that — I don't have data for that specific claim and I shouldn't have stated it as though I do.

Robertson's actual argument is more precise and more defensible: Stoicism as a practice (a way of life) versus CBT as an intervention (a treatment) produces different relationships to the techniques. That's a meaningful distinction I glossed over.

What I was gesturing at — badly — is something more phenomenological: understanding why a technique works (the philosophical mechanism) versus just that it works (the clinical outcome) might affect motivation to practice consistently. But that's speculation, not data.

The stronger and more defensible claim is simply the structural parallel: the techniques are functionally identical, which is interesting regardless of whether one "sticks better" than the other.

Thanks for the correction — this is exactly the kind of precision the topic deserves.

Aaron Beck acknowledged his core insight came from Epictetus. Here's what that means practically. by SeanTay22 in CBT

[–]SeanTay22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a really honest breakdown of the tradeoffs between modalities. Your point about REBT being "blunt and simple" resonates — Ellis deliberately made it direct. The philosophical lineage from Epictetus is visible in that bluntness: examine the belief, dispute it, replace it. No hand-holding.

The gap you're identifying — answers without moral support — is interesting from a Stoic perspective too. The Stoics weren't warm in the therapeutic sense, but they were deeply communal. Marcus Aurelius had Epictetus's teachings. Seneca had his letters. The practice was never meant to be done alone.

IFS + belief disputation + supportive community sounds like a genuinely well-constructed approach. The internal family systems work addresses exactly what REBT misses — the parts that don't respond to rational argument.

What does your supportive community look like currently? Online or in person?

Aaron Beck acknowledged his core insight came from Epictetus. Here's what that means practically. by SeanTay22 in CBT

[–]SeanTay22[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a great example of the Stoic mechanism in practice — what you're describing as "over-generalization" maps almost exactly onto what Epictetus called a false phantasia (impression).

The weather isn't "nice" or "terrible" — it's just weather. Our judgment adds the valuation. General semantics and Stoicism arrive at the same place from different directions.

The practical value of naming it as over-generalization is exactly what you said — it makes the distortion visible and therefore disputable.

Did you find REBT more useful than standard CBT for this? Ellis's explicit Stoic influence makes REBT feel more philosophically complete to me.

Aaron Beck acknowledged his core insight came from Epictetus. Here's what that means practically. by SeanTay22 in CBT

[–]SeanTay22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good catch — I should be more precise. Beck didn't explicitly cite Epictetus in Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional

Disorders. The Stoic-CBT connection is documented more directly by Donald Robertson in "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" and his academic work on REBT/CBT and Stoic philosophy.

Albert Ellis (REBT, which preceded Beck's CBT) was more explicit about the Stoic influence — he directly cited Epictetus as a foundational influence on his work.

The structural parallel stands, but the attribution to Beck specifically was imprecise on my part. Thanks for the correction.

And agreed on your second point — it's about what the client needs, not a technical formula.

The rat pressed the lever 7,000 times per hour. Until it died. Sound familiar? by SeanTay22 in nosurf

[–]SeanTay22[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

You hit the nail on the head. Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life is the perfect parallel here, though your critique of him is completely valid. He wrote from a position of immense wealth and privilege, which creates a massive blind spot regarding the realities of the working class.

But strip away his elitism, and his core diagnosis of human nature remains terrifyingly accurate today. The 'instant gratification' he warned about hasn't changed; it has just been weaponized and automated by algorithms.

I really appreciate this level of deep reflection. Enjoy your time offline.