fbpx
Categories
Events Philosophy Resilience Stoicism

Tomorrow: Philosophy and Resilience Online

Categories
CBT Psychotherapy Resilience

Short Guided Relaxation Exercise

Listen to this Audio Recording of my Fractional Relaxation Technique

NB: This episode contains a recording of a guided relaxation technique, which you should not listen to while driving. I created this recording for my psychotherapy clients, many years ago, but wanted to make it more widely available. It’s a short and simple exercise, about thirteen minutes in duration. This is the approach that I found to work best for the majority of people.

Short Guided Relaxation Exercise Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life Podcast

NB: This episode contains a recording of a guided relaxation technique, which you should not listen to while driving. I created this recording for my psychotherapy clients, many years ago, but wanted to make it more widely available. It’s a short and simple exercise, about thirteen minutes in duration. This is the approach that I found to work best for the majority of people. Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Instructions* Lie down or sit in a comfortable chair, where you are free from distractions* Close your eyes, while you listen to the recording* If you want to fall asleep, it’s okay to listen in bed at night* Try to use this recording at least once per day for at least two weeks* Relax your body and your mind togetherThrough regular use, you’ll develop an association between the recording and the feelings of relaxation, which will make it much easier to relax more quickly, and more deeply. Thank you for reading Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life. This post is public so if you found it helpful, please feel free to share it. Get full access to Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life at donaldrobertson.substack.com/subscribe
Categories
CBT Interviews Podcasts Psychotherapy Resilience Stoicism

Podcast: Talking about Stoicism and CBT with Tim LeBon

In this episode, I chat with Tim LeBon, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, research director for the Modern Stoicism organization, and author of Wise Therapy: Philosophy for CounsellorsTeach Yourself Positive Psychology, and more recently, 365 Ways to be More Stoicedited by my wife Kasey Pierce.  

Topics covered include…

  • How Tim first got into philosophical practice and Stoicism  
  • The relationship between Stoicism and CBT in general
  • Stoicism and third-wave CBT — recent advances
  • What Tim has learned about Stoicism from his experience as research director with Modern Stoicism
  • What’s 365 Ways like?  How it differs from other Stoicism books  
In this episode, I chat with Tim LeBon, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, research director for the Modern Stoicism organization, and author of Wise Therapy: Philosophy for Counsellors, Teach Yourself Positive Psychology, and more recently, 365 Ways to be More Stoic, edited by my wife .  Topics covered include…* How Tim first got into philosophical practice and Stoicism  * The relationship between Stoicism and CBT in general * Stoicism and third-wave CBT — recent advances* What Tim has learned about Stoicism from his experience as research director with Modern Stoicism* What's 365 Ways like?  How it differs from other Stoicism books  Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Tim’s new book, edited by my wife, Kasey Pierce, is now available from all good bookstores.Thank you for reading Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life. This post is public so feel free to share it. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.
Categories
Psychotherapy Resilience Stoicism

How Stoicism Could Help You Build Resilience

Combining stoic philosophy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.

  • Stoicism is an ancient Greek school of philosophy that inspired modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
  • Stoics like Epictetus taught that it’s not things that upset us but rather our opinions (cognitions) about them.
  • People identify with Stoicism as a philosophy of life, which may be more permanent than skills learned in CBT or resilience training.

Read the rest of this article on Psychology Today…

Categories
Build Your Resilience Excerpts Resilience Stoicism

Stoic Philosophy in Build your Resilience (2012)

Excerpts from Resilience: Teach Yourself How to Survive & Thrive in any Situation

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2012. All rights reserved.

My previous book The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy (2010) discussed the relationship between Stoic philosophy and modern cognitive-behavioural therapy in some detail, from an academic perspective. My new book, Resilience: Teach Yourself How to Survive and Thrive in any Situation (2012), is a self-help guide to psychological resilience-building, based on modern CBT. However, it contains many references to Stoic philosophy. The outline below is based on modified excerpts from the text, which is available for pre-order now from Amazon and other online bookstores.

Most of the chapters begin with a quotation from Marcus Aurelius, linking ancient Stoic practices to modern cognitive-behavioural approaches to psychological resilience-building. However, the final chapter, looks at perhaps the oldest Western system of resilience-building, the classical Graeco-Roman school of philosophy known as “Stoicism”, which is derived from the teachings of Socrates and influenced the development of modern CBT (Robertson, 2010). The Stoics are, in a sense, the ancient forebears of most modern resilience-building approaches. Indeed, Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher who has most influenced the field of psychotherapy, has been described as “the patron saint of the resilient” (Neenan, 2009, p. 21).

The Essence of Stoicism

So what practical advice do the Stoics give us about building resilience? Well, this is a philosophy that can be studied for a lifetime and more detailed accounts are available. An excellent modern guide to Stoicism already exists in the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by Prof. William Irvine, an academic philosopher in the USA (Irvine, 2009). My own writings, especially my book The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, have focused on describing the relationship between Stoicism and modern psychotherapy (Robertson, 2010; Robertson, 2005).

However, although, Stoicism is a vast subject, it was based upon a handful of simple principles. Epictetus summed up the essence of Stoicism as “following Nature” through the “correct use of impressions”. By “following Nature”, the Stoics meant something twofold: accepting external events as decreed by the Nature of the universe, while acting fully in accord with your own nature as a rational human being, living in accord with your core values. (Scholars capitalise “Nature” when referring to the nature of the universe as a whole, whereas lower-case “nature” means your internal human nature as an individual.)

Don’t treat anything as important except doing what your nature demands, and accepting what Nature sends you.

Meditations, 12:32

Reverence: so you’ll accept what you’re allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it.

Justice: so that you’ll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should – and as other people deserve.

Meditations, 12: 1

However, the basic twofold principle “follow Nature” leads on to an elaborate system of applied philosophy, which this chapter will explore in more detail.

The first few passages of the philosophical Handbook of Epictetus provide arguably the most authoritative summary of basic Stoic theory and practice. I’ve paraphrased the key statements below, to highlight the possible continuity with ACT, CBT and the approaches to resilience-building discussed in this book.

  1. The Handbook begins with a very clear and simple “common sense” declaration: Some things are under our control and others are not.
  2. Our own actions are, by definition, under our control, including our opinions and intentions (e.g., commitments to valued action), etc.
  3. Everything other than our own actions is not under our direct control, particularly our health, wealth and reputation, etc. (Although, we can influence many external things through our actions we do not have complete or direct control over them, they do not happen simply as we will them to.)
  4. Things directly under our control are, by definition, free and unimpeded, but everything else we might desire to control is hindered by external factors, i.e., partly down to fate.
  5. The Stoic should continually remember that much emotional suffering is caused by mistakenly assuming, or acting as if, external things are directly under our control.
  6. Assuming that external events are under our control also tends to mislead us into excessively blaming others and the world for our emotional suffering.
  7. However, if you remember that only your own actions are truly under your control and external things are not, then you will become emotionally resilient as a result (“no one will harm you”) and you may achieve a kind of profound freedom and happiness, which is part of the ultimate goal of Stoicism.
  8. To really succeed in living as a Stoic, you need to be highly committed, and may need to abandon or at least temporarily postpone the pursuit of external things such as wealth or reputation, etc. (Stoics like Epictetus lived in poverty while others, like Marcus Aurelius, tried to follow the principles while commanding great wealth and power – both were considered valid ways of living for a Stoic but Marcus perhaps believed his complex and privileged lifestyle made commitment to Stoicism more difficult at times.)
  9. From the very outset, therefore, the Stoic novice should rehearse spotting unpleasant experiences (“impressions”) and saying in response to them: “You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.” (Something that closely this resembles the basic strategy we call “distancing” or “defusion” in modern CBT.)
  10. After doing this, ask yourself whether the impression involves thinking about what is under your control or not; if not, then say to yourself, “It is nothing to me.” (Meaning, it’s essentially indifferent to me if it’s not under my control – I just need to accept it; although the Stoics did admit that some external outcomes are naturally to be preferred, despite lacking true intrinsic value.)

The Teach Yourself book goes on to describe the basic principles of Stoicism in more detail and, in particular, to elaborate upon some of the basic psychological strategies employed for resilience-building by the Stoic sages, such as acting “with a reserve clause”, visualising the “view from above”, and contemplation of the ideal Sage, etc.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction: What is Resilience?

     

  2. Letting go of Experiential Avoidance

  3. Values Clarification

  4. Commitment to Valued Action

  5. Acceptance & Defusion

  6. Mindfulness & the Present Moment

  7. Progressive Relaxation

  8. Applied Relaxation

  9. Worry Postponement

  10. Problem-Solving Training

  11. Assertiveness & Social Skills

  12. Stoic Philosophy & Resilience