Applying Socratic Philosophy to Emotional and family problems and to Anger Management
by Alex Colombos, CRC, MA, MPS, MA Ed
a) A man called Socrates
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| Raphael, The School of Athens. Detail of Socrates and Plato. |
“Know thyself” is a phrase written on an inscription on the pediment of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, the omphalosor “navel” of the world, as the Ancient Greeks thought of Delphi and its Oracle of Apollo – perceived as a spiritual center of the ancient world. The same oracle had prophesized that the wisest man of that time was Socrates (Broad 2006). However, as the phrase “know thyself” suggests, wisdom and spirituality must emerge from our inner self outward as a self-directed process, a journey of self discovery. Socrates of Athens, perhaps the greatest and one of the most famous philosophers of all centuries, always cherished this mentality and he made it the cornerstone of his philosophical doctrine. His original phrase was “one thing I know is that I know nothing;” a declaration of ignorance, a modest statement of realizing how inadequate the human mind can be in fully understanding the truth about himself, others, and the universe. This statement represents a refutation of external knowledge acquired outside ourselves – what we would call “book smart” knowledge today – and a preference for an empirical kind of knowledge, represented by an inner, spiritual wisdom rather than mere knowledge (Brickhouse & Smith, 1994).
The Socratic Method, also known as Socratic Dialogue or Socratic Inquiry, became a tool of self-discovery and self-healing of the “diseased” thinking and moral processes of young men who served as his students. There is ample reason to believe that emotional problems, anger, and violence may spring up from an erroneous pattern of thinking and communicating and poor self-awareness (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). Socrates lived in the 5th century BC, the so-called “Golden century of Athens,” and contributed to the city’s remarkable democratic, artistic, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual achievements. Socrates managed to produce a perennial tradition that he has left as a legacy for the modern world (Broad, 2006). Socrates himself did not leave behind any written manuscripts. All that we know about him comes from other authors, especially from his student Plato, who recorded his teacher’s dialogues with other students in a series of writings called “Plato’s Dialogues.” Socrates’ ideas still inspire modern educators, counselors, psychotherapists and family therapists as well as philosophers and life coaches in rediscovering his methods and ideas. Today’s practitioners hybridize them with modern ideas, relying on them as the basis of creating their own approach and bringing the Socratic jewels of ancient wisdom back into modern everyday life.
b) What is Socrates’ Craft?
One may ask: “so, what is the Socratic Method?” The above term refers to Socrates’ endeavor to direct his students to think their way into correct understanding rather than spoon feed them knowledge, using questioning, dialogue, hard thinking, and observation of each others’ words and actions. He begins by claiming not to know “the ultimate truth” and refusing to prescribe an academic “recipe” for acquiring knowledge. Secondly, he does not consider himself to be a teacher or possess anything new to teach. Thirdly, his way of leading his students to knowledge and wisdom is constructive and relies on having others helping him understand by using logic and reasoning through open-ended questions and by brainstorming syllogisms, and stating emotions and ideas that are put to test in the search for consensus among the participants (Brickhouse & Smith, 1994). The monitoring of the speaker’s reasoning and flow of thoughts, as well as him emotional state were all tested through questioning – a process known as the elenchos or examination(Brickhouse & Smith, 1994). This examination was often done through a provoking and challenging process, in which Socrates likened himself to a gadfly rousing a horse (Plato, Apology, 30e4-5). Thus, the facilitator of the Socratic Dialogue has to “bother” the participants with questions that are sometimes too challenging for them to handle, in order to stimulate their powers of reason and stir up their emotions in a quest for self-exploration that could lead to the recognition of a common-sense fact or universal truth (Brickhouse & Smith, 2004).Socrates adopted this perspective believing that his mission to the world was to help humans understand their lack of wisdom and embark on a quest to acquire it by practicing a healthy lifestyle, engaging in logical thinking, and following through with congruent actions. The initial goal is to have participants realize their contradictory beliefs and maladaptive thoughts. For Socrates, this mission was a call from the deity Apollo. He often said that he heard a voice from a deity, which was one of the reasons he was put to death, after being charged with introducing new deities or being involved in a sinister new cult that corrupted the youth with morbid and eccentric teachings. However, the voice he heard was really the voice of his conscience (Brickhouse & Smith, 1994).
This conscience is a leading force in recognizing the conditions in which the process of elenchos can be applied and we find this information in his early dialogues. The necessary conditions were: rationality/regularity (relying on reason and its ‘at random” product); teachability/learnability (every body is teachable and can learn); explicability (explicit or concrete understanding and expression of understanding the object of the talk and its nature), inerrancy (avoiding errors, as a proof of mastery while making errors is a lack of mastery and expertise), uniqueness(the particular skill somebody has mastered signifies his uniqueness in the contribution to dialogue or inquiry);distinctness of subject matter (each skill set, mastery, or craft has its own distinct nature and its own subject matter);knowledge/wisdom (the expert or “craftsman” knows his subject matter and thus is wise in this subject matter and able to teach it to the others).
Coming up with your own ideas rather than storing old ideas and mere knowledge from others is a process of creation – a birth, which Socrates called philosophical midwifery, inspired by the craft of his mother, who worked as a midwife. Socrates helped people give birth to their thinking style and personal patterns of thought, thus begetting healthy and genuine emotions and correct and conscious choices in life rather than inherited patterns of thoughts that may derive from parents and relatives who induce children to follow their own way of thinking. This self-directed creative learning gave Socrates’ young disciples a truly independent way to develop their personality, a sense of morality and reasoning, and thus, the skills to be fully responsible and aware of their choices in life (Grimes & Uliana, 1998).
c) Socrates on Anger, Emotions and Families
In Gorgias 47 lel, Pollus accuses Socrates of being disingenuous. He suspects Socrates of mendacity and purposefully misinterpreting other people’s words in order to win in the dialogue and support his point of view. Pollus feels betrayed and angrily expresses his frustration. He tries to win over the audience using bold and provocative statements with confidence and audacity. Socrates calmly responds that he will turn the tables on Pollus and prove that he contradicts himself. Socrates goes as far as to assure him that he soon will have Pollus as a witness against Pollus(!). In a Socratic Paradox, Socrates claims that Pollus misinterprets himself. The argument concludes with Socrates bringing an argument on injustice and having Pollus agree with him that nobody wants to suffer injustice. After making Pollus realize that he has committed an injustice by agreeing with everybody else on the same topic while still refuting Socrates, even though they have reached a consensus, he enables Pollus to realize that he is caught in a contradiction. Socrates makes Pollus a witness to his own problem and helps him realize that his anger is directing the discussion rather than a genuine tendency for seeking the truth through dialogue. Thus, Pollus realizes it is really he who is disingenuous. He is the source of his anger and he should stop redirecting this anger toward others. Socrates did not impose any ideas on him, using Pollus’ own words and definitions to expose his cognitive fallacies.The same thing happens in Callicles (Gorgias 482a6-c3), who has the tendency to make strong self-centered arguments to others, accepting only his point of view, but at the same time contradicting his own self and showing himself to be dishonest and inconsistent, since his views are not genuine, but held only for the purpose of winning the argument. Callicles expresses disbelief in Socrates’ argument with Pollus. Dwelling on the same topic, Callicles, just like Pollus, initially holds the view that dispensing is preferable to receiving suffering, but after a long dialogue with Socrates, like Pollus, he switches to the belief that receiving an injustice is better than committing one. Like Pollus, Callicles pretends to despise injustice though his thoughts were capable of producing it. Their actions against Socrates, with whom they disagreed on matters which they would agree on with others, was a proof of their inconsistency, injustice and erroneous thinking that caused anger and hostility. This realization stifled them, made them feel a sense of shame, and caused their hostility to dissipate. Such arguments may happen between friends, students and teachers, among colleagues, and, of course, in families – especially during angry dialogues between teenagers with their parents.
In Plato’s Republic, a parallel is drawn between family and society. The evolution of family and society is dissected in political strata. For instance, in an aristocratic family, where women must be well-mannered and noble, a sense of pretence may cause redirected assertiveness or anger that exists in a latent state to be reflected upon persons other than the husband, such as the children. Moreover, “a wife of a good man undermines his son’s image of his father by talking behind his back and belittling him” (Grimes & Uliana, 1998, p.1410). A son’s choice is either to question his mother’s sincerity or to accept a new reality. That causes a risk in his relationships with his parents, as well as how he views his family – a self-image and role that can also affect other aspects of life. Sometimes , however, it is too painful and too difficult for both the facilitator of the Socratic Dialogue and midwifery, and even more for the participant, to deconstruct those well-built beliefs (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). In a timocratic (honor-based) family, things are different. The timocratic father’s son watches his father lose political power and that affects his own inheritance. (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). Financial problems and loss of prestige cause friction in the family and ego problems within the child. Socratic modesty and humility prepare the person and his family to live with life’s vicissitudes and focus on personal growth, thus avoid self-rejection, narcissistic shame, and frustration. This character development may facilitate the person with all the skills to become successful again and regain his lost stature. This mentality matches teachings of other great ancient traditions, such us of Hinduism and Buddhism.
In Plato’s Meno, Socrates admits that for a boy who depends on his family upbringing, it is too traumatic, and thus too dangerous to be confrontational and deconstructive, especially in such an early stage of development, where personality has not yet been shaped (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). Thus, Socrates realized that his method is not always suitable to be prescribed in all cases. Someone could easily conclude that for a person suffering from schizophrenia or other psychosis with complete ego fragmentation, complete loss of reality testing, and a low level of daily functionality, Socratic therapy is not applicable. However, in other instances involving less severe maladaptive personality traits, neurotic behavior, or false judgment, Socratic therapy/teaching remains suitable.
d) The Socratic Method in the Modern Psychotherapy of Emotional, Anger and Family Problems
Socratic Method is a term frequently used by modern school teachers and education researchers who have realized the values of Socratic teaching and try to use this instructional method in the classroom. This idea originated with philosophers such as Leonard Nelson (2004) and Gustav Heckmann (2004), who have been using Socrates’ open-ended questioning style with early twentieth century students in almost all levels of education in England and Germany. Nelson focused more on one-to-one tutoring type of questions, while Heckmann focused on a more group-centered learning approach, which could even be adopted to group therapy. Self Dialogue or Self-Inquiry is used mostly in philosophy and mental health/psychology. Many teachers have followed their paradigms with success. Especially, in secondary schools, students would reflect on their own attitudes in dramatic events at school, learning how to keep a distance from their ego and their own judgment, while reaching consensus with others through dialogue on school rules, relationships with parents, teachers, or peers. They would also discuss bullying and other moral issues and engage in reflective writing on their thoughts and opinions, voicing them in the classroom under a trained teacher’s modest and non-authoritarian guidance. (Saran, 2004).
The Socratic Method has frequently inspired modern cognitive scientists, philosophers, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists. For instance, Pierre Grimes, a professor of philosophy, therapist, and modern philosophical midwife, along with Regina Uliana, a clinical psychologist (1998), have used a model of philosophical midwifery in clinical practice. They concluded that philosophical midwifery is validated empirically and statistically as a form of rational psychotherapy, which focuses on the pathological/false reason produced in thoughts and expressed in speech and actions (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). Other therapists, such as Henry T, Stein (1991), have seen analogies between Adler’s family therapy and Socrates, especially in the non-authoritarian, modest way of equal individuals seeking out answers by confronting contradictions and burdens of reasoning to the point that the situation is realized and erroneous thinking and actions are dropped. Others, such as Santas (1988), see affinities between Plato, Socrates, and Freud, since from the Socratic dialogues, we may observe an interplay between conscious and unconscious thoughts that are tackled and brought to consciousness and realization after a long denial and rationalization through a series of arguments. Both Socrates and Freud – and naturally Plato, as Socrates’ disciple – examined the conscious and unconscious forces existent in the process of love and hate, and both have noticed that it begins in early childhood, though Freud was more interested in the unconscious and the early childhood factors. In logotherapy, Viktor Frankl’s model of family therapy has been merged with Socratic dialogues, focusing on the meaning of family history, the realization of what is going on in the family all these years, as well as focusing on the pattern of interactions among family members. Socrates’ paradoxical statements (such as having Pollus becoming a witness against himself) and provocative comments are some of the Socratic techniques used. (Lantz, 1987).
e) Self-help Tips from the Socratic Perspective
Socratic philosophy is self-directed in nature and although it may require the modest and sincere guidance of a more mature and wise person, it can also be a dialogue with one’s self and a model to be copied in a family role play. One may engage in an honest talk with himself, placing the voice of his conscience in a neutral and objective front, from where it asks bold questions about misbeliefs, contradictions, and inconsistencies which the person is reluctant to realize or whose existence they suspect. By monitoring the processes and inner dialogue on an individual level and by reaching the level to become a master or “craftsman” of this art, a person may turn to his family members, partner, colleagues or friends and resolve misunderstandings, mediate interfamilial conflicts, and become a role model for others. Reflection exercises, such as keeping a journal could be very helpful. One could look back to old entries, underline erroneous beliefs, ideas, and contradictions or inconsistencies, and then compare them to new entries (Grimes & Uliana, 1998). This exercise is good practice in identifying and realizing our negative thoughts, contradictions, inconsistencies, and their patterns, and it gradually leads us to realize what we should do to change them. The solution comes as an experience of enlightenment and self-awareness, which does not happen overnight, but rather requires patience and repeated practice.f) Reaching a Conclusion
Socratic philosophy still possesses some fresh and practical assets in terms of ideas, concepts and values, as well as methods, strategies and applications. It has been used in a vast array of activities that aim to improve human condition and provide a sane everyday lifestyle ranging from the field of education to mental health, criminal justice, and life coaching. Self-help tips are easy to be deduced and adopted in a way suitable to individual needs and can be used in individual or group/familial level. In our materialistic society, the oracle of Delphi may lay silent in ruins, but it still echoes its prophesy that Socrates is the world’s wisest man. The pearls and diamonds of ancient wisdom still shine peacefully in the modern world of ephemeral desires, where people are knowledgeable, but not wise – a cruel and violent world that looks so primitive when it encounters the sophistication of the ancient one.
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