Ancient Psychotherapy

Author(s): Christopher Gill

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1985), pp. 307-325
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY

BY CHRISTOPHER GILL

My title should perhaps be phrased as a question: "Ancient Psy-

chotherapy?"For the aim of this article is not, primarily, to describe the
various ancient practices which were called therapeia tes psuches ("cure
of the soul"). Rather it is to ask whether we can find anything in the
Ancient World which resembles what we, currently, call 'psychother-
apy'.* This term is used to cover a range of contemporary psychiatric
practices. But it is verbal psychotherapy I have especially in mind, the
kind of activity described by Anthony Storr, for instance, in his recent
book, The Art of Psychotherapy,'which is designed to give guidance to
British medical graduates entering psychiatry. 'Psychotherapy', as Storr
defines it, is "the art of alleviating personal difficulties through the agency
of words and a personal, professional relationship."The kind of treatment
he discusses in "analytical and individual, and involves only two partic-
ipants, the patient and the therapist" (vii).
The psychotherapeutic method, as Storr describes it, is not highly
predetermined,and varies from patient to patient. But it consists, essen-
tially, of an attempt to induce the patient to explore his own feelings,
wishes, anxieties and fantasies, as frankly as possible, in a way that helps
him to uncover the roots of his personal problems and try to solve them.
Storr is not an orthodox Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, or Kleinian (nor
is he, less orthodoxly, a Laingian or Lacanian); and so his method does
not rest on any particular set of psychological theories, about the un-
conscious, for instance, or the causation of neurosis. He does, however,
assume that people, at some level, 'know' the reason for their distress
and anxiety, and that psychotherapy can help to make them more fully
aware of this, and thus better able to deal with their emotional difficulties.
In comparison with Freud, Storr lays less stress on the bare act of bringing
to consciousness the source of the problem, and more on the development
of the kind of autonomy or 'integrity' of personality that can deal with
the problem.2The role of the therapist, as he presents it, is a subtle one,
* This article is based on a
paper read to a seminar on Ancient Religion in Corpus
Christi College, Oxford. I am grateful to the members of the seminar for their helpful
comments on the paper, particularly John Bramble. I would also like to thank David
Dickinson, Brett Kahr, Geoffrey Lloyd, and David Owen, for their useful criticisms of
an earlier version of this article.
1
(London, 1979). I am grateful to Graeme Feggetter for drawing my attention to
this book.
2 Cf. Storr's earlier book, The Integrity of Personality (London, 1960). This aligns

Storr to the approach sometimes called 'ego psychology'; see n. 15 below for other
approaches.

307

Copyright 1985 by JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INC.

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308 CHRISTOPHER GILL

which is neither passive nor overtly active. The therapist tries to avoid
taking the place of the patient's autonomy (by explicit advice or instruc-
tion), but nonetheless suggests, by questions and implicit guidance, ways
in which the patient may develop his own autonomy. The therapist plays
a role, as a person, in the therapeutic process: he often is, and should
be, the object of 'transference', that is, someone to whom the patient
'transfers' feelings of love and hate which are related to the 'working
through' of his problems. But this is a role he plays not as an individual
but as a therapist; the process is not designed to bind the patient emo-
tionally to the therapist, but to enable him to develop normal relations
outside the therapeutic context.
In summarizing Storr's account of psychotherapy, I do not wish to
suggest that I regard his psychiatric method as necessarily ideal or nor-
mative.3 In fact, I will have occasion to refer to psychiatric methods
which are rather different from Storr's later in this article. But it is useful,
nonetheless, to have a fairly representative statement of what is meant,
in contemporary usage, by 'psychotherapy', as a reference point for com-
parison with what we find in the Ancient World; and it is for that reason
that I have summarized Storr's account.
As well as giving a specific answer to the question whether psy-
chotherapy, in this sense, or anything closely resembling it, did or did
not exist in the Ancient World, I am interested in seeing how discussion
of this question bears on the comparative 'mapping'of ancient and modern
practices. I am also interested in demarcating the various conceptions of
the self that the ancient and modern practices in this area presuppose.4
The question of comparative 'mapping' is one of immediate importance.
For I take it as obvious that there is nothing in the Ancient World exactly
like the psychotherapy Storr describes; there is no class of persons whose
profession corresponds exactly to that of modern psychiatrists and psy-
chotherapists.5 To identify the nearest equivalents to modern psycho-
therapy, we need to look at the borders of certain ancient areas, the
borders of religion and medicine, on the one hand, and of medicine and
philosophy, on the other. I hope the remainder of this article will make
it clear why I think these areas are the most important ones to examine
for this purpose.

3 Storr himself sees the method as best suited for the treatment of neurosis rather
than psychosis (160ff); although the psychotherapeutictreatment of psychosis is advocated
in, e.g., Bertram P. Karon and Gary V. VanDenBos, Psychotherapyof Schizophrenia:
The Treatment of Choice (New York, 1981).
4 I discuss another aspect of this subject in "The Question of Character-Development
in Plutarch and Tacitus," Classical Quarterly, 33 (1983), 469-87.
5 Cf. Walther
Riese, "An Outline of a History of Ideas in Psychotherapy," Bulletin
of the History of Medicine, 25 (1951), 442-56, Bennett Simon, Mind and Madness in
Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry (Ithaca and London, 1978),
217.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 309

As far as the scope of this discussion is concerned, the 'Ancient

World' signifies here the Greco-Roman World. Given the kinds of evi-
dence we have available, I shall have little to say about Greece prior to
the late fifth century, B.C., and relatively little to say about Greco-Roman
culture after the second century, A.D. (with the exception of certain
medical texts). Within these time-limits, there seems to be a good deal
of continuity in the kinds of practice I am concerned with; and so the
discussion will move rather freely between periods of Classical Antiquity.
One topic I say nothing about is Christianity. I omit this topic although
I think Christianity is potentially important for this question, both in the
Ancient World and in later periods,6 but it seems to me impossible to
do justice to the role of Christianity in a survey of this length, and so I
leave it wholly on one side.7
The borders of religion and medicine.-One point of entry to this
area is a striking passage in Aristophanes' comedy, the Wasps,in which
the slave Xanthias describes the symptoms of the disease (nosos) that
has afflicted his master's father, Philocleon, and then enumerates various
unsuccessful cures (7 ff.). Xanthias mentions a number of what we might
call 'obsessions', that is, conditions of preternatural attraction (being
philo-) to dice, drink, or foreigners. He then specifies Philocleon's con-
dition (he is phileliastes, "in love with jury-service"), a condition which
is convincingly 'obsessive': Philocleon even dreams about jury-service
(92-93). The slave then describes the methods used to try to cure this
'disease': verbal dissuasion, katharsis (ritual purification with water),
initiation in the Corybantic rites, and incubation (sleeping overnight) in
Asclepius' sanctuary. All these methods have failed and the 'madman'
has been locked up (114ff.). The point of the passage is basically satirical
(Aristophanes in parodying the Athenian passion for jury-service); but
the passage seems to throw incidental light on contemporary treatment
of the mentally disturbed. If we leave aside the attempt at verbal dis-
suasion, the three methods mentioned seem to be of a similar type. They
are clearly linked with religious practice; and they are also 'curative', in
some sense, although they are not all especially associated with madness.8
The Corybantic rites, in particular, are regularly presented in our sources
6 See,
e.g., Michel Foucault's suggestion that Christian confessional practice paved
the way for psychoanalytic self-scrutiny, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Har-
mondsworth, Penguin, 1981), 20ff., 60ff., 115ff.
7 For some of the relevant
material, see Georg Misch, A History of Autobiographyin
Antiquity, 2 vols. (London, 1950), II, Part III (on self-scrutiny and confesssional liter-
ature). See also G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1965), s.v. therapeuo,iaomai, nosos.
8 See further E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles,

1951), 35-37; G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and
Development of Greek Science (Cambridge, 1979), 40ff., and Robert Parker, Miasma:
Pollution and Purification in early Greek Religion (Oxford, 1983), esp. chaps. 7-8.

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310 CHRISTOPHER GILL

as being religious rituals which are capable of curing states of emotional

disturbance and anxiety.9 Plato describes them as a means of 'homeo-
pathic' cure of emotional agitation (that is, the cure of inner agitation
by external agitation, in the form of violent music and dancing).?1This
is the kind of process Aristotle seems to have in mind in the Politics,
when he mentions the katharsis of emotions such as pity, fear, and
excitement (enthousiasmos) through religious music of an intense and
exciting kind.11The Corybantic rites are not unique; as Dodds points
out, they belong to a family of religious rituals (of which Bacchic rites
are another prominent example) which induce ecstatic or orgiastic ex-
periences and so bring to the participants some kind of satisfaction and
peace of mind.12
If we take these types of religious cure as a group, how close is the
treatment to modern psychotherapy? It is clearly quite unlike the kind
of psychotherapy Anthony Storr describes. Indeed, if there are analogues
in modern Western societies for this type of ancient practice, they might
seem to lie outside psychotherapy, in 'hot-gospel' Christianity, faith-cures
at Lourdes, or drugs, mysticism, and 'heavy rock' music. However, it is
worth trying to analyze what these ancient practices do or do not have
in common with the kind of psychotherapy I have described. Both the
ancient and the modern practices presuppose that anxiety and distress
cannot be cured simply by inducing the suffering person to exercise
rational self-discipline. The son of Philocleon (if we take this comic
example seriously) failed to 'persuade' his father, before he had recourse
to katharsis,Corybantic rites, and incubation to treat the 'disease' (Wasps,
114-24). Analogously, modern psychotherapists do not try to reason
patients out of their neurosis simply by an appeal to their capacity for
conscious self-control. They try to probe the unconscious levels of per-
sonality, which are not amenable to self-control in the usual sense, in an
attempt to find the unrecognized sources of the neurosis. The differences
between the ancient and modern practices are also fairly obvious, how-
ever. The ancient practices were not predominantly verbal, and did not
include sustained dialogue; they were also, by the same token, relatively
impersonal. Corybantic and Bacchic rituals, as far as we can reconstruct
them, were essentially the same for all the individuals participating in

9 See I. M. Linforth, "The Corybantic Rites in Plato," Universityof California Pub-

lications in Classical Philology, 13.5 (1946), 121-62 and "Telestic Madness in Plato,
Phaedrus, 244d-e," ibid., 13.6 (1946), 163-72.
10Plato, Laws, 790d-791a.
1 Politics, 1341b32ff., esp. 1342a4-15. This passage has often been taken to shed light
on Aristotle's comment about katharsis through tragedy in Poetics, 1449b24-31. For an
interpretation of Aristotle's idea of tragic katharsis as a theory about 'group-psycho-
therapy', see P. Lain Entralgo, The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity (New
Haven and London, 1970), 183ff.
12
Dodds, op. cit., 77-80.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 311

them.13 Some of our evidence suggests that people with particular psy-
chological problems were attracted to particular rituals (the irrationally
frightened were drawn to the Corybantic rites, for instance) and found
them satisfying.14 But, in the rites themselves, there does not seem to
have been any overt attempt to explore the individual's problems or to
rebuild his confidence.
In this respect, then, there seems to be rather little in common between
the methods of modern psychotherapy and ancient rituals of the Cory-
bantic type. However, it is worth noting that there are some types of
modern psychotherapy which are much closer to the ancient rituals. In
the United States, in particular, alongside the standard types of psycho-
analysis and psychotherapy, therapeutic methods have been developed
which lay much less emphasis on the verbal exploration of the patient's
psychological state and much more on the discharge of emotion in ex-
pressive physical action.'5In some methods, the use of dialogue is omitted
altogether; and the treatment consists entirely of attempts to find the
kind of physical action (for instance, muscular relaxation, violent gestures,
screaming) that gives the patient emotional release. This type of therapy
is often conducted in groups, and the mutual excitement generated by
the group is an important factor in inducing the patient to relax his
normal constraints and express himself physically.'6This type of therapy
is much closer to ancient rituals of the Corybantic type. Indeed, some
psychotherapists of this type are interested in these ancient practices, as
well as in similar practices in contemporary undeveloped cultures, re-
garding them as prototypes for their own methods.'7However, it is worth
examining precisely how close these parallels are. It is clear that both
ancient and modern methods provide some kind of expressive action
which gives emotional release. However, the personal and psychological
content of the modern practice is much more important and overt than
it was in the ancient rites, as far as we can reconstruct these. The modern
participant is encouraged to find the gestures or movements that help
him relax, to scream out his inmost feelings ('Love me', 'I hate you'), to
'act out' his suppressed urges.'8 Even in treatments where the element
of explicit analysis is very small, the therapeutic context (and the prev-
alence, in American culture at least, of a psychotherapeutic approach to
personal life) predisposesthe participantto think in terms of his individual
13
There were, of course, different roles within the ceremony (e.g. ministrant, initiated
worshipper, candidate for initiation), but the performance of these roles does not seem
to vary in ways that reflect the individual psychology of the participant.
14Cf.
Dodds, op. cit., 78-79.
'5 Michael P. Nichols and Melvin Zax, Catharsisin Psychotherapy(New York, 1977).
16
Nichols and Zax, Chaps. 5 and 7.
17 Nichols and Zax, Chap. 2.
18
Examples from Nichols and Zax, 109ff., 140, 148-9.

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312 CHRISTOPHER GILL

needs and satisfactions. By comparison, the Greek religious methods seem

to have been corporate, ritualistic, and impersonal.
This generalization, if it is a valid one, seems to apply to a rather
broad area in Antiquity, indeed to most of the treatments offered in
ancient religious and religio-medical contexts. However, it is worth look-
ing closely at two examples where our evidence is unusually full, to see
how far we should qualify this generalization about the impersonality of
the treatment offered in these contexts. The first example is that of Aelius
Aristides, who is famous for his account of his own prolonged and varied
illnesses and the numerous treatments he applied to them.19These treat-
ments were inspired by dreams which Aelius had during incubation in
Asclepius' sanctuary. Aelius believed that Asclepius used these dreams
to prescribe remedies to him; and that, in this sense, his illness was
receiving individual treatment by Asclepius.20Aelius himself does not
regard his treatment as psychotherapy because he sees his illness as being
physical and Asclepius as being a medical doctor in the usual sense (albeit
a divine one). But, from our point of view, what is psychiatrically inter-
esting about his account is that it shows how the temple of Asclepius
provided a context in which a person could (with religious, medical and
social support) explore his psycho-physical individuality, and could treat,
with partial success, diseases which were at least partly psychosomatic.
For, on Aelius' evidence, a good deal is left up to the individual patient
of Asclepius. The patient has the prescriptivedreams, and interpretsthem
(with assistance from friends, doctors, and contemporary techniques of
dream-interpretation)21 in that sense, he discovers his own treatment. We
also know, from Aelius' case, that he could discover and insistently apply,
cures which were medically insane (by ancient as well as modern stan-
dards) but which, nonetheless, had a temporarily beneficial effect.22Thus,
while Aelius is not, in an obvious sense, exploring his own psychology
(in fact, in some ways he seems markedly blind to his own character),23
the Asclepian context does not seem to provide a framework in which
Aelius, in a sense, explores his own psychophysical individuality, and
finds a very personal treatment for very personal diseases. In that respect,
Asclepius' temple provides a psychotherapeutic context, though one
whose methods are unlike any modern psychotherapy.
The case of Lucius, in Apuleius' novel, Metamorphoses(or The Golden
Ass) is in some ways comparable, as an example of a religious 'cure' that
19A lucid account of Aelius Aristides' Sacred Discourses,including translated extracts,
is given in A.-J. Festugiere, Personal Religion among the Greeks (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1954), Chap. vi.
20The 'personal' nature of their relationship, as Aelius sees it, is not confined to
dreams; cf. Festugiere, ibid., 95-97.
21 Cf.
ibid., 10lff., Lloyd, op. cit., 41-43.
22
Cf. Festugiere, ibid., 92-95.
23
Ibid., 97-98, Misch, op. cit., 506-07.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 313

has a strongly personal dimension. Apuleius' hero comes to feel that Isis
cares for him, as an individual; for she not only miraculously changes
his bodily shape (restoring him from ass to human), but attaches as a
precondition a complete change in his way of life. He is to transform his
life, previously dominated by curiosity about magic, into one dominated
by religious devotion, and to reject the sexual pleasures that were formerly
important to him and become celibate.24By non-Christian standards, this
is a striking portrayal of religious 'conversion', and one that places an
unusual stress on the impact of the conversion on the life of the initiate.25
It is not so much the moral aspect of the conversion that Apuleius stresses,
but rather the fascination of the initiate with the religious rituals, espe-
cially the initiation into the 'mysteries' of the cult, and the quasi-personal
relationship he feels he has with the goddess. The underlying idea seems
to be that this religious absorption has 'cured' Lucius of his previous
restless curiosity about magic, and at the same time provided a focus for
his whole life, channelling all his desires into his love for Isis.26It is
difficult to say how far we can draw inferences, from this peculiar piece
of fiction, about the kind of 'psychotherapeutic'help an ancient mystery
religion could provide. But one point that emerges very clearly is that
religious rituals may be apparently impersonal (the Isis rituals are the
same for all worshippers, and the initiation ceremony is the same for all
initiates); and yet they can have an intensively personal significance for
a particular person. Not only do the rituals have an intense emotional
power for Lucius, but they make sense for him (because of the distinctive
role the conversion has played in his life) in a way they could not make
sense for anyone else. Thus, this example, together with that of Aelius
Aristides, should partly qualify our generalizationabout the impersonality
of ancient religious rituals, considered as a form of therapy.27
Folk-psychotherapy'in GreekDrama. -I shall turn shortly from the
borders of religion and medicine to medicine proper, and to its borders
with philosophy. But, first I want to consider briefly some of the evidence
we find in Greek drama, especially tragedy, for what one might call 'folk-
psychotherapy', that is, psychotherapy which is not connected with any
specific discipline or practice, such as medicine, philosophy, or religion.
In an article on the Bacchae, Georges Devereux describes the dialogue

24 Apuleius, Metamorphoses,lines 15; cf. lines 6 and 11, 19. See further G. N. Sandy

and J. Gwyn Griffiths in Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass, ed. B. L. Hijmans and R. Th.
van der Paardt (Groningen, 1978), 123ff. (esp. 130-04), and 141ff (esp. 156-58).
25
Cf. A. D. Nock, Conversion(Oxford, 1933), Chap. IX, esp. 155; Festugiere, op.
cit., 77-84.
26
Festugiere notes the inexplicabilis voluptas (Metamorphoses, 11, 24) Lucius takes
in prolonged gazing at the cult statue of Isis, op. cit., 80-84; cf. Gwyn Griffiths (n. 24
above), 156-58.
27 See further, on the personal and psychological significance of folk-rituals, Claude

Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology(London, 1968), Chap. X, esp. 198-204.

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314 CHRISTOPHER GILL

in which Cadmus helps Agave make the transition from madness to

sanity as "the first surviving account of an insight-and-recall oriented
psychotherapy, which sheds light upon an aspect of Greek attempts to
treat psychiatric illness, which is not otherwise attested."28This claim
(which I shall discuss shortly) serves as a reminder of the fact that, in
several Greek tragedies, we see people being helped out of madness, or
helped to accept the consequences of their madness, and that this help
is sometimes given sensitively and effectively. In two notable scenes, in
Sophocles' Ajax and Euripides' Heracles, we see the portrayal of a man
who is now sane coming to terms with what he did when he was mad.
In both cases, his first instinct is to kill himself out of a sense of shame;
this instinct is opposed successfully by Theseus in the Heracles, and
unsuccessfully by Tecmessa in the Ajax. It is perhaps significant that, in
the Heracles, Theseus is strongly 'supportive' to Heracles. He abstains
from criticism of Heracles; he offers him unconditional friendship and a
new home; he ignores the risk of pollution from contact with a man who
has murdered his own family; he ascribes responsibility for the act to
Hera; he claims that all gods, as well as all men, are doomed to error
and misfortune.29In this way, he leads Heracles to face what he has done
in madness and still want to live.30Ajax too is not criticised, either by
Tecmessa or the chorus, when he recovers from his madness. But the
principal response of Tecmessa is to make demands on Ajax (that he
should continue living, so that he can protect his family, 492ff.). Also,
Tecmessa, as a woman, and a slave-wife, cannot be 'supportive' to Ajax
in the same way as Theseus is to Heracles. There are, of course, other
differences between the protagonists and the situations of the two plays.31
But the contrast in the responses to the ex-madman-support on the
one hand and demand on the other-seems potentially significant. The
contrast may simply reflect different dramatic requirementsin each case;
but it may also point to a general awareness in Greek society of the
problem of finding the right way to deal with the after-effects of madness.
Both Ajax and Heracles are sane at the time of these 'therapeutic'
dialogues. In Euripides' Bacchae, however, Agave is partially mad on
stage for a considerable time; and the dialogue with Cadmus helps to
lead her out of madness into a sane recognition of what she has done.
Camus' treatment of her is sensitively 'supportive' (as Devereux shows);
and Cadmus is sensitive too to the ways he can reawaken Agave's sane
consciousness and sense of herself.32Devereux makes the further claim
28
"The Psychotherapy Scene in Euripides' Bacchae," Journal of Hellenic Studies, 90
(1970), 35-48 (quotation from 35).
29Heracles, 1163ff., esp. 1191, 1218ff, 1234-6, 1311ff, 140ff.
30 See further, H. H. O. Chalk, "Arete and Bia in Euripides' Herakles," Journal of

Hellenic Studies, 82 (1962), 7ff.

31
Cf. Simon, op. cit., 137-39.
32
Cf. Devereux, op. cit., 40-47.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 315

that this scene is 'the first surviving example of insight-and-recalloriented

psychotherapy' (35). Devereux claims that Cadmus does not simply tell
Agave what she did while she was mad (that is, tear her own son,
Pentheus, apart) but helps her remember this, overcoming her psycho-
logical 'resistance'to doing so. However, Devereux's interpretationis not
the most natural reading of the text. On the face of it, what is presented
is, first, a period in which Agave is half-mad and remembers killing, but
thinks she has killed a lion; second, a period in which Agave is sane,
and cannot remember killing at all.33This discontinuity of memory be-
tween madness and sanity is paralleled in the portrayals of Ajax and
Heracles too.34 Devereux's interpretation is based less on specific indi-
cations in the text than in the general similarity he finds between Agave's
behavior on stage (for instance, 'a defensivehypomanic exaltation masking
underlying grief ... a coy, hysterical foolishness') and the behavior of
psychotics in therapy 'resisting' insight into their condition.35Devereux's
claim is an interesting one; and his reading of the scene makes it into a
reproduction of 'psychotherapy' in a very modern sense. But, in the
absence of any strong textual support, Devereux is vulnerable to the
criticism that he has superimposed on the scene a significance which it
does not have. What we seem rather to have here is a portrayal of one
person helping another from madness to sanity, and then treating her
gently as she reenters normal consciousness. This is interesting enough,
as an indication of Greek awareness of how to treat people in such
situations; but the scene does not seem to be as different from the other
cases in Greek tragedy as Devereux claims.
Another striking scene, and one that has received less attention,
occurs, again, in Aristophanes' Wasps. Philocleon's son, after failing in
a second attempt at rational persuasion, seems to pander to his father's
'madness'. He sets up a curious 'psycho-drama' in which a courtroom
scene is enacted inside the household, and the father is given the role of
juror in a dispute between two domestic dogs (760ff.). At first, the son
seems to be simply reinforcing his father's obsession. But then, within
the drama, he manages to 'rig' the verdict; thus, by convincing Philocleon
that he has voted for acquittal, he succeeds in breakinghis father's lifelong
habit of condemnation. At this, Philocleon experiences some kind of
emotional collapse, and hands himself over to his son for a complete
change in his style of life.36It is difficult to distinguish here good comic

33The two periods are presented in 1165-1258, and 1271-1301 (esp. 1286ff) respec-
tively. Agave's transition to sanity is brought about during 1259-1270.
34 See Sophocles, Ajax, 31 lff; Euripides, Heracles, 1094ff, esp. 1122; cf. Devereux, op.

cit., nn. 6, 18.

35 Devereux, 37. Of the lines Devereux discusses, only 1278 seems to lend much

support to his thesis.

36 986ff, cf. 875-84. The subsequent action shows that the reform of Philocleon's

character is only skin-deep, however.

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316 CHRISTOPHER GILL

theatre (the ridiculous portrayal of Philocleon's fanatical addiction to

jury-service) from the representation of a psychologically credible situ-
ation.37But the scene does seem to include the idea of working on madness
'from within'; that is, of playing the madman's game, and working for
a change of attitude within the game. If this is so, it gives us evidence
of a technique that is not well-documented in the Ancient World. It is
not until a much later date that we find discussion of similar techniques
in medical writings. The Roman doctor Celsus advocated agreeing with
the patient instead of opposing him, and turning his mind slowly and
imperceptiblyfrom irrational talk to something better. Thus, for instance,
he tried to allay a wealthy patient's obsessive fear of starvation by an-
nouncing pretended legacies from time to time.38This medical technique
seems similar to that used by Aristophanes' figure, though it lacks the
dramatic conversion within the 'mad' state that is so striking a feature
of the scene in the Wasps.39
This evidence in Greek drama presents a number of difficulties of
interpretation. However, we can say that the plays show the mad and
ex-mad being handled gently and with sensitivity; and this portrayal may
reflect a general awareness of the importance of treating disturbed people
in this way. But, if we discount Devereux's interpretationof the Bacchae,
there seems to be no evidence of a developed technique of psychotherapy
in the modern sense; that is, a technique designed to give the patient
insight into the basic causes of the mental disturbance and so effect a
cure for this.
The borders of medicine and philosophy.-So far we have found a
good deal of evidence, in ancient religion and drama, for practices which
are in some way comparable to modern psychotherapy, but nothing that
resembles it closely. One problem has been the difficulty of determining
the presuppositions about the nature of mental illness and its treatment
which underlie religious practices and dramatic representations. This
problem is less acute in the next area I want to explore, the borders of
medicine and philosophy. For both ancient doctors and philosophers
offered some accounts of mental or psychic diseases, and of their cure;
and the philosophers are especially articulate about the kind of disease
and treatment they have in mind. However, as we shall see, there is some
doubt about whether either doctors or philosophers quite engage in 'psy-
chotherapy', as we understand this term. Ancient doctors were not un-
aware of what we call 'mental' illnesses, although their main concern
was with what we call 'physical' illnesses. But they did not, on the other

37 For other components of the comedy of the scene, see Aristophanes, Wasps, ed.

D. M. MacDowell (Oxford, 1971), 249-50.

38 Celsus, 3.18 (mid first century A.D.).
39 See
Riese, op, cit., 442, for a comparable, but more successful, case of dramatic
conversion in 11th c. Arabic medicine.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 317

hand, develop to any great extent distinctively mental or psychological

techniques to deal with these illnesses. Their normal methods of treat-
ment, like those of most modern non-psychiatric doctors, were physical
rather than psychological; and this is largely true of their treatment of
mental illnesses. Philosophers, by contrast, were very much concerned
with the area of the psychological, and sometimes claimed to be 'doctors'
of psychic diseases. However, they mostly seem to have had in mind
what we should regard as moral failings rather than mental illness. And
their methods of cure, correspondingly, consist of moral instruction, of
various kinds, rather than 'therapy' in our sense. To that extent, neither
type of ancient cure quite correspondsto modem psychotherapy;although
there are some striking borderline cases, on the more psychological mar-
gins of medicine, and on the more medical margins of philosophy, that
are worth considering closely.
Let us take medicine first. It is striking that, in the Wasps,while so
many other remedies are tried for Philocleon's 'madness', nobody thinks
of sending for a doctor. This seems to suggest that, as we would expect
from other evidence, Greek doctors were associated primarily with the
treatment of physical rather than mental illness.40This does not mean
that there is no evidence of interest in mental illness in medical texts in
the Hippocratic corpus and elsewhere. We find accounts of cases of
illnesses of the mind (gnome) or the psyche, which give close attention
to such features as irrational anxieties and distress as well as distortions
in perception.41We also find the beginnings of the classification of such
illnesses. For instance, doctors distinguish between phrenitis and mel-
ancholy. Phrenitis is an acute delirious condition, marked by, for instance,
feverish hand movements and hallucination; melancholy is a chronic
condition, affecting the digestion as well as the emotions, and defined by
its diagnosis (an excess of black bile).42
The extent to which these illnesses were conceived as a separate class
of diseases (mental or psychological rather than physical) is generally
not very easy to determine. It depends on the extent to which the writer
in question regarded it as important to reach a view on the nature of,
and relations between, psyche and body.43But, as far as treatment goes,
it is clear that, in this as in other areas of ancient medicine, the methods
were largely physical. Drugs were prescribed, often with purgative func-
tions, for acute conditions; long-term changes in diet and regime were

40Cf. Lain Entralgo, op. cit., 169-70, Simon, op. cit., 215ff.
41 See Jackie
Pigeaud, La Maladie de L'Ame: Etude sur la relation de 'ame et du
corps dans le tradition medico-philosophiqueantique (Paris, 1981), 42-45, 95ff., 124ff.,
Lain Entralgo, op. cit., 161-63. (Here and subsequently I renderpsuche in its more familiar
form psyche.)
42 Cf.
Pigeaud, ibid., 71ff., 122ff., and H. Flasher, Melancholie und Melancholiker in
den medizinischen Theorien der Antike (Berlin, 1966).
43
See Pigeaud, ibid., Chap. I, esp. 32ff.

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318 CHRISTOPHER GILL

prescribedfor chronic conditions. In the Hippocratic corpus, for instance,

we find a description of a 'troublesome illness', phrontis, whose symptoms
include unexplained internal pains and irrational fears and anxieties. The
medical treatise prescribes "hellebore to purge the head, then a laxative
to purge the bottom. Then asses' milk, no wine, no sport or walks. Under
this treatment, the illness will go away in time...."4 In other cases, by
contrast, wine is prescribed,in moderate quantities, to counteract anxiety
or depression.45To what extent were illnesses of this kind also treated
by non-physical means? It had been recognized since Homer that the
skilful doctor "entertains with words" or stories, while he administers
herbs or drugs.46It was also sometimes recognized that the effectiveness
of a doctor's treatment depended on his success in gaining his patient's
cooperation.47This evidence of realization of the value of the 'bedside
manner' falls short, however, of attesting to the existence of what one
could reasonably call psychological treatment. Did ancient doctors ever
try to cure mental illnesses by psychological means?
In fact, there are certain rather interesting discussions in medical
texts of psychological treatments of the mentally disturbed though some
of the texts are from late antiquity. Caelius Aurelianus is a particularly
valuable source of evidence of this kind. He seems to have written in the
fifth century, A.D.; but much of his material is based on that of Soranus
(early second century, A.D.).48Caelius advocates the use of psychological
treatment in conjunction with physical treatment;his psychological treat-
ment aims to counteract the state of mind of the sick person. Thus, he
proposes visits to the theatre (comedy for the sad and tragedy for the
giddy and childish), to restore the 'mean' state of mind (mediocritas)
that constitutes sanity. He also recommends attendance at philosophical
discussions; "for philosophers remove fear, sadness, and anger by their
words, and this helps to provide a considerable improvement in the bodily
condition." Here, dialogue, of a certain kind, makes its appearance in
the therapeutic process. Presumably, Caelius has in mind the exhortations
to emotional self-control typical of Stoic philosophy, for instance, in the
Roman Empire (which I shall note again shortly). Does Caelius also
advocate therapeutic dialogue between doctor and patient? Even in the
case of those afflicted by phrenitis (an acute, delirious condition), dialogue
can be helpful. Caelius' recommendations are based again on the principle
of trying to counteract the sick person's state of mind. Overexcited
patients should be addressed gravely (like children); depressed and irri-
tated patients should be addressedgently, with a cheerful and encouraging
44De Morbis II, VII, Littre, 108-110;cf. Pigeaud, ibid., 126, and, for a similar example,
Simon, op. cit., 218-19.
45Cf. Pigeaud, ibid., 497-503.
46Iliad, 11, 643; 15, 392-94, cf. Lain Entralgo, op. cit., 24.
47 Plato, Gorgias, 456b, cf. Lain Entralgo, op. cit., 97.
4
Pigeaud, op. cit., 20-21.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 319

manner. Authority, in particular, can play a useful role in dealing with

the insane: the doctor should try to find someone whom the patient
respected when sane and present him to the patient to recall him to his
sane state of mind.
In discussing the psychological techniques of dealing with the insane,
Caelius is contributing to a subject which had interested doctors for some
time. Celsus, for instance, writing in the first century, A.D., had suggested
reading to educated patients well, or indeed badly, if that would serve
to jolt them into rational thought. Caelius develops this suggestion, urging
the doctor to find topics (such as agriculture or navigation) that interest
the patient, and, if he has no special interests, to ask him about trivialities
or play chess. Caelius emerges from his writings as a rather sensitive
doctor, and a 'liberal' (as we might say) in his treatment of the insane.
He opposes the crude or brutal techniques sometimes used-starvation,
heavy drinking, or flogging. Celsus had advocated a discriminating use
of violence, as a kind of 'shock-treatment', to startle the madman out of
his mental state. Caelius rejects such treatment; if he has to use ropes to
restrain the insane, he winds wool around them so as not to hurt the
patient.49He also rejects the use of music in therapy, which had been
advocated by Asclepiades, among others, and which was, in a sense, a
continuation of the Corybantic cure.50In general, he opposed 'homeo-
pathic' treatment, that is, the attempt to cure emotional excitement by
inducing excitement; his own method, as we have seen, is consistently
'allelopathic', designed to counteract the existing mental disturbance.51
It is understandable that Pigeaud should describe Caelius as "le seul
psychiatre coherent de l'Antiquite" (112). Apart from the fact that his
psychological methods, given their limitations of aim, seem reasonable
ones, he has a clear and consistent view of the nature of madness and
the treatment appropriate to it. He sees madness as a physical illness
with mental or psychological side-effects.52Both body and mind can, and
should be, treated; and since body and mind interact, the treatment of
one aspect of insanity can help to cure the other.
It is clear that we have evidence here, in the later medical tradition,
of practices in some ways more like modern psychotherapy than we have
found elsewhere in the Ancient World. The patient is treated, by some
doctors at least, as an interrelated complex of mind and body, amenable
to psychological as well as physical treatment for mental disorders. He
is also sometimes treated as an individual; his long-term interests and
capacities, as well as the transient play of his moods and reactions, are
noted, and responded to, by the more perceptive doctors. The medical

49 For refs. in Caelius and Celsus, see Pigeaud, op. cit., 109-11, 427.
50 Cf. Dodds, op. cit., 79-80, and nn. 9-11 above.
51 Cf.
Pigeaud, op. cit., 109-112.
52 See
Storr, The Art of Psychotherapy,93-94; cf. Chap. 13.

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320 CHRISTOPHER GILL

treatment includes an attempt to institute some kind of dialogue, and to

establish personal contact, with the patient. However, it seems an
overstatement to claim that the methods used by Caelius, or any other
ancient doctor we know of, constitute psychotherapy of the kind I de-
scribed at the start of this article. The principal reason for not making
this claim is that, in ancient medicine, the verbal and psychological part
of the treatment is only ancillary to the physical treatment. Verbal therapy
is not seen as a means of uncovering the source of the mental disorder
and thus opening the way for the removal of the disorder. Fundamentally,
the mental disorder is seen (by Caelius, for instance) as a by-product of
a physical disease. There is a contrast here with the views of some modern
therapists (including Anthony Storr), as regards at least some kinds of
mental disorder. While these therapists accept the need to use drugs to
alleviate extreme mental disturbance, they regard therapeutic dialogue
as the only way to uncover the causative roots of the disturbance, and
so bring about a lasting cure. There seems to be no evidence for this
view in ancient medicine, and it is not a view which is consistent with
the primarily physical approach to illness (including madness) that we
find there.
The idea that searching dialogue can reach the root cause of a person's
problems in living, and can produce a cure for them, is, however, a
dominant theme in one ancient discipline, that of philosophy. This makes
ancient philosophy sound very much like modern psychotherapy. But we
find in this area the general difficulty of knowing whether the terms
mental 'sickness' and 'cure', are being used in anything like the same
sense as in ancient (and modern) medicine; or whether these terms are
being used to denote the rather different ideas of moral defectiveness and
moral instruction. The belief that the philosopher can function as a doctor
of the psyche emerges in the late fifth and early fourth century, B.C. We
are told that Antiphon "founded an art to cure griefs, analogous to that
which among doctors serves as a basis for the treatment of diseases. In
Corinth, near the market-place, he set up a room with a sign announcing
that he was able to treat with words those in distress. He asked them
the causes (of their distress) and offered consolation." 53 Our evidence
does not enable us to determine his techniques with any certainty; but
the idea that there exists a psychological analogue for the technique of
medicine becomes a standard one. Democritus claims that, "Medicine
heals diseases of the body; wisdom frees the psyche from passions (path-e)";
and this claim seems to be connected with his attempt to find a systematic
way of freeing mankind from despair (dusthumia) and producing cheer-
53 Cf.Lain Entralgo (whose translation of the relevant passage I give, in modified
form), op. cit., 97-98, and G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981),
51.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 321

fulness (euthumia).54Plato, in particular, appropriates the idea that phi-

losophy is a quasi-medicine, sometimes combining this idea with the
claim that the Socratic type of dialogue is the most effective method of
cure for psychic illness. The locus classicus is the start of the Charmides,
an early Platonic dialogue. Here, Socrates presents himself as a special
kind of doctor, who will not cure the body without the psyche, and who
will not attempt to cure until he has made a diagnostic examination of
the psyche of the patient, Charmides, to see if he possesses s-phrosune
(self-control) or not. The diagnostic test and the proposed 'cure' are
conducted in Socrates' distinctive method of questioning dialogue, the
elenchus.55The Socratic method may seem, superficially, like a psycho-
therapeutic dialogue in the modern sense; for instance, both types of
dialogue require the 'patient' to examine himself closely. But the actual
content of the dialogue is a very different one. Instead of exploring the
particularities of personal life (especially its emotional aspects), Socratic
dialogue examines a person's capacity for defining abstract ideas (such
as sophrosune). Given the Socratic tendency to identify moral excellence
with knowledge, this procedure makes sense; but it means that Socratic
dialogue is a quite different kind of technique from modern psycho-
therapy.
In his later writings, Plato explores fully the idea that moral defec-
tiveness is a sickness of the psyche, and, as such, requires cure, of some
kind, rather than punishment.56This approach is taken up by the Stoics,
who catalogue in some detail the various sicknesses of the psyche (that
is, what we normally think of as vices), and reflect at length on the
possibility and means of curing these.57The term 'sickness of the psyche'
is used with rather more plausibility by the Stoics and the later Plato
than by Socrates in the Charmides. For they use it to denote the psy-
chologically richer area of a person's relationship to his emotions or
passions, particularly those to which he is particularly liable.58Later
Stoics are interested in examining, in a psychologically realistic way, the
extent to which a person can master his own particular emotional weak-
nesses. They are also interested in the way in which this process of self-
correction can be promoted by therapeutic dialogue with another person.59
However, the fact remains that philosophers such as Plato and the
Stoics were operating with a conception of psychic sickness and cure
that it significantly different from that used by ancient or modern med-

54 Fragment 31; cf. Pigeaud, op. cit., 443-45.

55 Cf. Plato,
Sophist, 227-30, where Socratic dialectic is describedas a means of bringing
about a quasi-medical purgation (katharsis) of psychic diseases.
56 Cf. M. M. Mackenzie, Plato on Punishment (Berkeley, 181), Chaps. 10-11.

57 Cf. Pigeaud, op. cit., Chap. 3.

58Ibid., 291ff.
59
See, esp., Seneca, De Ira and De TranquillitateAnimi; cf. Pigeaud, op. cit., 315ff,
503ff, and, on Posidonius, 276ff.

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322 CHRISTOPHER GILL

icine. Stoic 'madness', for instance, does not necessarily manifest itself
to the sufferer in the kinds of distress and anxiety that ancient medicine
saw as symptomatic of melancholy and that modern medicine sees as
symptomatic of neurosis. Nor does Stoic madness necessarily manifest
itself to the observer in the kinds of pronounced abnormality of behavior
that ancient medicine saw as symptomatic of phrenitis and that modern
medicine sees as symptomatic of psychosis. This reflects the fact that the
Stoics, like Plato, did not proceed by accepting the notions of madness
and sanity that were current in their society and then attempting to find
a psychologically richer account of these. Instead, they wanted to revise
these notions, in line with their radical and revisionary moral theories.0
Modern psychotherapists, since Freud, have produced revisionary psy-
chological theories, too; but their theoretical work has developed directly
out of clinical experience of people who already seemed to themselves
or their society to be abnormal or distressed.
Are there any areas of overlap between the ancient medical and
philosophical approaches to psychic illness? Did the philosophers ever
set out to cure people who were 'sick' or disturbed in a medical sense?
Pigeaud argues that we can find evidence for certain kinds of overlap,
particularly with respect to what we call 'neurosis'.61He points to Lu-
cretius' description of the ennui and restless anxiety that afflicted Roman
aristocrats, and of the ways in which they felt 'weighed down' by cares
whose origin was unclear to them. Lucretius sees these feelings as the
symptoms of a 'sickness' whose primary cause is an unrecognized fear
of death. He undertakes to cure this sickness by his teaching; and his
poem constitutes a kind of therapeutic dialogue, designed for this pur-
pose.62 Pigeaud also points to the quasi-therapeutic form of Seneca's De
TranquillitateAnimi. At the start of this work, Serenus describes, "as
though to a doctor" (ut medico, 1, 2) his current symptoms: indeterminate
anxiety, dissatisfaction with himself, inability to settle down to any one
course of action. Pigeaud notes that these symptoms are close to some
of the symptoms of melancholy, as described in medical texts. This
suggests that some ancient philosophers, as well as doctors, recognized
what we call 'neurosis' (that is, anxiety and distress which are not ex-
plained by the external circumstances of a person's life), and that the

60 Plato's account of the tyrannical psyche in Republic, Book IX, might seem a counter-
instance: the psyche, 'maddened' by desire (573a-e), behaves in a way that might be seen
as mad in conventional terms (574d-575a). But Plato did not write the account in order
to analyse conventional madness, but to dramatize his revisionary ethical theories.
61
Pigeaud, op. cit., 513-14.
62Lucretius, 3.1051ff., cf. Pigeaud, op. cit., 205ff., and B. Farrington, "Form and
Purpose in the De Rerum Natura," in Lucretius, ed. D. R. Dudley (London, 1965), 19-
34.

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 323

philosophers, as well as the doctors, attempted to offer a cure.63Pigeaud

does not claim that these passages in Lucretius and Seneca constitute the
demarcation of a new area of ancient thought, combining the curative
aims of medicine with the developed psychology of philosophy and thus
constituting a method which might reasonably be compared with modern
psychotherapy. The two areas remain distinct, though closely juxtaposed.
Pigeaud's statement of the position seems a fair one. Both ancient doctors
and philosophers sometimes recognized what we call 'neurosis' though
neither of them conceived it quite as we do. Neurotic behavior was taken
by doctors as a symptom of the physical disease of melancholy, and by
philosophers as a symptom of intellectual and moral weakness. The two
approaches to 'neurosis' co-existed, but were not bridged or synthesized
in antiquity.64
Conclusion.-What conclusions can be drawn from this survey of
types of practice in the Ancient World? This survey seems to suggest
that modern psychotherapy holds a place which was not recognized in
the Ancient World, between medical and religious therapy on the one
hand, and philosophical therapy on the other. Ancient medical and re-
ligious practice seems to presuppose that the roots of emotional disturb-
ance lie in some region of the person that is 'irrational' in some sense,
and not amenable to therapy through dialogue. For religion, this region
is the one that is reached through Corybantic rites or initiation into
mystery cults, a region accessible to divine dialogue (through dreams and
visions) but not to human dialogue. For medicine, the source of irra-
tionality is usually taken to be a physical one. Humoral imbalance, for
instance, is the supposed cause of melancholy, which doctors tried to
cure by administering drugs such as hellebore. Enlightened doctors (Cae-
lius Aurelianus, for instance) supplemented such treatment with attempts
to establish personal contact with mad patients. Similarly, in ordinary
life (if we can draw any inferences from Greek drama), people were
conscious of the need to talk to the mad, and ex-mad, with special care
and sensitivity. But neither in medicine, drama, or religion do we find
attempts to discover the roots of mental disturbance and so effect a cure
by verbal therapy alone.
In ancient philosophy, on the other hand, dialogue is much more
central; and ancient philosophical dialogue (like modern psychothera-
peutic dialogue) aimed at inducing the 'patient' to examine himself and
improve his capacity for autonomous living. Ancient ethical philosophy
also tended to assume that personal problems in living derive from the
63
Pigeaud, op. cit., 204-08, 506, 516-18. One might compare Antiphon's attempted
cure (n. 53 above), although the kinds of distress he tried to cure may have had more
determinate causes.
64 Pigeaud attributes to Pinel (the grandfather of modern psychiatry) the eventual
attempt to join the two traditions in a systematic way, op. cit., 245-47, 531-35.

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324 CHRISTOPHER GILL

irrational regions of the psyche. Unlike the other ancient disciplines,

however, ancient philosophy held that these regions are amenable to
rational control, and that therapeutic dialogue can help a person to gain
rational self-mastery. This is an assumption which ancient philosophy
may seem to share with modern psychotherapy, but there are significant
differences in the types of dialogue used and in the psychological as-
sumptions on which they rest. With the exception of the unusual 'Socratic'
dialogue, ancient philosophical dialogue was overtly didactic in character.
The philosopher gave instruction, argued, urged; he was not, like a
modern psychotherapist, typically reticent, interrogative, and concerned
to draw the other person out. Also, ancient philosophical dialogue was
explicitly moral or evaluative in character. There is no attempt, as in
modern psychotherapy, to create a morally-neutral, 'free' space, in which
the patient is invited to be absolutely frank about himself, without fearing
the therapist's condemnation. There are also differences in psychological
assumptions. While ancient moral philosophy is interested in (indeed,
preoccupied with) the 'irrational',it does not recognize, to any significant
extent, the notion of the 'unconscious'. Certainly, the attempt to probe
the person's unconscious, by the exploration of dreams, fantasies, or
verbal associations, forms no part of ancient philosophical therapy. An-
cient philosophy approaches the person as a conscious agent, who is
potentially capable of controlling his emotions and desires by deliberate
choice. He is not treated as someone in whom the conscious self is, so
to speak, only the surface level, and whose behavior is determined, to a
significant extent, by unconscious desires and fears.65In this respect, then,
modern psychotherapy occupies a space not occupied in the Ancient
World, between the non-verbal techniques of religion and medicine and
the verbal techniques of philosophy. The space it holds in modern times
would be hard, perhaps impossible, to imagine without the expansion of
psychological conceptions we associate with Freud.66
In pointing to this gap in the ancient range of therapies, I do not
intend to disparage the facilities available for the mad and emotionally
disturbed in the Ancient World. My aim has been to try to demarcate
differences and similarities rather than to argue for the superiority or
inferiority of ancient or modern institutions. In fact, the two main classes
of the mentally sick, as we now distinguish them, seem to have had some
kind of recourse, during much of the period of Classical Civilization. For
the 'raving mad' or psychotics, the medical profession attempted to bring

65 In modern
psychotherapy, there is considerable dispute about the nature of the
unconscious and the extent of its power. But to allocate some role (often a large one) to
the unconscious in the determination of behaviour has been characteristic of psycho-
therapy since Freud.
66 For recent appraisals of Freud's conceptions, see Philosophical Essays on Freud,

ed. Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins (Cambridge, 1982), and Ilham Dilman, Freud
and the Mind (Oxford, 184).

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 ANCIENT PSYCHOTHERAPY 325

about some kind of cure, sometimes in a humane and sympathetic way.67

For those looking for a cure for fears, anxieties, and distresses with no
obvious source (neurotics, as we call them), a range of therapies existed,
religious, medical, and philosophical in character. Jung suggests that a
good many of the people who go to psychotherapists in the twentieth
century are really suffering from the lack of any strong moral or spiritual
conviction; and that older people, especially, are troubled essentially by
the fear of death.68If people were troubled for similar reasons in the
Ancient World, they had no shortage of would-be therapists, especially
for the treatment of the fear of death.69

The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

67
According to Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (New York, 1967), this
attempt was rarely made in modern Europe before the Nineteenth Century.
68
C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London, 1933), 120ff.
69 Ancient
'mystery' cults, e.g. that of Isis, typically offered the hope of immortality
of the psyche to initiates. For philosophical exhortations to overcome the fear of death,
see Pigeaud, op. cit., 205-08, 349-53.

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