On Modern Psychology and Ancient Wisdom

Book Review

by Ben Keaster

There is a mental health crisis playing out on America’s college campuses. Over the last decade, college students’ rates of depression, anxiety, self-injury, and suicide attempts have all risen sharply. Why is this? Are America’s young people facing more pressure to succeed than in previous generations? Are they too glued to their screens to get proper exercise or sleep? Are they worried about finding a stable career or establishing stable romantic relationships? Are they terrified of rising global temperatures and the future of the planet?

In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, and Greg Lukianoff, an attorney who litigates for free speech on college campuses, argue that the primary cause is a culture of “safetyism” that has come to dominate parenting and the academy in the last 10 years. Drawing insight from such varied sources as the stoic philosopher Epictetus and the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, they make the case that well-intentioned adults have inculcated the youth with what they call the “three Great Untruths”:

◗ The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.

◗ The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings.

◗ The Untruth of Us vs. Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

To understand the authors’ perspective, it helps to start with Lukianoff ’s personal story, which he relates in the book’s opening chapter. Lukianoff has been involved with the non-profit organization FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), which has focused on protecting free-speech rights on college campuses since 2001. He has had a frontrow seat during the last 18 years to see where threats to free speech have come from, and more important, the justifications used to limit speech. Up until 2014, he says, the people pushing for disinviting campus speakers and limiting hate speech (mostly administrators) used as a justification the curtailment of racist or sexist speech. In 2014, the justifications for these events became medicalized. The typical argument was that certain ideas from speakers, or even in literature or coursework, could interfere with students’ ability to function. Lukianoff was surprised because it was, in many ways, the opposite of what he’d been taught in therapy in 2008, after he was hospitalized with depression. His own journey from being suicidal and depressed to regaining the ability to function was facilitated by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was formalized in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck. It is a short-term, goal-oriented method that is widely held to be the gold standard in psychotherapy. One of its key insights is that thoughts, emotions, and behavior are causally linked and proceed from one to the next. Put as simply as possible, if you are experiencing “bad” emotions (such as depression or anxiety), it could be the result of “bad” thoughts (I am unlovable, I am fragile, I am in danger). CBT teaches patients to look critically at their thoughts and to change the ones that aren’t true, as a way to break a dysfunctional cycle of thoughts-emotions-behavior-repeat.

As Lukianoff began to get well, he noticed that campus administrators often modeled cognitive distortions for students. One of the “bad” thoughts they perpetuated was that students were in constant danger and in need of protection (whether from hateful words, challenging ideas, or discussions related to specific traumas). It was this new insistence that censorship was needed for psychological wellbeing that led Lukianoff to seek out social psychologist Johnathan Haidt, who confirmed his understanding that there was indeed a contradiction. Haidt and Lukianoff are convinced that many of the discussions about the need for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and, most alarmingly, treating speech as literal violence, contain and promote what CBT would identify as cognitive distortions.

The argument is at its strongest in relation to anxiety. There is wide agreement amongst the diverse schools of psychological thought about how to help someone overcome anxiety. It’s firmly established in psychology that the best way to overcome fear and anxiety is from voluntary exposure, in small but increasing doses, to what frightens the patient. The idea of encouraging students to stay away, in safe spaces, from words or ideas that they are afraid of is akin to upgrading the home-security system for an agoraphobic. The very short-term reduction in anxiety comes at the expense of personal development. The agoraphobic not only will not get better but will become even less likely to leave home than before getting the security system. This way the agoraphobic, and the students, are robbed of the long-term recovery that comes not from learning that the world is safer than you thought, but from learning that you are stronger than you realized. This analysis alone, which is not heavy-handed or particularly ideological, makes this book a valuable resource for anyone interested trying to make sense of the past decade.

What may be of even more interest for Orthodox readers, though, is the foundation on which this criticism is leveled. Lukianoff and Haidt lay out a grounding ethic for public discourse that not only has the potential to cut through the morass of red/blue electoral politics, but also leaves room for historically-minded Christians to contribute. You see this quite clearly in the standards they set for what constitutes a “Great Untruth.” For something to qualify as a “Great Untruth” it must meet three criteria:

◗ It contradicts ancient wisdom (Yes!)

◗ It harms individuals and communities that embrace it (Yes!)

◗ It contradicts modern psychological research (hmm)

Public discourse centered on these first two principles is certainly a welcome respite from the tribal fear and outrage generators that dominate much of our current landscape. But what about the third principle? Given that the field of modern psychological research is in pretty poor shape, it would be understandable to greet criteria #3 with more skepticism. However, even here Haidt and Lukianoff have a valid critique, mostly because when they talk about modern psychological research, they’re talking about CBT—which overlaps substantially (although certainly not totally) with the views of the Eastern fathers of the Church.

To name but one example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapists typically urge patients to step back and observe their thoughts dispassionately. Interestingly, it was the stoic philosopher Epictetus who wrote in his Encheiridion, “It is not things themselves that disturb men, but their judgments about these things. For example, death is nothing dreadful, or else Socrates too would have thought so, but the judgment that death is dreadful is the dreadful thing. When, therefore, we are hindered or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame anyone but ourselves, which means our own judgments.” This quotation was cited often by the CBT pioneer Aaron Beck. But Epictetus was equally popular in certain Christian circles during late antiquity. A Christianized version of the Encheiridion, supposedly adapted by the monk Saint Neilos the Ascetic, was circulated widely in the 5th century— and it kept the above quotation intact.

Haidt and Lukianoff have produced a profoundly insightful book, one that covers such broad topics as safe spaces, administrative bureaucracy, student protests, social media use, parenting practices, political polarization, and cognitive distortions. The real genius of the book is its use of basic and proven cognitive behavioral psychological principles as the starting point for the cultural analysis of these issues. Let this approach be an inspiration that it is still possible, albeit difficult, to have a genuine discussion of important cultural issues without resorting to name-calling tribalism. Let it also remind us that a great rubric for generating solutions is to notice where there is agreement among ancient wisdom, modern psychological research, and considerations of practical utility.

For an excellent review of the various ways a classical Christian anthropology interfaces with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a better book cannot be found than Father Alexis Trader’s Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy.

Benjamin Keaster is a social worker of 15 years. He is a father of four and a reader at Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Albion, Michigan.