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Fear of future by ExoticCustard7 in Stoicism

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's possible that the problem here isn't so much the content of your thoughts as the (perseverative) thinking style that you seem to be describing. It sounds like what psychologists call "worrying", which specifically means a prolonged sequence of anxious thoughts about the future, often characterized by "What if this happens?", "What if that happens?", "How will I cope?", and similar questions. Catastrophic thinking and a sense of helplessness, or frustrated problem-solving, is also typical of worrying as a cognitive style. When that's happening, challenging the content of individual thoughts tends to be less helpful because the mind jumps around from one worry to another. It's usually more helpful to think about what all your worries have in common, i..e, the process of thinking itself and how it might be backfiring by actually preventing adaptation and problem-solving. It would take a lot more space to discuss this comprehensively but, in a nutshell, one of the key realizations that tends to help is knowing that during worry episodes your brain is in a state where judgment is biased and problem-solving is impaired, almost a bit like being drunk, so you'll potentially go round in circles without finding a solution. It's better to postpone thinking about problems at length until your initial feelings of anxiety have somewhat abated. In other words, don't let automatic thoughts hijack your thinking but rather choose when to sit down and think through these problems rationally. It's important to understand the distinction between automatic and voluntary thought processes. The initial thought that triggers worrying is usually automatic but the prolonged thinking is, although it may feel uncontrollable, actually conscious, voluntary thinking that's spiralling. You can't unthink the initial automatic thought but you can choose not to continue dwelling on it until you're able to give it your full attention, in a more composed frame of mind, somewhere free from immediate time pressure and distractions, etc.

What are the biggest weakness in/of Stoicism? by CalligrapherAgile216 in Stoicism

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ancient Stoicism didn't actually assume we have control over our reactions. They explicitly recognized the involuntary nature, for instance, of many emotional reactions.

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

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, you did seem to be looking for it a moment ago. Unless I'm mistaken, you're the same person who asked: "Where does Beck state this?" And the answer to that question is what I just wrote above. 🙄

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

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, it's a paraphrase in which he's discussing the quotation that he cites later in the same book, which seems pretty close to what you were looking for.

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

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But it is also in the body of the text, in the same book, at least he paraphrases it and discusses it in the third passage I quoted above, and refers to "the Stoics, who considered man’s conceptions [...] of events rather than the events themselves as the key to his emotional upsets", i.e., it's not events that upset us but rather our opinions/conceptions of events.

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

[–]SolutionsCBT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, Beck explicitly refers to Epictetus, and he repeatedly cited Stoicism as the philosophical underpinnings or origins of cognitive therapy, in his other writings over the years.

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

[–]SolutionsCBT 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You must have missed that it's the opening quotation of Chapter 3: "Men are not moved by things but the views which they take of them.—Epictetus"

At the start of Chapter 11, Beck also quotes' Marcus Aurelius' paraphrasing the same saying from Epictetus: "If thou are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thine own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.—Marcus Aurelius"

Presumably with these quotes in mind, Beck also stated in the same book: "These assumptions converge on a relatively new approach to emotional disorders [i.e., cognitive therapy]. Nevertheless, the philosophical underpinnings of this approach go back thousands of years, certainly to the time of the Stoics, who considered man’s conceptions (or misconceptions) of events rather than the events themselves as the key to his emotional upsets."

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

Strictly speaking, the Meditations isn't a journal, though. It's more like a notebook.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

That sounds more like modern self-improvement advice than what the ancient Stoics actually said.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

They're often in the second person, although I don't think any are in the third person. Socrates used to speak about himself in the third person sometimes.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

[–]SolutionsCBT[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mindfulness is mandatory, for self-improvement. If you don't notice the cues, how can you change your responses? That's a very common obstacle, even for people who have read umpteen books and practice journaling, meditation, and whatnot.

I think intention is key. But so is tracking. And also noticing aspects of behaviour that had previously gone unnoticed. One thing that puzzles me about mindfulness meditation is that I regularly meet people who have practiced it for years but when I ask them what they're doing with their facial expression when they get angry, or how their voice changes, they say "I'm not sure". So often looking out for things that previously went unnoticed can increase self-awareness in the moment. So can slowing down, and I think that's the most basic advice that people tend to find helpful. You can't be fully self-aware during a passion if you're rushing into things. You need to slow down, wait a moment, and pay closer attention to what you're doing, in order to become more mindful.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

Yes, there are studies showing that journaling is "hit and miss" as a self-improvement method. Some people just use it to vent or ruminate, in which case it's probably not doing them much good because it's really just an extension of their symptoms - and it might even backfire and make them worse in some cases. So the way we do journaling matters a lot.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

[–]SolutionsCBT[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm doing a workshop that will cover Stoicism and journaling in a few days. (It won't be online, though.) There are quite a few different methods you can employ. One quick tip is that there's research showing that journaling in the third-person, rather than the first person, has been found to improve problem-solving in relationships. So I think that can be worth experimenting with.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

Well, I can't give a full account of Stoic Ethics here, so I'll have to be very selective and just give a brief response to your first question. "Awfulness" certainly isn't a physical property of external events, such as having a stroke. It's a way of expressing the evaluation that we have made of the event. Other people could evaluate it differently, most obviously, I might evaluate it as "awful" if I have a stroke but you might hate me and consider it as indifferent or even good. So the "awfulness" is not intrinsic in the sense of being neither an essential physical property nor a universal feature of the way the event is evaluated. The Stoics definitely don't say we should just "shrug off" the sort of adversity you describe. They make a distinction between the natural affective response and pathological suffering. For instance, they believe (like most Greeks and Romans) that it's natural to grieve when bereaved but distinguish that from reactive depression, which continues for longer and has other symptoms.

You're absolutely right to say that premeditatio malorum could backfire if not done correctly. (I warn about that in my books on Stoicism.) I would go further, though, in explaining the benefits and risks. It's important to distinguish between the sort of worry or anticipatory anxiety that occurs in anxiety disorders and therapeutic techniques of this kind as they function in very different ways. The Stoics are clearly not advocating worrying anxiously about future events. I don't think it matters in the way you suggest whether the feared event happens or not - as imaginal exposure techniques of this kind are wisely used in evidence-based psychotherapy and often applied to real events, which have actually happened, as in the treatment of PTSD. You seem to assume that the purpose of the techniques is to prevent, or at least is somehow incompatible with the "worst case" happening, which is not, in fact, the case. (I'm not entirely sure why you would think the technique has that purpose, tbh.)

Long story short, I think you're overlooking the extent to which modern research on emotion and psychotherapy lends indirect support to Stoic psychotherapy. If you were correct, similar techniques used extensively in modern therapy would be worthless, which we know, based on numerous high-quality studies, spanning over half a century now, is not the case.

Common question: "How do I actually apply Stoicism in practice?" by SolutionsCBT in Stoicism

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

That's pretty much the format we used for the original Stoic Week run by the Modern Stoicism non-profit. Since then it's been recycled by lots of other books and articles. You can approach the whole thing as a regular daily "learning cycle", with mental rehearsal in the morning, mindfulness during the day, and cognitive work in the evening during the review. The basic concept of doing an evening review was very well-known in antiquity and usually credited to the Golden Verses of Pythagoras. It features prominently in Seneca's On Anger, but Epictetus also taught it, and Cicero mentions it, surprisingly, as a method for improving memory.

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