Philosophical Therapy as Preventive Psychological Medicine

Abstract

The philosophical essays were intended to function as a psychological analogue for ancient medical regimen, or what we call ‘life-style management’ or ‘preventive medicine’. This chapter begins by developing this suggestion in general terms before relating the idea to the emergence of a distinct genre or body of writings on the therapy of the emotions in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Next, it analyses the core strategy of this kind of philosophical therapy, identifying four key recurrent themes. The chapter illustrates this schema, referring to Galen’s Avoiding Distress , taken as representing a Platonic-Aristotelian approach, on the one hand, and to Seneca’s On Peace of Mind , representing the Stoic approach, on the other. It then returns to the idea that such works are designed to function as preventive psychological medicine, and asks whether they embody an approach to psychological health-care that we could find useful under modern conditions. Keywords:Galen; modern practice; philosophical therapy; preventive medicine; psychological medicine; Seneca; therapy of emotions

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