Medicine for the Mind: Donald Robertson on Ancient Therapies for Modern Stressors
Update: 2025-05-20
Description
There's something strangely reassuring about knowing people were wrestling with the similar issues we struggle with over 2,000 years ago — even if they wore togas and wrote with a chisel.
Donald Robertson is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, acclaimed author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, and one of the world's leading voices on Stoicism. He's also the founder of the Plato's Academy Centre in Athens, and a founding member of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit.
On this pod, we talk about the wisdom literature and how it can help with emotional distress; specifically, the idea of Stoics as ancient psychotherapists. Donald explains how Stoicism wasn't just a philosophy of life, but also a clear system of psychotherapy in ancient Greek and Roman thought.
Some episode highlights:
- How shifting definitions shape our understanding of mental illness
- On the paradox of growth through adversity
- Struggle and transformation
- Experiential wisdom
- Fortune and the bitch goddess of success
- Stoicism as an ancient psychotherapy
- The philosophical roots of cognitive therapy
- On anger, and the art of self-mastery (Seneca, Galen)
- On Worry and rumination
- Marcus Aurelius
- Stoicism's broader vision
- On the "view from above" and the liberation of perspective
- How time expansion mitigates worry
- The complex relationship of thoughts and emotions
- The core proposition of both Stoicism and CBT
- How complaining signals resistance to reality
- Acceptance and the dichotomy of control
- How to reconnect with what's essential in a noisy world
This isn't motivational fluff; it's a toolkit for anyone who's ever gotten tangled in their own head.
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