Mental Health and Moral Health

Abstract

This chapter examines the Stoic conception of moral guidance or education as a kind of psychotherapy, exemplified by the moral progress of Seneca’s friend Lucilius as described in the Epistulae Morales. The Stoic project of moral reform goes beyond the more modest aims of modern psychotherapy, but it can be quite plausibly described as requiring the assistance of others—friends or teachers—much as the recovery from illness requires the assistance of a doctor.