In the first part of this series on Stoic Life Coaching for Anger Management we looked over the (fictional) coach Lucas’s shoulder to learn how he applies Stoicism to help his client. So far Lucas, drawing heavily on Seneca’s On Anger, has helped Anthony realise that he really does have a problem and that Seneca’s 3 stage model of anger might help. In this second and final instalment let’s find out whether Lucas (and Seneca) can enable Anthony to keep both his temper and his family. 

Anthony arrives for his third coaching session in a positive mood. He has reconstructed his Father’s Day anger in terms of Seneca’s 3 stages as honestly as he can, concluding that “my son was terrified, my wife horrified and me myself, recalling it now, am mortified.” Lucas helps Anthony apply Seneca’s tips from On Anger to avoid a similar outburst in the future. This is summarised in a crib sheet providing Stoic rebuttals for a number of unhelpful thoughts that may lead to anger—for example 

“I can be angry moderately,” is rebutted by “Can you really? Can you control a snowball rolling down a mountain?” (See the panel on this page). 

Anthony is instructed to look at this list every day in his morning commute so he learns each unhelpful thought and their rebuttals. 

In addition Anthony is told to keep a Stoic anger log using the template below. 

Stage	What Happend	What I would do differently next time (if anything)
Trigger: Event that triggers anger
Stage 1 of anger  First movements towards anger  Fight or flight reaction and starting to think angry thoughts
Stage 2 of anger:  Response to the first movements.  Can resist or intensify initial angry thoughts
Stage 3 of anger : Thinking and behaving and feeling, depending on what happened at stage 2

Once his initial ambivalence and scepticism has been overcome, Anthony is turning out to be a good student. The anger log he presents at the fourth meeting contains only one entry, and he handled that fairly well. Lucas praises Anthony for his work and at the same time helps him learn how to do even better next time. He now goes beyond Seneca, linking Stoic anger management much more explicitly than Seneca does with the virtues. This is important, because as Lucas says 

“The virtues provide a much better alternative to anger. The more you cultivate the virtues, the less you will need anger and the less attractive it will be as an option.”. 

The virtues help you overcome first movements towards anger and understand what to accept and when to stand up for yourself or fight injustice. 

How to apply the virtues to help with anger management is summarised in the session’s crib sheet (see above). 

Anthony has now learnt enough to manage anger successfully, but he still needs to practice the skills. Lucas presents Marcus Aurelius as an illustrious predecessor, informing him about Marcus’s famous “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly,” passage. Anthony is asked to do a morning meditation rehearsing how he will deal with possible triggers to anger and an evening meditation reflecting on how well he did and how he can do better. 

In the fifth and final meeting, Lucas presents a complete Stoic Regimen for anger management. Anthony has done very well with managing anger between sessions, so all he needs to do is to keep practising to consolidate what he has learnt. The following Stoic Regimen is personalised for Anthony, but I think it would be useful for most of us. 

5 minutes reading of Stoic material 

For example 

Reasons for not getting angry (crib sh. 1) 

The 3 stages of anger (crib sheet 2) 

Unhelpful Thoughts and their Rebuttals (crib sheet 3) 

How to be a Virtuoso at living (crib sh. 4) 

The Daily Stoic Regimen (this list) 

You might like to write up a list of relevant maxims such as:- 

“We are affected not by events but our interpretation of them.” 

“Remember that you can’t control other people or the past.” 

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” 

“The sword of justice is ill-placed in the hands of the angry person.” 

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.” 

Morning Meditation—Rehearsal of dealing with potential triggers for anger with wisdom, courage, self-control and justice. 

During the day 

Stoic Mindfulness of first movements towards anger. 

Ask yourself, “How would the ideal Stoic person approach this situation?” (such as Socrates) 

Think about what virtues are called for in this situation. 

Find some time for relaxation, especially when stressed. 

Choose your company wisely, including social media and the internet. 

Don’t take on too much. 

Write your Stoic anger log for the day. 

Evening review. Reviewing your day, with an emphasis on how you have dealt with triggers of potential anger. Reflect on what you have done well, what you could have done better. 

This proves to be the final session, as Anthony has really started to get into Stoicism—to the extent that he buys a copy of Seneca’s On Anger—an eventuality that seemed rather unlikely when he first came for Stoic Life Coaching 

Author’s note 

My intention in writing this piece was to provide both a good way into Seneca’s On Anger and to argue for the potential benefits of Stoic Life Coaching. I am not Lucas, nor have I coached someone exactly like Anthony. But I have offered Stoic Life Coaching to some clients with a personal issue who would like to look at how to address it through the lens of Stoicism and it has proved useful. 

Reviewing these sessions, it is clear to me now that the benefits of Stoic Life Coaching are due not only to the wisdom of Seneca, Marcus and Epictetus—but also owe much to the Socrates of Plato’s dialogues. Socrates was, after all, the one who really began the practice of asking people good questions in the service of virtue and wisdom, and that’s also a part of fundamental Stoic coaching. 

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Tim LeBon is the author of Wise Therapy and Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology. He is a philosophical life coach with a private practice in London and also an accredited CBT psychotherapist working in the NHS. He is a founder member of the Modern Stoicism team. Tim’s web site is www.timlebon.com. You can read a more complete account of these sessions at 

https://modernstoicism.com/stoic-therapy-for-anger-bytim-lebon-part-2/ 

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