Control Is Not Suppression: What Epictetus Can Teach Us About Healing and Recovery · Stoicism Today

Welcome to Stoicism Today! This week we are pleased to share a piece from behavioral counselor Cassidy Cousens, who brings a clinical perspective to Epictetus’ dichotomy of control. Cousens suggests that many people feel shame or frustration when they can’t control their thoughts, and that this type of mental control is not an accurate reflection of Epictetus’ teachings. Instead, we are better off focusing on our response to thoughts or cravings that may arise, which enables us to take responsibility for what is actually up to us.

Over twenty-five years working across the behavioral health continuum, including owning and operating treatment programs, I watched many people work very hard at the wrong form of control. They tried not to feel anger, not to think about using substances, not to fear what would happen after treatment, and not to experience the guilt that followed earlier decisions. When those reactions returned, as human reactions do, they took their presence as evidence that treatment was failing or that something essential in them had not changed.

In treatment, the word control can land badly. A craving begins to feel like an instruction, while fear takes on the certainty of evidence. The guilt that follows can start saying something about the person rather than the decision. When Stoicism is introduced only through the familiar advice to “focus on what you can control,” someone may hear a harsher message: You should be able to control this. A philosophy meant to clarify responsibility becomes another reason to feel inadequate.

Epictetus is more precise about where responsibility begins. His concern is not whether every thought, sensation, or first reaction can be prevented, but what happens after something appears to us and we begin to decide what it means and what to do next. For someone trying to recover, that is a more workable place to begin.

Control within the larger Stoic philosophy

Stoicism is much larger than the dichotomy of control. The ancient school developed an account of how human beings reason, understand nature, fulfill social roles, and cultivate virtue. Diogenes Laertius reports the Stoic aim as living in agreement with nature, which he identifies with living according to virtue. He names prudence, courage, justice, and temperance among the primary virtues (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 7.87–89, 92–93).

Epictetus’ division between what is and is not “up to us” belongs inside that larger account. At the beginning of the Enchiridion, he places opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and what is “our own doing” on one side. The body, property, reputation, office, and what is not our own doing fall on the other (Enchiridion 1.1). Health, work, and the regard of other people still matter, but Epictetus is locating the part of a situation in which moral responsibility can be exercised.

The English word control can make his meaning harder to see because it sounds like command over the mind and body. “Up to us” asks a different question: What belongs to us here? Even Epictetus’ technical use of desire should not be equated with every sensation or urge that modern English calls desire. A craving can arrive in the body before a person has reflected on it or chosen a course of action. The Stoic work concerns how that experience is judged and whether it is allowed to direct what follows.

Virtue gives that work its purpose. Someone trying to repair a damaged relationship needs enough prudence to understand what happened and enough courage to hear what repair may cost. Justice requires taking the other person’s experience seriously, especially when immediate relief would be easier. Without that ethical direction, control can become little more than rigid self-management.

Where responsibility begins

Ancient Stoic writers did not treat every initial reaction as fully chosen. In On Anger, Seneca separates the first shock of an impression from the anger that develops when the mind approves and follows it. The first movement may be felt as tension or heat before a deliberate judgment has formed. Seneca calls this prompting involuntary and places responsibility in what happens as the movement is taken up and carried forward (On Anger 2.2.1–2.4.2).

The first movement still matters, and responsibility for what follows remains. Seneca simply places the work later than many people place it for themselves.

In treatment, this can be the moment someone says, “I don’t know what happened. I was fine, and then I wasn’t.” The cue may have been obvious, such as passing an old place after an argument. At other times, loneliness or exhaustion has been building for days before the person recognizes it. A craving can then arrive with physical urgency and a convincing story about what must happen next. Treating its arrival as a moral failure adds shame at the moment when the person most needs room to see what is happening.

Epictetus describes the beginning of that room in Discourses 2.18. When an impression arrives with force, he advises his students not to be swept away by its vividness. He tells the impression to wait while he examines and tests it (Discourses 2.18.24–26). Rather than asking anyone to become numb, he is slowing down what had begun to feel inevitable. For Epictetus, this practice also involves examining and correcting the judgments that give an impression its force.

An urge can be real without being an instruction, just as a thought can be present without being true. This is close to the guidance used in contemporary recovery work. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration advises counselors to normalize cravings rather than treat them as a deficit, and notes that a person does not need to repress a craving in order to respond to it skillfully. The work begins by noticing what is happening and deciding what support or coping response is available (SAMHSA, TIP 65, p. 108).

What recovery makes practical

A common recovery problem is not a lack of knowledge. People can understand the consequences of returning to use and still struggle to act on that knowledge when an urge becomes intense.

Consider someone leaving a painful conversation and passing a place connected to earlier use. There may be only a few minutes between noticing the craving and beginning to organize behavior around it. The useful question is not how to make the craving disappear. It is what can still be done before those minutes pass.

The answer may be as ordinary as crossing the street and making a phone call before continuing home. For someone else, it may mean staying where support is available until the intensity changes. Neither response controls the internal experience, but both can help keep the craving from making every decision that follows.

Epictetus emphasizes that habits are strengthened by their corresponding actions (Discourses 2.18.1–12). This is easy to recognize in recovery. A single honest response does not secure the future, but it makes another honest response more available. Repetition matters because intention alone does not become character.

Treatment conversations are also full of broad goals. People want to stay sober and regain the trust of their families. They may sum up both hopes by saying, “I want my life back.” The hope is sincere, but it is too large to complete today. Sobriety reaches into a future that has not arrived, while trust belongs partly to another person and may return slowly.

The next available act is smaller. It may involve disclosing a lapse before the consequences can be hidden or accepting a ride after realizing that driving would be unsafe. Neither act repairs an entire life, but each is something the person can actually do now.

This is where virtue becomes practical. “My family must trust me” makes recovery depend on a response the person cannot decide for anyone else. “I will tell the truth even when honesty costs me something” identifies an action that is up to the person. The distinction is not simply between a large goal and a smaller one. It is between asking for an outcome from others and taking responsibility for one’s own conduct. The wish for connection and repair can remain, while honesty gives that wish a practical expression today.

The same reasoning applies before a crisis. Someone who knows that evenings are dangerous may arrange a ride and dinner with a supportive person before the afternoon ends. Choosing a different route home can prevent an old place from becoming the setting for a decision made under pressure. These preparations offer no guarantee, but they make wiser action easier to find when it is needed.

This practical concern sits behind my firm’s description of control as a capacity rather than a command. Under pressure, a choice may still exist while remaining difficult to see. Changing the setting can help bring it back into view before a reaction becomes an action. The route home can be planned; the whole future cannot.

What acceptance leaves us to do

What is not up to us is sometimes mistaken for a list of things we should stop caring about. Epictetus rejects that conclusion. In his account of the three areas of training, he includes desire and aversion, action, and assent. When discussing action, he says that a person should not become unfeeling “like a statue,” but should maintain the relationships and responsibilities of a human being, including those of family and citizenship (Discourses 3.2.1–5).

For a person in recovery, acceptance may mean admitting that yesterday cannot be changed and another person’s trust cannot be demanded. Sincere remorse matters, but it does not erase consequences. The work then becomes finding a repair that does not require forgiveness in return and respecting a boundary even when it hurts.

Acceptance removes the argument with fact. It does not remove obligation.

Stoic practice also needs to remain in its proper place. It can help clarify responsibility, but it cannot replace treatment or immediate support when those are needed. Recognizing what is up to us includes recognizing when the appropriate action is to accept help.

Discomfort without punishment

Stoic practice is commonly associated with deliberately choosing discomfort. Seneca recommends setting aside periods of simple food and rough clothing so that a person can examine what has been feared (Moral Letters 18.5–6). In recovery, this idea requires care. Many people arrive with extensive experience of deprivation, danger, or self-punishment. Adding pain does not make the work more serious.

Voluntary discomfort makes sense when it is safe and serves a clear purpose. In recovery, this practice may begin with discomfort that is already present. It may mean allowing an urge to rise and pass without obeying it, with support close at hand. It can also mean having an honest conversation without knowing how the other person will respond. A practice that leaves someone more ashamed or less willing to seek help has missed the point, which is to become more able to act wisely when comfort is unavailable.

What control can mean

Over time, someone can notice an urge without immediately arranging life around it. Suppression demands silence from the internal world. Stoic practice asks what a person will do while that world remains active.

The relevant question becomes, What did I do with the reaction once it arrived? The question returns with the next impression, and character develops through the way it is answered.

Control, understood this way, is less about mastering life than taking responsibility for the next thing that is actually ours.

References

Diogenes Laertius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller. Oxford University Press, 2018. Book 7, sections 87–93.

Epictetus. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook. Translated by Robin Hard, with an introduction and notes by Christopher Gill. Oxford University Press, 2014. Discourses 2.18 and 3.2; Handbook 1.

Seneca. Anger, Mercy, Revenge. Translated by Robert A. Kaster and Martha C. Nussbaum. University of Chicago Press, 2010. On Anger 2.2.1–2.4.2.

Seneca. Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius. Translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2015. Letter 18.5–6.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Counseling Approaches to Promote Recovery from Problematic Substance Use and Related Issues, TIP 65. HHS Publication No. PEP23-02-01-003, 2023, p. 108.

Cousens, Cassidy. “How AIR Understands Stoic Control.” Arago Integrative Recovery, May 10, 2025.

About the Author

Cassidy Cousens is a certified counselor, interventionist, and founder of Arago Integrative Recovery (AIR), based in Oregon and working with people across the United States. He brings more than twenty-five years of experience across nonprofit and for-profit behavioral health treatment settings, including owning programs across the full continuum of care. His one-on-one approach at AIR combines Stoic philosophy, meaning-centered work, and time in nature to help people build the capacity to navigate daily life. Learn more at www.aragorecovery.com.

Photo credit: Uday Mittal

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