Do not seek to have everything that happens happen as you wish, but wish for everything to happen as it actually does happen, and your life will be s… - Epictetus

As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.

Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), arguably the foremost modality in counselling today. As a college freshman in an informal study group devoted to reading and commenting on major philosophers, Ellis was struck by Epictetus’ insistence that ‘It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them’ (Enchiridion 5). Ellis openly credits Epictetus for supplying his guiding principle that our emotional responses to upsetting actions – not the actions themselves – are what create anxiety and depression; and that (a point basic to Stoic psychology in general) our emotional responses are products of our judgements – are in fact (irrational) judgements tout court: ‘Much of what we call emotion is nothing more nor less than a certain kind – a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind – of thought. What we call feelings almost always have a pronounced evaluating or appraisal element.’6 Ellis points out that irrational beliefs often appear in the way people talk to themselves. Compare Epictetus at IV 4, 26–27:

Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable.