How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World

by Donald J. Robertson

Socrates anticipated modern psychotherapy by suggesting that both the causes and the cures of our emotional problems may be cognitive in nature. That’s quite remarkable, as these ideas only became established in modern psychotherapy with the so-called cognitive revolution during the 1950s and 1960s. Socrates described a method of “rational measurement” that compared the longer-term consequences of our actions, in terms of the pleasure or pain they are likely to cause, to help decision-making. This weighing of pros and cons is very similar to what cognitive-behavioral therapists call cost-benefit analysis, which is an integral part of a more comprehensive method called “problem-solving therapy” (PST).11 In some form or another, evaluating the consequences of a course of action plays a key role in almost all forms of CBT.