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Can Stoic "Positive Reframing" Go Too Far? w/ Donald Robertson · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: In my reading of the stoic, I've seen a lot of amazing examples of reframing misfortune.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think Epic talked about, you know, like they build something on the floor that's more price to pay for peace of mind.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've become I I think quite skilled at this way of kind of transmuting setbacks, obstacles, misfortune into you know, it could have been worse, and you know, finding the benefit, the silver lining in it.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just wondering, I sometimes wonder if if the if this could ever go too far, you know, where like every negative thing I'm just like feeling okay about it, feeling good about it, and like am I am I actually becoming blind to negative things or further?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Seneca talks about going even further than that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's got there's a bit in I mean Seneca's a terrible role model, right?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the uh in so you know I'm not saying this is what he was actually, but in the the letters to Licilius, at one point he kind of makes out that when he gets really into attending lectures of philosophy, he says he comes out of them and he's wishing for misfortune, almost like he's going, he's kind of going, bring it on, like he's still kind of psyched with stoicism.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, like you know, bring on some catastrophe so that I can deal with it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Which seems a bit weird, right?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you can kind of like you totally, if you read stoic text and you get really into it, you can you can imagine, and these guys like attending lectures where they're they're they're you know, you imagine if you were attending lectures by Epictetus, maybe you would walk out of it and think, yeah, bring it on, you know, I hope we get plague or something like that.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, which it's crazy.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: But uh Seneca talks like that at one point.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know, could it go too far?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I've never really seen it um become a negative thing, to be honest.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: What you're talking about is similar to what we call in therapy decatastrophizing.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's like a I have it written out.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is my reminder on my arm.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can see that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tate in Greek.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It says um it's a very early Stoic quote.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it says um uh Uden de non Peponthas, which is uh something that Krates, the Cynic philosopher, said to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: It just means nothing terrible has happened to you.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's decatastrophizing.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Epic Tetis talks about one of his stoic heroes, uh a guy called Agrippinas, like who was a stoic um uh member of the Stoic opposition.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he says that this guy used to write letters to himself, uh like the Stoic letters of consolation, but he'd address them to himself, where he would eulogy, the word he uses eulogize, like he would praise catastrophes.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if he was sent into exile, he'd be like, oh, this is a good opportunity to have a picnic in the countryside.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like so he'd kind of turn everything into he'd write a letter, like actually put in the hours, like he'd put the effort, he'd sit down and write a letter, kind of reframing situations to as not as I'd like I'm not encouraging positive thinking, by the way.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Positive thinking is like a dirty word now in modern psychotherapy because it's we we know like um what people often mean by positive thinking is kind of avoidant, um, or it's narcissistic.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So generally it's uh an avoidant or an unhealthy strategy.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between positive thinking that's kind of polyanism, like not being realistic, and spotting genuine opportunities uh in what seems at first like a misfortune.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Someone loses their job, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: But they might think, yeah, but it gives me an opportunity to start my own business.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not self-deceptive, maybe that's true.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just another perspective on events, right?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a a valid, like uh but a more constructive way of looking at the facts.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what the Stoics are describing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose the safeguard against it would be, yeah, it could go wrong if it lapsed into what therapists call polyanism, which would be kind of positive thinking that's unrealistic or irrational.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can stay true to the facts of the situation but find opportunity in them, then I've never actually seen that go wrong, like in 25 years of therapy fields so far.