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Notes on Grief and Stoicism from 10/27/22 webinar by Classical Wisdom

• What I'm keeping an eye out for:
  • The death of fathers
  • When death comes at exactly the age statistics predict it should
  • What are their production values like
  • Would anyone here be someone I could follow up with regarding Michael Sugrue?

• Michael Fontaine, Classics at Cornell
  • Cicero, how to grieve
  • His website
  • Cicero was not a Stoic. He was an agnostic as we'd call him.
  • But in times of distress he clung to Stoicism, as do many.
  • "Excessive grief is beneath us. But grief within limits is natural and normal." --Cicero, paraphrased
  • Cicero argues we have a soul and there's logically a heaven.
  • Chrysippus "On Negative Emotions": When someone is in the throes of grief, use what they know. Don't try to convince them their philosophy is wrong
  • Mike says the conception of heaven today can be traced to Plato: the death of Socrates
  • We create art because we care about what happens after we die.
  • Cicero: a good Roman learns from his ancestors and role models.

• Massimo Piglucci, Neo-Stoic, City College of New York
  • Ancient Sotics accepted Providence, most modern Stoics do not
  • Classic Stoics see us as a part of the cosmos-wide logos. A cell in a huge body. Sounds like Mother Deity for sure.
  • Piglucci is a "a modern scientist" who does NOT see the universe as a living organism.
  • Freud said an "energetic process" is used to overcome grief. A hydraulic view. No longer accepted.
  • Kubler-Ross stages of grief also not accepted in mainstream psychology now.
  • 5 modern conceptions of how to deal with grief:
    • low level persistent feeling
    • chronic grief (problematic)
    • etc
  • Absence of grief is no longer seen as pathological
  • Prolonged grief disorder is in the DSM. Over 6 months. Seneca describes this in his letter to Marsha.
  • Antidepressants not seen as helpful. but writing assignments are--write about your grief.
  • Most Stoics didn't believe in life after death, except for those who did. Seneca and Cicero believed in some kind of soul.
  • Opinions about the afterlife should make a big difference. But in practice I'm not sure they do. This is simply about breaking a human bond.
  • I asked: I wonder if a theistic/metaphysical philosophy can be rehabilitated and be brought into the modern mainstream. Or is it all secularism from here forward in the Western world?
    • Massimo replied: @Brad: my opinion is that it is difficult to rehabilitate a theistic metaphysics given all we are learning from modern science. But of course that’s a long conversation!

• Donald Robertson
  • Kubler-Ross model might be over-applied. And it's not evidence-based
  • Venting of emotion alone isn't enough to help. But in concert with other techniques, sure, it can help.
  • What do we do in psychotherapy with all this? A conceptualization model. CBT is helpful
  • 3rd wave CBT (last 10-15 years): being aware of and accepting our thoughts rather than modifying or changing them.

• Anya Leonard, founder of Classical Wisdom Substack

• Explain more about "Providence" and how it helped with grief
• Does a metaphysical outlook help with grief outcomes? If so, is there a metaphysics that can still work for the modern era?