How would Socrates deal with anger?

The philosophy of Socrates can help us to overcome our own anger

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates says that when a good man knows that he is in the wrong, and being punished justly, his spirit will not feel anger. On the other hand, when a man believes that he has been wronged, and that he is a victim of injustice, his spirit will “seethe and grow fierce.”

He will seek justice, says Socrates, and his anger, and desire for revenge, “will not let go until either it achieves its purpose, or death ends all, or else, as a dog is called back by a shepherd, it is called back by the reason within and calmed.” You believe that someone has done something they should not have done, something unacceptable or unfair. You may even feel that they deserve to be punished. Anger, in other words, has long been associated with the belief that one has been wronged by another who has acted unjustly.

We don’t normally think of the philosophy of justice as being a branch of psychotherapy. Our conception of injustice, however, may affect our emotional resilience. Over a century ago, Sigmund Freud observed that “Melancholics always seem as though they had been slighted or treated with great injustice.” Recent research has indeed found evidence that “perceived injustice” is linked with and may be one of the causes of clinical depression.

[This article is based on an excerpt from my latest book, How to Think Like Socrates, which is now available for preorder, in harback, ebook, and audiobook formats.]

Although cognitive therapy, one of the leading treatments for clinical depression, employs a technique called “Socratic Questioning”, which is loosely based on the Socratic Method, it seldom draws upon the philosophical insights found in the Socratic dialogues. However, I’ve often asked myself whether Socrates’ philosophical arguments concerning “justice” could inform cognitive therapy for anger. There’s one philosophical idea about justice in particular, of fundamental importance to Socrates, which I believe may hold great promise when combined with cognitive therapy for anger.

In the field of cognitive therapy, it has been proposed that anger is typically based on a belief that some rule has been broken or someone has acted unjustly. This is usually associated with an initial sense of emotional pain, or sadness, based on the perception that one or something one cares about has already been harmed or a sense of fear based on the perceived threat of harm. That pain or anxiety is quickly replaced with thoughts of retaliation or revenge, such as punishing the other person, when anger arises. Indeed, often anger can be interpreted as an attempt to cope with underlying anxiety by using another emotion to mask it.

Socrates couldn’t be more emphatic, in Plato’s Gorgias and elsewhere, that committing an injustice is worse than suffering one. His interlocutor finds this absurd: he believes that suffering injustice at the hands of others is worse, and more shameful. We may therefore expect that he was more prone to anger than Socrates: he probably felt ashamed and outraged whenever he perceived others to be acting unjustly toward him. Therapists often encounter rigid beliefs about the injustice or unfairness of certain events when treating patients for anger. If you find yourself unable to get past something that has made you angry, there are a few approaches that may prove useful.

Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, tips water over his head

The Consequences of Anger

One of the first steps in tackling anger often consists in evaluating the consequences of the emotion itself, or associated rules and behaviors. First, you might want to ask yourself, generally, regarding your anger: How has that been working out for me? If you want to dig deeper, list the pros and cons, or costs and benefits of your anger. Think both in terms of the short-term and long-term consequences. It can be particularly helpful to compare the (perceived) short-term benefits of anger against its long-term costs.

Let’s say you are angry at a friend for not returning a phone call. What are the benefits of getting angry with the person? Perhaps there are none in the long term. Maybe in the short term you feel as though you’re temporarily getting something off your chest by expressing (“venting”) your anger. Maybe you feel that your anger might motivate you to do something constructive, like confronting the friend about how upset you believe he or she has made you feel. Are these real benefits? Answering the next question may help you decide: What are the costs of anger? Well, in the short term, although you may enjoy being angry in some ways, it probably also feels unpleasant and distressing in other ways. Longer term, though, it might affect different areas of your life such as your work, your relationships, and your personality in general, maybe also your physical health. In relation to the perceived benefits, are there hidden costs? Although venting can bring some relief in the heat of the moment, in the long run, it might just encourage you to become angrier and angrier, and to alienate some of your friends. Anger spreads: those who are angry with their enemies end up also being angry toward others. Usually this is obvious to everyone except the person who is angry— it’s a common blindspot. Perhaps being motivated by anger, likewise, can seem like a good idea at first, but eventually it may lead you to be forceful and act while your judgment is clouded by strong feelings— and that can lead to disaster!

In a sense, cost-benefit analysis in cognitive therapy can be understood in terms of the basic principles of behaviour therapy. Suppose we get much clearer about the disadvantages of some behaviour, perhaps expand our list of reasons against it, and maybe make them more vivid by focusing on them for longer and even visualizing them. Doing so potentially diminishes the habitual nature of the behaviour in question by associating it more powerfully in our minds with its perceived negative consequences. We’re making it easier to recall our reasons for wanting to stop doing the behaviour, which inevitably weakens our motivation to indulge in it again.

Contrasting Consequences

I have found that a simple visualization technique, which I call The Choice of Hercules, or Fork in the Road, can be used to enhance the effect of negative consequences on motivation.

1. By visualizing the consequences of our actions rather than just thinking about them verbally, they have a more powerful effect upon our emotions

2. Focusing on the longer-term tends to enhance the effect, as the consequences of our actions tend to increase over time

3. Comparing the consequences of anger with those of having overcome your anger, can also enhance the effect on our motivation through contrast

I therefore suggest closing your eyes and imagining that you stand at a fork in the road, symbolizing your future. On the left, imagine carrying on with the status quo, by which I mean continuing to allow your anger to have control over you. See yourself from the outside, as if you’re an invisible observer. Picture how that would affect your personality, your relationships, and your overall quality of life, tomorrow, next week, next year, and even decades from now. Take time to picture this as clearly as you can, and allow yourself to respond emotionally to what you imagine.

Next, imagine on the right, your future without anger. That may simply mean that you do nothing when provoked, or just walk away, or take a time-out from the situation, or that you’re assertive or exercise moderation in your response. However you do it, just imagine that you’re no longer angry. Again picture how that would affect your personality, relationships, and overall quality of life, tomorrow, next week, next year, and decades from now. Spend some time comparing the long-term consequences of giving in to anger to those of having conquered anger, in this way. Your goal is to make these images so familiar that you can easily recall them whenever you begin to feel angry, or even notice early-warning signs of anger beginning to develop.

Socrates and the Paradox of Anger

Socrates’ paradoxical claim that acting with injustice does us more harm than being the victim of injustice goes even further. The emotion of anger is seen as potentially harmful, not just in terms of its consequences, but by its very nature. Moreover, that perceived harm is psychologically amplified through contrast. Our injustice is inherently worse for us than the perceived injustice of others, because it harms our very character whereas they can only harm our possessions or reputation, and so on. Our own injustice reaches much deeper into the core of our being with its poison than another person, seeking to harm us, could ever reach. You may be reminded of the end of Epictetus’ Handbook where, speaking of the accusers that brought him to trial in order to have him executed, Socrates is depicted saying: Anytus and Meletus can kill me but they cannot harm me.

What Socrates says here anticipates a slogan that we find recurring in the late Stoic writings, applied to other unhealthy passions. However, Marcus Aurelius applies it specifically to anger, when he writes that our own anger does us more harm than the person with whom we’re angry. If we could hold that philosophy of anger in mind, it would go beyond what cognitive therapy normally attempts, through cost-benefit analysis. It would radically undermine our motivation to engage in anger.

In cognitive therapy, we typically review situations where anger was triggered, and analyse our response. We could phrase this philosophical slogan in those terms by asking: which does us more harm, the trigger event or the anger we feel in response to it? The answer becomes clearer if we remind ourselves that we could potentially choose to look at the trigger event from a number of different perspectives, and we could also cope with it in a variety of different ways. So with that in mind, which does us more harm: the event or our anger about it?

During anger episodes, our focus of attention shifts dramatically, from our feelings of hurt, which are inside, toward the person we blame, who is outside. As soon as we ask this question, though, it forces us to return our attention to the anger within us. In other words, the question itself is perhaps inherently antagonistic to the mental state we call anger. It becomes difficult to remain angry as long as we can hold this question in mind.

In times of peace, prepare for war, as the saying goes. You should practice asking yourself this question when you’re no longer angry — when you’re feeling calm. That way, when you do become angry again, you will be prepared to recall the question, and return your attention to your inner state. Does your anger do you more harm than the things about which you’re angry? Does your anger do you more harm, for instance, than the perceived injustice of others ever could? It may be that you’re able to answer this question but, in fact, the very effort involved in asking it will often suffice to defuse your anger.

Avoiding Avoidance

I think it’s important to add that there are some issues that need to be addressed with this approach. A number of research studies have found evidence that belief that anger is dangerous and attempts to suppress feelings of anger can lead to various problems psychologically and even in terms of physical health. On the other hand, there’s evidence from several other studies that belief that anger is justified or helpful tends to cause other problems, such as relationship conflict or increased frequency of anger episodes, and so on.

I believe the solution to this paradox is quite simple, and familiar from dealing with anxiety, depression, and other psychological problems. The majority of people do not distinguish clearly between automatic and voluntary thoughts or, indeed, in terms of psychological activity in general. Few people make a clear distinction between the automatic thoughts, which usually happen first in an episode of anger, and the voluntary angry thinking that tends to follow.

Trying to suppress automatic thoughts is a fool’s errand, and tends to cause a number of problems. It’s better to accept our automatic thoughts, the ones that just pop unbidden into our mind, with indifference, and detachment. Voluntary thinking does not need to be suppressed, on the other hand, because it’s voluntary, we can just choose not engage in it or to think differently instead. In that sense, I think it’s possible to believe that our anger harms us more than the things that trigger it, while accepting the initial automatic thoughts of anger, as neither good nor bad, but withholding our voluntary assent to those thoughts, and doing nothing much in response to them, except perhaps viewing them with detachment. That allows us to view anger as harmful, which of course it is, without running into the psychological problems of thought (or feeling) suppression. Responding, in other words, with acceptance rather than avoidance or, if you like, avoiding avoidance of our automatic thoughts. This distinction isn’t always clearly articulated in ancient philosophy but from a modern psychological perspective we know that it’s important.

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This article is based on an excerpt from the more detailed discussion of anger to be found in my latest book, How to Think Like Socrates.