Putting Stoicism into Practice: Life-Guidance and Therapy

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This project aims to develop a collaborative network of academics and practitioners stemming from a workshop that formed part of an AHRC fellowship on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, a second-century AD philosophical diary, based on Stoicism. This group has already worked closely together in activities designed to promote public engagement with Stoicism as a source of life-guidance or support for psychotherapy. This project aims to build on this collaboration, to place the network on a more secure footing, and to maximise the impact of the group in public engagement. It is also to foster creative and innovative collaborative work between academics and practitioners in making the insights of an ancient Greek philosophy available to modern audiences. Following a workshop at Exeter in Oct 2012, a number of academics and practitioners have set up an informal network, with regular email exchanges on Stoic philosophy and on trying to put this into practice. They have also set up a blog (http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/), which has served as a forum for public engagement and debate. They collaborated in organising a 'Live like a Stoic Week', based on a 30-page booklet giving advice on Stoic ethics and on how to apply these to daily life, and in carrying out a questionnaire survey of responses to the Week. The Stoic Week was followed by at least 150 people, of whom 46 completed the survey. The Stoic Week also aroused very wide national and international interest. Hits on the blog rose to 2,500 a day during the week and the Stoic Week prompted 3 articles in the UK press. These responses indicated broad public interest in the idea of using Stoic ideas as a form of life-guidance or support for self-guided psychological therapy. The project aims to build on the collaboration developed in the 2012 activities. It aims to hold a second 'Life like a Stoic' week (Nov 25 - Dec 2, 2013), with a number of substantial improvements designed to enhance its effectiveness. The week will be widely publicised in advance (especially via the blog and other social media), with a view to maximising the numbers of those taking part. The booklet will be expanded to include more guidance on Stoic ethics and putting this into practice; it will also include more audio reflective exercises prepared by psychotherapists in the group. We aim to make the Stoic week a more collective experience, and to encourage people to comment via the blog and other social media. We also aim to have a much fuller response to the questionnaire, with a view to gauging more reliably how far the experience of the week is helpful in promoting wellbeing and in helping people cope with stressful or distressing experiences. We also aim to hold a one-day public event in London in the Stoic week (Saturday Nov 30 2013), directed at members of the public (target numbers 200), on the theme of putting Stoicism into practice in the modern world as a source of life-guidance or support for psychotherapy. This will include a round-table debate involving academics and leading figures in applied philosophy on the value and problems of putting Stoicism into practice, as well as a session on real-life stories of lives changed by access to Stoic ideas. The day will also offer smaller, interactive sessions designed to introduce people to Stoicism as a source of ethical guidance or psychotherapeutic support. The event will be fully reported on the blog and recorded by papers and a video posted there, as well as assessed by questionnaire responses. Planning for the Stoic week and London event will be carried out at a workshop at the University of Exeter in October 2013. A longer term goal of the group, for which this project is a stepping-stone, is to set up a dedicated interactive website to serve as the home for an e-book offering a 6-8 week course on applying Stoicism as a means of life-guidance and support for self-guided psychotherapy.