Philosophy as a Way of Life
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We’re delighted to share this insightful interview with the team behind *The Type C Personality* podcast—Dr. Kore Nissenson Glied and Anna White.
We are also delighted that they will be presenting at our upcoming virtual event, The Philosophy of Love and Relationships, on Saturday, October 25 at 1 PM EDT. This session bridges ancient wisdom and modern psychology, offering practical strategies to build healthier relationships with others—and with ourselves—while staying true to our core values.
This event is free and open to everyone. If you find value in our work, donations are gratefully accepted and help us continue to offer free programming. We invite you to contribute what you feel the experience is worth.
Dr. Kore Nissenson Glied is a clinical psychologist. She worked in NYC hospitals for 15 years. She has maintained a private practice in Manhattan since 2010, where she provides evidence-based treatment including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for adults with anxiety, depression, and insomnia due to a wide range of conditions including past history of trauma, pregnancy, and relationship issues. She has presented and published in peer-reviewed journals on the subjects of OCD, HIV and complex PTSD.
Anna White is a former investment executive who spent 20 years working for a range of Wall Street firms in capital markets, private equity, equity research, and asset management. She experienced severe burnout at one point in her career which led to a chronic illness that was difficult to diagnose, treat, and recover from. Type C traits were a significant contributor to her declining health. She feels strongly about raising awareness of Type C so that people develop their full potential. She holds a B.S. and M.B.A. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Most of us know of Type A and Type B personality types; they are well established in our culture. Type A is known as high-achieving, perfectionistic, aggressive, perhaps rigid, while Type B is the opposite—relaxed, flexible, passive, sometimes unmotivated. Type C is a different flavor altogether. People in this category feel fearful of upsetting or disappointing others, guilty when they have to say no, compelled to maintain a constant pleasant façade, out of touch with their anger and resentment, unable to admit their own needs and hesitant to express them, and unworthy or less deserving than others.patterns helped them cope in earlier environments.
We are not fans of the label “people pleaser”! It’s negative, shallow, and doesn’t appreciate the complexity of the Type C personality.
Let’s start with some thoughts about the term “people pleaser” and how it relates to the Type C personality. Yes, Type C people aim to please and can take it to the extreme. There’s plenty of overlap. But we are not fans of the label “people pleaser”! It’s negative, shallow, and doesn’t appreciate the complexity of the Type C personality. When someone is labeled a people pleaser, we don’t know WHY they behave the way they do. We don’t understand the history that underlies their interactions with other people. Being criticized as a people pleaser only brings someone more self-blame and shame. Type C has many more layers to understand.
With my patients, we first have to work on the belief that being Type C is all their fault. People are very self-critical, blaming themselves for the mistakes and problems they’ve had. While it’s important that patients take responsibility for their actions – for self efficacy – it’s also important to understand the origins of their Type C-ness. Early on people with Type C personality learn that thinking more about the needs of others than their own helps manage their emotions and creates a safer and more certain environment. Type C traits were helpful for survival growing up, but they may no longer be helpful in the present.
Dr. Glied: Genetics definitely play a role in the development of Type C personality but this is harder to assess. We do know that people with Type C personality grew up with a caregiver who experienced or displayed one or more of the following: mental illness, substance use issues, criticism or perfectionism. For a person with Type C personality, we want to bring awareness to the thoughts and feelings that come about in certain situations and the urges and actions that arise. We focus on looking at these responses to ourselves such as self blame or criticism, and how we react to others. Are we currently taking care of ourselves in interpersonal interactions in the kindness way we can?
As for the second question, someone can seek treatment at any time. Usually it’s when you feel stuck in some way or other. Sometimes it’s most effective to seek treatment at your worst because this is when you are most willing to make changes. Change is extremely hard and if things aren’t that bad, it can be hard to do the work to change. All change begins with awareness of what is not working for you.
We all had the same life circumstances: early 40s with young kids, big jobs. They were thriving and I was hanging on by a thread. I felt like my battery was going to run out any second.
Anna: I realized I reached rock bottom one night at a neighborhood dinner with girlfriends. I dragged myself there with a terrible sinus infection, exhaustion, brain fog, arthritis in my hips and knees and a prolapsed uterus. I could barely keep up with the conversation. My friends were all working moms, some with really high powered jobs. Why was I struggling so much and they weren’t? We all had the same life circumstances: early 40s with young kids, big jobs. They were thriving and I was hanging on by a thread. I felt like my battery was going to run out any second.
After several years of living with these health issues and finding excuses for them, or ignoring them, I felt called to do something, to finally at least seek medical help. Around the same time, I heard prolific author Elizabeth Lesser speak about how humans are resistant to change and this was a wake-up call for me. I had been resisting the need to look closer at my health problems. I wound around the medical system for quite some time before coming upon the description of Type C. At that point, I’d made some good strides with my health through better nutrition, therapy, exercise, and reading self help books – but understanding Type C took me to the next level. I finally learned what was at the heart of my toxic over-giving nature.
Once I understood Type C, I learned how to fight for myself. Before, I felt powerless and helpless, like the world and the people in my life were walking all over me. Now, my relationships are healthy. I know how to ask for help. I know how to understand and communicate my needs. I know how to engage in healthy conflict, and I’m not scared of it. I’m in touch with my emotions and I’ve developed my own set of values. All of these are so necessary for deeper, more meaningful relationships. Otherwise, you’re just tagging along with other people’s agendas.
Anna: Not delegating! Taking on everything asked of you – for Type Cs, we do this because we feel so guilty burdening someone else. So, in the moment, we take the easy way out. We say yes and put it on our plate which helps alleviate our guilt. Though now, our plate is overloaded and we’re burning out, so this wasn’t really the easy way out! A healthier alternative is to change perspective, to see delegation as a way of helping someone else improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities. To do this, we have to sit with the guilt of tasking someone else with something.
In high performance environments, we can be praised and promoted for taking a lot on and doing it all with a smile on our face. If you’re known as someone who gets things done at a high quality level, of course more will be asked of you, which can be flattering, but also can leave us angry and resentful. We have to ask ourselves – will taking this on improve my knowledge, skills, and abilities? Will this take away from my other work, am I spreading myself too thin? How does this further my own career?
How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.
Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
We love Elizabeth Lesser. Her work has helped thousands of people find hope and healing through very difficult times. Many Type C people feel broken, ashamed, or less than. As she suggests in this quote, if we open our minds to change, we can make quantum leaps forward in our health and relationships. It takes self awareness and intention and a willingness to see that the old ways of living and interacting are no longer serving you.
We have a wide variety of guests on our podcast and they bring such interesting perspectives on Type C. We have everyone from mental health professionals to philosophy experts to mindfulness gurus to real people with real stories of their suffering. Our overarching objective is to help our listeners better understand Type C, feel less alone with its struggles, and learn new evidence-based skills to improve their health and relationships.
In addition to our podcast, we have a wealth of free resources that can really help! Our website, www.thetypecpersonality.com, has over 120 blog posts along with other resources. We are active on Instagram (@thetypecpersonality) – and we are very excited for the publication in May 2027 by Harper Collins of our upcoming book, “The Empowered Type C”; it features deeply personal interviews with Type C folks. We know this book will help our readers feel seen and learn new strategies to set boundaries and fight for themselves.
First of all, sign us up. We love to travel and Greek food is some of the most delicious in the world! In all seriousness, the ancient Greek philosophers contributed so much to our understanding of the world and of each other, so it would be an honor to speak on such hallowed ground! We like to think that our Type C project also makes a small contribution to better understanding of ourselves and each other.
Do you tell the truth in your relationships, including your relationship to yourself? Do you know what you need from other people? Do you feel truly connected to other people? These are all things the Type C personality struggles with.
PAC would like to express their deepest thanks to Michael Fontaine and Princeton University Press for this exclusive excerpt from How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On.
Prof. Fontaine is also an esteemed speaker at our upcoming virtual event The Philosophy of Love and Relationships. This event uses ancient philosophy and modern psychology to teach you how to build intentional relationships without compromising your values. You’ll learn to set boundaries, discern healthy connections, and cultivate independent self-worth from leading experts. The event is free and open to all. It’s your generosity that keeps us hosting events like these. So, if you feel so inclined, donations are welcome—and we invite you to pay what you think it’s worth.
Breaking up is horrible. It is world-ending. All kinds of relationships come to an end or change, and futures we had dreamed of will never happen. Breakups can play games with our minds and bring on overwhelming feelings of grief. And practical problems ensue, too. Sometimes we need all new friends, or a new place to live. No wonder, then, that breakups are so often compared to “losing a loved one”; the expression itself evokes the analogy with death.
This is not just a subjective impression. In 1967, a pair of psychiatrists sought to quantify and rank the most stressful events in life. The result is the famous Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. In first place comes the death of a spouse. Tied for fourth are going to prison and the death of a close family member. Then come personal injury or illness, marriage, and getting fired. These are events so stressful, psychologists say, they can make us physically sick—and desperate for help. So, what’s in second and third place?
You guessed it. Divorce and marital separation.
With stakes like these, can anyone—much less a poet from ancient Rome two thousand years ago—really help us through it all?
That may sound absurd. Psychotherapy is surely not the first image that Greece or Rome brings to mind. The Colosseum, maybe, or the Parthenon or the Iliad. But a clinical psychologist?
If that’s jarring, then consider the case of Antiphon. A contemporary of the philosopher Socrates, Antiphon of Rhamnus (480–411 BCE) eventually became an influential statesman in classical Athens. His first career, however, had been different:
Antiphon devised an art of relieving distress, as physicians treat people who are sick. In Corinth, he set up shop in a small building near the market square and advertised his ability to treat people in distress with talk therapy (dia logōn therapeuein). After learning the causes, he would talk patients out of feeling bad. […] He also announced a series of “antidepressant lectures,” which would show how no heartache was so great that he couldn’t banish it from the mind.
The clinic, the clinician, the clientele, the claims, the cures: here is psychoanalysis in all but name, twenty-four hundred years before Sigmund Freud set up shop in Vienna.
The poem translated here as How to Get Over a Breakup suggests that two thousand years ago, practitioners like Antiphon and Freud were plying their trade under the archways of ancient Rome. As we shall see, Ovid, our poet, poses as a relationship counselor no different from his counterparts today, citing case histories and dispensing lightly medicalized advice to help cure us of unrequited love.
Ovid was born more than four centuries after Antiphon, in 43 BCE, and he died in 17 CE. And for him, Rome was the city of romance. Romeos were everywhere, and so were Rome-grown beauties. He’d insisted on that point in an important prequel to How to Get Over a Breakup. Titled Ars Amatoria—in English, The Art of Love—that prequel is a poem in three books. The first two books were intended to the teach the men of Rome how to find and keep a girlfriend, while the third teaches women strategies for finding a man. Posing as a “professor of love,” Ovid was semiseriously teaching his readers techniques and rules for seducing the opposite sex.
In 1 CE, Ovid published the sequel translated here. Titled Remedia Amoris—literally, Remedies for Love—the poem completes his systematic “treatise” on love, and it brings us full circle: from no relationship, to relationship, to no relationship. Even better, this time he addresses his book to women and men alike. Accordingly, he prescribes 38 practical strategies and suggestions for dealing with unrequited love. Some are insightful and valuable, while others strain credulity; they’re presumably effective, but unsavory or immoral or just plain evil. Trying to decide just how seriously Ovid means a word of this is one reason his poem remains so compelling and fun today.
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The idea that love is like an illness has been around a long time, and there’s obviously something to it: the infatuation, the fantasizing, the pounding pulse, the sweaty palms, the flush; and conversely—when love isn’t reciprocated—the heartache, the sleeplessness, the prayers, the anguish, the grief. We’ve all felt it.
Throughout antiquity, in Ovid’s time and as late as the fourth century CE, lovesickness was seen as a metaphorical illness. Physicians regarded it as a psychological problem, and they prescribed feel-good remedies like Ovid’s. Lovesick patients, recommended Galen (129–216)—who was a philosopher as well as a doctor—ought “to take frequent baths, to drink wine, to ride, and to see and hear everything pleasurable.”
With the fall of Rome in the West, something changed. By the year 1100, as science began to recover in Italy, lovesickness had been reinterpreted as an actual illness—specifically, a brain disease. Remedies for love became increasingly medicalized and, in some cases, pharmacological: that is, pills and drugs.
In the twenty-first century this view is gradually going away, and therapists are increasingly turning to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to heal broken hearts. Many find CBT highly effective for breakups. Innovative as it may sound, however, CBT is merely ancient Stoicism under a new name. And since Stoic talk therapy was a major source of Ovid’s recommendations in the first place, it seems we’re closing the circle.
With the onset of social media, moreover, Ovid’s advice has become relevant in a new way. Two thousand years ago, Ovid was writing for an audience based in the city of Rome. His readers couldn’t just up and leave town if a relationship went bad. They had to find a way to move on, while realizing they’d probably run into their ex again.
It’s the same in our hyperconnected world today. Twenty years ago, you could still up and leave town. Not anymore. You may unfriend your ex, but the algorithm ensures you’ll see reminders—and friends of “friends”—for a long time to come.
For anyone who finds our new reality painful, Ovid may have something to tell us yet.
Michael Fontaine is Professor of Classics at Cornell University, specializing in Latin literature from antiquity through the Enlightenment. His acclaimed books with Princeton University Press explore topics ranging from ancient breakup poetry to willpower and bullying, while upcoming projects examine free speech through the lens of Plato, Plutarch, and Enlightenment thinkers. Beyond academia, he teaches global executives leadership strategies drawn from ancient Rome and the effective use of humor—a subject that once landed him a parody on Saturday Night Live. A Thomas Szasz Award winner for civil liberties advocacy and (in lighter moments) a champion pizza eater, he brings scholarly rigor and wit to both the classroom and public discourse. His works include How to Tell a Joke: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor and How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On. His forthcoming title is How to Have Willpower: An Ancient Guide to Not Giving In (Aug 12, 2025 Princeton University Press.
PAC would like to express their deepest thanks to Dr. Leah Aguirre and New Harbinger Publications for this exclusive excerpt from Is This Really Love?: Recognizing When You’re in a Coercive, Controlling, and Emotionally Abusive Relationship—and How to Break Free.
Dr. Aguirre is an esteemed guest speaker at our forthcoming virtual event, The Philosophy of Love and Relationships, Saturday October 25th at 1 pm EDT.
Being in an unhealthy or abusive relationship is confusing. Despite the toxicity and distress it causes, there also can be deep feelings of love, commitment, and loyalty. I have a strong feeling that you didn’t enter the relationship with the understanding it would be tumultuous or cause you this much pain or emotional duress. Instead, you were most likely drawn to this other person’s positive qualities or what they promised you in the beginning stages of the relationship. There was obviously something you saw in this person that was attractive, comforting, familiar, or safe (at least at the time). Or maybe you simply saw their potential and what you thought they “could” be.
All that being said, I know how difficult it can be to come to terms with the reality of an abusive relationship—to even just use the words “abuse” or “abusive” in the same sentence when referring to your relationship or partner/ex-partner can bring up so many different feelings. It’s not easy and any aversion you may be experiencing is normal. But having a strong understanding of abuse, what it is, and what it can look like is imperative to your healing and growth.
Throughout this chapter and book, I will be referencing fundamental principles and concepts based on the Duluth Model, which will be explained shortly, and the Equality and Power and Control Wheels (Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs n.d.). The Equality and Power and Control Wheels are graphics that break down the various components of healthy relationships and abusive relationships. It should also be noted that while this model is intentionally gender-specific, it offers universally affirming principles of what it means to be in a healthy relationship. If you are interested in learning more, visit https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/ and https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheel-gallery/ for more information.
Before we get deep into the trenches of exploring and understanding your personal experiences in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, in this chapter, you will learn what makes a relationship “healthy”: the qualities of a healthy relationship, what it looks like, how it should feel, and the green flags to look out for. From here, you will learn more about the nature of abuse and abusive relationships. You will understand the power and control dynamic and the different forms of abuse that can occur. Most importantly, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of the nuance of subtle, emotional abuse that can make this type of abuse difficult to detect.
Most of us learn about relationships from what we experienced and observed during our childhood. If we witnessed abuse or unhealthy dynamics between our parents or caregivers or experienced abuse firsthand, these experiences typically play into our understanding of relationships, shape our expectations of how other people can and/or will treat us, and influence how we navigate our own adult relationships. And even if we did observe a fairly healthy dynamic between our parents or other adults in our immediate environment, most of us were probably never sat down and received an explanation like “This is what a healthy relationship is, why it works, and how you can find one yourself.”
So, how do you know what’s healthy if you were never taught or don’t have the working knowledge? And how can you even recognize abuse if you don’t even know the very basics? You need to know the “green flags” so you can spot the “yellow” and “red flags” (which aren’t as easy to detect as we think sometimes). Let’s discuss what makes a relationship healthy.
A relationship is healthy when there is mutual trust and respect, stability and consistency, open communication, and shared responsibility. In a healthy relationship, you and your partner are both active participants and have an equal say about the terms of the relationship and the expectations you have for one another—it’s a partnership. You are able to express your feelings openly and communicate your needs without fear of judgment or consequences. You can show up exactly as you are and know that you will be accepted for all parts of you. You generally feel at peace because you have trust and faith in your partner and your relationship (Duluth Model).
Below are relationship “green flags” that indicate and reflect a healthy dynamic. As you read through these green flags, consider what feelings come up. Do these green flags feel familiar or foreign? Do they seem obvious or are they surprising? Try to notice what comes up for you, without judgment.
Your lines of communication are open and communication is consistent.
You listen to one another and allow the other person to speak and share their thoughts and perspectives. It feels safe to communicate your feelings, needs, and concerns.
You work together to resolve conflict and are both open to compromise and finding common ground.
You both take accountability for your actions and can acknowledge fault. When either of you make a mistake or hurt the other’s feelings, you take actionable steps to repair the relationship.
You respect and value one another in the relationship.
You are both able to maintain your own identity and autonomy and have a life outside of the relationship.
You make big decisions together and consider the other person’s individual needs when engaging in decision making.
You both support one another in your personal endeavors and goals.
While no relationship looks exactly the same, these qualities are crucial to sustaining a healthy relationship that is based on equality. Alternatively, in an abusive relationship, there is a lack of equality and, instead, a power-and-control dynamic.
Leah Aguirre, LCSW is a California native and currently practices in San Diego, CA. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 10 years of experience as a psychotherapist, specializing in working with individuals who have experienced childhood trauma, abusive relationships, and other forms of complex trauma. Leah is certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), an evidence-based practice for addressing trauma, PTSD, and anxiety disorders.
She is the author of Is This Really Love? and The Girl’s Guide to Relationships, Sexuality and Consent. Leah is also the co-owner of Cove Counseling Group, a group practice offering inclusive, trauma-informed individual therapy. In addition, she is a relationship coach, supporting individuals in navigating or leaving unhealthy relationships and dating from a place of empowerment and authenticity.
Leah has been featured as a contributor on Psychology Today and has written for other media platforms on topics related to trauma, relationships, and women’s mental health. She is passionate about helping women overcome trauma and develop true self-love and acceptance. Her mission is to empower women to heal, thrive, and create healthy, authentic connections.
We all have relationships. Romantic relationships can leave us happy and fulfilled, or bankrupt our values. The relationship to our friends can be harmonious and helpful, or foster distrust, envy, and manipulation. Our relationship to our employer can also be fulfilling, or inauthentic and draining as we engage in a people-pleaser dynamic.
As humans, we innately desire connectedness. “We were born to work together” says Marcus Aurelius, “like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.” (Meditations Book 2 Verse 1) Yet, we obstruct each other with our shoulds and musts—with our clamouring desire for control or to be liked:
“I must put this relationship before my well being or it will end.”
“You should take my side, no matter what, if you’re my friend.”
“I must answer every email the moment it hits my inbox. I should work longer hours at the expense of my mental health—or else my boss won’t consider me for a promotion.”
These internal demands echo in our current climate. There’s an undertone of “all the good ones are gone”, “hustle and sleep when you’re dead”, and “with friends like that, who needs enemies?”
These mentalities are worn like badges of honor by those who think it toughens their character, and keeps them from being weak. The hard truth is these lenses are worn by those far from tough. Paradoxically, it speaks to the void of dignity and self-respect within.
What’s the point of having a partner if you’re not mutually supported? What sort of friendship would demand you put your values on the chopping block—to become someone you’re not? And what if “hustling” got you that promotion? Would you carry on at that pace? On your deathbed, will you be thankful for a life well-lived attached to your Gmail, and holding the record for most employee-of-the-month’s?
Our relationships pave the path to who we were, are, and are becoming. They mirror who we are; and it’s not just us that catches the reflection, but everyone else—including our children. And although we promote self-autonomy, that happiness should ultimately come from within, our relationships playing a part is inescapable. Aristotle elaborates on this in his Nicomachean Ethics. He says that although self-sufficient happiness is the “final good”—at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own—as functioning members of society, our relationships play a role:
The term self-sufficient, however, we employ with reference not to oneself alone, living a life of isolation, but also to one’s parents and children and wife, and one’s friends and fellow citizens in general, since man is by nature a social being.— Nicomachean Ethics Book 1, Ch. 7, H. Rackham translation
He goes on to argue that this self-sufficient happiness is the final and complete end which we pursue for its own sake.
And so, our destination should not be the closest one, whatever gets us to a place or ease and satisfaction sooner. Eudaimonia should be our goal. A life well-lived is an active practice, for it is not measured by a single fleeting moment of happiness or one good year, but as a whole. For a topic as multifaceted as relationships, you need multifaceted tools. That’s why we’ve carefully selected our speakers for The Philosophy of Love and Relationships—to provide you with precisely that.
While their final talk titles being prepared, here is the essence of what each esteemed speaker will share. Listing subject to change.
, coauthor of Socratic Questioning for Therapists and Counselors (Routledge), The Stoicism Workbook:, and the forthcoming The Rescuer Trap (New Harbinger),
Dr. Waltman will be speaking on “rescuing”—the unhealthy dynamic where one person intervenes to solve another’s problems, shielding them from natural consequences and ultimately hindering their growth, autonomy, and accountability.
, professor of classics at Cornell University, author of How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On and How to Have Willpower: An Ancient Guide to Not Giving In (Princeton University Press).
Prof. Fontaine will explore the startlingly modern and witty wisdom of the ancient Roman poet Ovid on mending a broken heart. He will reveal how this 2,000-year-old text provides not only a fascinating historical perspective but also surprisingly astute, and often humorous, psychological insights for navigating the universal pain of a breakup today.
, Professor of Classics at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, author of Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher and How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern Lovers.
Prof. D’Angour’s talk will delve into Plato’s Symposium, exploring the profound and varied definitions of love presented by the Athenians at a legendary drinking party. He will guide us through the key speeches, from Aristophanes’ myth of soulmates to Socrates’ revelation of love as the pursuit of eternal beauty.
Dr. , UK-based trauma therapist & self-work guide, author of Choose You :Gentle Words to Help You Heal and Grow (Rider)
Setting boundaries can be a real struggle for many of us. Dr. Marie will give us the tools to set healthy boundaries in all relationships. She will expand on how choosing ourselves is not selfish but foundational, as we must be whole and grounded to authentically contribute to others without resentment or depletion.
Dr. Kore Nissenson Glied, NYC clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety, depression, and insomnia (CBT/ACT). Researcher on trauma, OCD, and HIV. Co-founder of The Type C Personality podcast—helping people-pleasers overcome burnout.
Anna White, Ex-Wall Street exec turned advocate after her Type C traits led to chronic burnout. Co-founder of The Type C Personality podcast. UNC Chapel Hill MBA.
Tired of putting everyone else first? Presenting together, Dr. Glied and Anna White will help to empower chronic helpers to develop healthier habits. They will explain the roots of your people-pleasing and give you the tools to reclaim your time and energy without the guilt.
Dr. Liz Gloyn, Reader in Latin Language and Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of The Ethics of the Family in Seneca (Cambridge University Press) and Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture (Bloomsbury).
Dr. Gloyn will speak about how Seneca viewed the family—both biological and intellectual—as the fundamental school for learning virtue. She will explain how Stoic philosophy uses the family as a model for being in harmony with the universe. The discussion will combine analysis of Seneca’s texts with the social context of ancient Rome to show how his ideas were relevant to familial relationships.
Dr. Leah Aguirre, psychotherapist and co-owner of Cove Counseling Group in San Diego, author of Is This Really Love? (New Harbinger)
Dr. Aguirre’s talk will challenge the harmful tendency to dismiss emotional abuse as mere exaggeration or drama, highlighting how this perpetuates silence and suffering. She will provide a clear framework for identifying the subtle signs of abuse, such as gaslighting, constant criticism, and isolation.
Dr. , ReasonIO and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Teacher of philosophy both inside and outside the traditional academy, philosophical counselor, and producer of accessible resources on philosophy.
Dr. Sadler’s talk will focus on Aristotle’s view on friendships—and explain why the highest form, based on mutual virtue, is so rare and difficult to achieve. He will expand on Aristotle’s ideas by incorporating insights from later thinkers like Cicero.
, clinical psychologist at the Ottawa Institute for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and the author of the popular Substack newsletter The Psychology of Happiness.
De. Perron will explore how our deeply ingrained life patterns, or schemas, can create recurring challenges in our relationships. He will then illuminate how the ancient principles of Stoicism can provide powerful tools to break these negative cycles and cultivate resilience. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to foster a more mindful, rational, and ultimately happier approach to love.
And finally, there’s me.
—coauthor of The Stoicism Workbook and the forthcoming The Rescuer Trap (New Harbinger)
I’ll be speaking on the subject of “The Fixer”—a person who falls in love not with who someone is, but with the idealized potential of who they could be. I’ll provide clarity on how to recognize this behavior, understand its roots, and shift towards building relationships based on genuine acceptance rather than a project-based fantasy.
Dr. Waltman and I will be hosting and we hope that you will join us for this life-impacting discussion. The event is free, but donations are welcome. We invite you to donate the value of this conference—what you think it’s worth. It’s your generosity that keeps us putting on these virtual events to promote philosophy as a way of life.
Until then, live well and love wisely.
With (lasting) love,
Kasey Pierce
PAC would like to extend their deepest thanks to Prof. Armand D’Angour and Princeton University Press for this exclusive excerpt from How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern Lovers.
Prof. D’Angour is an esteemed guest speaker at our upcoming virtual event The Philosophy of Love and Relationships, Saturday October 25 at 1 pm EDT.
Cured of his hiccups, Aristophanes makes his brilliantly humorous contribution to the discussion. He changes the atmosphere by spinning a fantasy-story about the meaning of love. Once upon a time, he says, humans were compound creatures each consisting of either two male or two female halves, or the combination of male and female (androgyne). These original humans were so arrogant and self-sufficient that Zeus decided to weaken them by cutting them in two, creating human beings as we are today. Once split, each half longed to be united with its missing other half, so the new human beings were pacified by being allowed to have intercourse with each other, both for the sake of pleasure and also to perpetuate their race. Human beings, says Aristophanes, still long for their original wholeness; and Love is the force that impels each of us to search for our ‘other half’.
Aristophanes picture is appealing. The notion of finding a perfect fit, one’s ideal other half, is the stuff of many a romantic tale. It is easy to understand how like is drawn to like, and to understand the warmth of the metaphor ‘half of my soul’ as used by the Roman poet Horace of his friend Virgil. The speech is also a chance to show that Love doesn’t have to be entirely serious and solemn. Just as his fit of hiccups draws attention to bodily functions, Aristophanes’ contribution shows how there is something comical about sex and the physical means of indulging in it. Yet that physical act is what allows not only for pleasure but for the perpetuation of the race. Perpetuation of the self in some form, through the creative union brought about by love, offers an answer to the tragic scenario sketched by Phaedrus. For him, heroic stance of lovers, while inspired and admirable, could be proven only by their death. Aristophanes’ picture presents two new propositions, first that love emerges out of a lack, and secondly that it aims at the perpetuation of the individual through intercourse. Both notions will be picked up by the speech of Socrates/Diotima.
Just as Eryximachus has done, Aristophanes suggests that love is a uniting force, but in his case it is one that aims to unite similar elements rather than harmonise dissimilar ones. It might seem that such a view is retrograde, since Pausanias has already indicated that Love can work a creative and ennobling effect through individuals who differ, whether through the union of young and old, male and female, educated and unformed. In this case, however, the difference points even more clearly to the notion that Love requires an inadequacy, a gap that needs to be filled. A human being is really only half a creature, and the longing for the missing half is the desire for completion that Love engenders.
Original Text
A. The original nature of human beings was not lie it is today. First, there were three sexes of human, not just the two we have now, male and female, but a third type that combined both of these. A word still exists for it, “androgynous”, indicating both male and female, and now used solely as a term of reproach, but at that time there was a type of human that was androgynous in form, which has now vanished. Secondly, the shape of the human being was completely rotund; its back and its sides were formed in a circle, and it had four hands, four legs, two identical faces on a cylindrical neck, one head with two faces facing in opposite directions, four ears, two sets of genitals, and so on and so forth as you can imagine. It could walk upright just like now, in whatever direction it needed; and when it started to run it circled rapidly round and round using what were then its eight limbs, the way tumblers fling their legs up and round when they do cartwheels.
B. The reason there were three sexes was that the male was originally the child of the sun, the female of the earth, and the androgyne of the moon, because the moon is part sun and part earth. Not only were they themelves circular, they moved that way owing to their affinity with their parents. They had impressive strength and power, and had big plans. They challenged the gods, and as Homer recounts about Ephialtes and Otus, they tried to make a path up to heaven to attack the gods. Zeus and the other gods discussed what to do with them. They were in a quandary because there was no option of killing them and destroying the race with thunderbolts as they’d done with the giants, as that would mean an end to the honors and sacrifices they received from humans; but neither could they let them defy them unrestrained. After long reflection Zeus said: ‘I’ve come up with a plan for humans to exist without this unruliness. I’ll diminish them by cutting them in two, That way they’ll be weaker, and simultaneously more profitable to us because there’ll be more of them. They will walk upright on two legs, and if they continue acting thuggishly and won’t hold their peace, I’ll cut them in half again so that they’ll go around hopping on one leg.’
C. So saying he proceeded to cut the humans in half, like sorb apples chopped in preparation for pickling, or an egg being sliced with a hair. He told Apollo to turn the face and half of the neck of each cut human round toward the cut side, so that each person observing it would act more humbly, and to heal the wounds. Apollo turned the face around and pulled the skin together from all sides, the way you pull a purse shut with drawstrings, to form what we now call the stomach. He made an opening and tied it over the middle of the stomach to form what’s now the navel. He smoothed out all the wrinkles and shaped the chest using the tool shoemakers use on their last when smoothing out wrinkles in hides, but he left a few behind in the area around the stomach and navel to be a reminder to humans of their primeval experience…
Armand D’Angour is Professor of Classics at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He has published his research into the music, literature, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Recent books include Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher (2019), How to Innovate: an Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking (2021), and How to Talk about Love: an ancient guide for modern lovers (2025)
What does true love look like—not just in romance, but in all our relationships? How do we maintain self-respect when emotions pull us off course? And how can ancient wisdom help us heal from breakups, set boundaries, and build healthier connections?
Join us Saturday, October 25 at 1 pm EDT for a meaningful exploration of what it truly means to love well—both others and ourselves. Get your ticket now, free of charge. Everyone is welcome. Recordings will be available after the event if you register today.
We’ll examine self-love not as superficial pampering, but as maintaining our dignity and values in relationships. Together, we’ll learn practical ways to establish healthy boundaries with compassion, heal from breakups with wisdom rather than just coping mechanisms, and nurture all our important connections—with partners, friends, family, and most importantly, ourselves. This is an opportunity to develop relationships that honor who we are while deepening our capacity for genuine care and connection. This is a free virtual event, open to everyone. Donations welcome.
Check out our current lineup of speakers:
Scott Waltman, PsyD, ABPP, coauthor of Socratic Questioning for Therapists and Counselors (Routledge), The Stoicism Workbook: How the Wisdom of Socrates Can Help You Build Resilience and Overcome Anything Life Throws at You, and the forthcoming The Rescuer Trap: A Guide to Overcoming Codependency, Compulsive Helping in Relationships, and People-Pleasing (New Harbinger)
Kasey Pierce, coauthor of The Stoicism Workbook: How the Wisdom of Socrates Can Help You Build Resilience and Overcome Anything Life Throws at You and the forthcoming The Rescuer Trap: A Guide to Overcoming Codependency, Compulsive Helping in Relationships, and People-Pleasing (New Harbinger)
Michael Fontaine, professor of classics at Cornell University, author of How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On and How to Have Willpower: An Ancient Guide to Not Giving In (Princeton University Press).
Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, author of Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher and How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern Lovers.
Dr. Helen Marie, UK-based trauma therapist & self-work guide. She helps people uncover deeper self-awareness and healing through therapy, her book Choose You, and relatable Instagram/TikTok content (@h.e.l.e.n.m.a.r.i.e). Focus: trauma, attachment, and relationships—with gentle, actionable wisdom.
Dr. Kore Nissenson Glied, NYC clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety, depression, and insomnia (CBT/ACT). Researcher on trauma, OCD, and HIV. Co-founder of The Type C Personality podcast—helping people-pleasers overcome burnout.
Anna White, Ex-Wall Street exec turned advocate after her Type C traits led to chronic burnout. Co-founder of The Type C Personality podcast. UNC Chapel Hill MBA.
❤️🚨 JUST ADDED, DR. LIZ GLOYN!
Dr. Liz Gloyn, reader in Latin Language and Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of The Ethics of the Family in Seneca (Cambridge University Press) and Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture (Bloomsbury).
More speakers to be confirmed!
Hosted by Kasey Pierce and Scott Waltman, PsyD, ABPP
Join us as we bridge ancient wisdom with modern practice—providing real tools to nurture healthier, more intentional relationships in every part of your life.
We look forward to seeing you there!
PAC would like to express their deepest thanks to Sheehan Quirke and Penguin Randomhouse UK for this exclusive excerpt from The Cultural Tutor: Forty-Nine Lessons You Wish You’d Learned at School.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.– Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
In 401 BCE, a man called Cyrus, brother of the Persian king Artaxerxes III, went to Greece and raised an army of 10,000 mercenaries. They marched east and six months later arrived near Babylon. There they fought for Cyrus beside his other troops. Cyrus charged into battle and was killed. Night fell. The Greeks made camp and, next day, their leaders were invited to meet Artaxerxes. They were ambushed and killed. Back in camp, on some barren hillside, the Greeks were despondent: leaderless, a thousand miles from home, surrounded by hostile forces. They did not even light fires; they awaited their certain fate.
Among them was a young soldier called Xenophon. He could not sleep… and had a revelation:
Why am I lying here? The night advances; with the day the enemy will be upon us… but here we lie, as though it were time to rest and take our ease. I too! what am I waiting for? a general to undertake the work? and from what city? am I waiting till I am old enough? I shall never be old enough if today I do nothing.
So Xenophon gathered the officers, roused them to action, and led the Greeks over two long and arduous years back home. This expedition is retold in the Anabasis, Xenophon’s account of what happened.
His were the words I said to myself on a blustery afternoon three years ago. One moment of clear thought among a million of murk was all I needed. Xenophon’s words made sense. ‘Am I waiting till I am old enough?’ I quit my job. And, in debt to anybody who had made the mistake of lending me money, decided it was high time to pursue what I loved, hoping I could pay back my friends and family while doing it. Now I am here, writing this book – here you are, reading it.
But it was not only Xenophon who brought me the clarity of mind to begin this journey; there was also Mulan, the 1998 Disney film, that I had watched endlessly as a child. Somehow, strange and silly as it sounds, when I took off my work uniform I felt like Mulan cutting her hair before riding to war in the dead of night. Here was a rare moment: I felt free as a bird. That was the day Xenophon met Mulan – and I went along for the ride.
Why am I telling you this? Maybe, if I hadn’t read Xenophon or watched Mulan, I wouldn’t have quit. My point is: the things you watch and read have the potential to change your life and change you, for better or worse, even in the most unexpected ways. This means, of course, that we need to think very carefully about what we consume. That is the subject of this chapter.
When Europeans first met the people of South America they called them barbarians. Montaigne did not approve:
‘There is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.’
He was right – we are creatures of coincidence. Why else would I say beans on toast is a decent meal? Because I was born an Englishman. As Herodotus said: ‘Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best.’ We have all been shaped by the conditions of our upbringing and the things we have consumed. But we can change, we can be radically reshaped – for good or bad – by the things we do and consume. Art, because we perceive immediately in one image what twenty books could not explain, provides wonderful examples of this.
Grant Wood, of American Gothic fame, did not always paint ‘like that’. Only a few years before 1930 (the year he painted American Gothic, taking his sister and dentist as models, transforming overnight from an Iowa dauber into an all-American superstar) Grant Wood was just another Impressionist wannabe. But in 1928 he visited Germany, saw there the paintings of a fifteenth-century artist called Hans Memling, and had an epiphany. Gone were the blurred lines of Impressionism; in came the smooth finish of the Netherlandish Renaissance. This was a total transformation in his style (and, afterwards, his life) – all because he happened to see the paintings of Hans Memling.
Vincent Van Gogh. Three words that call to mind vivid and swirling colours. But Van Gogh did not always paint that way; his art from before 1886 is unrecognisable. What changed? He went to Paris and saw the impasto flowers of Adolphe Monticelli and the bright colours of Paul Gauguin. A door, previously invisible to him, had opened – and he flung himself through it.
There would be no Hamlet but for Shakespeare having read François de Belleforest’s translation of Saxo Grammaticus’ *Gesta Danorum*, nor any Coriolanus without Plutarch or Thomas North having translated Plutarch and Shakespeare having read North. History, too, is shaped by coincidences of consumption. Had not Charlemagne seen in Ravenna the mosaics of San Vitale showing the Emperor Justinian, he might never have been inspired to preserve and spread surviving works of antiquity, nor to build his own palace or have himself declared Holy Roman Emperor. It turns out you need only visit a certain building to change your life.
Sheehan Quirke is a writer who lives in England. In May 2022 he quit his job and started The Cultural Tutor on Twitter (now X) with the aim of democratising elite knowledge. Since then, he has amassed over 1.7 million followers who include world famous personalities across the cultural and political spectrum, from James O’Brien to Jordan Peterson and Professor Alice Roberts to Steven Bartlett. He also writes a fortnightly newsletter with over 75,000 readers that features seven short lessons on art, architecture, poetry, and music.
His latest title is The Cultural Tutor: 49 Lessons You Wish You’d Learned at School.
Enjoy this exclusive audio presentation from Professor Margaret Graver, recorded during our 2023 On Seneca: Anger, Fear, and Sadness virtual event. This insightful discussion is a special perk for all paid subscribers—thank you for your support.
Sheehan Quirke is a writer who lives in England. In May 2022 he quit his job and started The Cultural Tutor on Twitter (now X) with the aim of democratising elite knowledge. Since then, he has amassed over 1.7 million followers who include world famous personalities across the cultural and political spectrum, from James O’Brien to Jordan Peterson and Professor Alice Roberts to Steven Bartlett. He also writes a fortnightly newsletter with over 75,000 readers that features seven short lessons on art, architecture, poetry, and music.
His latest title is The Cultural Tutor: 49 Lessons You Wish You’d Learned at School.
Time is the only sieve we can trust; it filters the sand and dust, leaving only the few particles of gold that are worth our attention, specks of gold that will help us, despite having being written more than two thousand years ago, to live better and more meaningfully, more nobly and humanely, in the 21st century.
I grew up in a rural English backwater. What to do in such a place? I spent time roaming the fields with my friends and investigating the lonely Medieval churches scattered across them. You could see their towers – built with ironstone, a regional subtype of limestone with a high ferric content that makes it turn rust-red in the sun – from a great distance. I was enchanted by these churches, by the way their architecture – the particular angle of a window’s arch; the specific motifs of decoration around a doorway – told in stone a story going back centuries.
Architecture might sound like a strange place to begin, but all parts of culture rise and fall together – everything a society does is interminably linked, like a diamond with a thousand facets, each reflecting off and glowing through one another. To split a diamond into a thousand fragments, trying to get the beauty from each individual facet, would be to destroy it! Culture, and all human endeavour, is just the same. To learn one thing is to learn everything. Air conditioning units say just as much about us, if not more, than the books we read or films we watch; Roman sewers say more about the Romans than the Colosseum.
Classical philosophy, then, is an expression of exactly the same thing expressed by classical statues, coins, temples, and poems. Strange though it sounds, I think reading classical philosophy is better way of understanding classical architecture than by reading books about such architecture… and, even more strangely, vice versa!
And, of course, human beings have not changed at all since the dawn of civilisation; there is no such thing as an unprecedented problem. To read the Classics is to learn ideas that have overcome the ultimate challenge: time. Any given year hundreds of thousands of books are published. Which ones should we read? There’s simply no way of telling which ones are worth reading. Time is the only sieve we can trust; it filters the sand and dust, leaving only the few particles of gold that are worth our attention, specks of gold that will help us, despite having being written more than two thousand years ago, to live better and more meaningfully, more nobly and humanely, in the 21st century.
Maybe I’m wrong about all of that – but, for good or bad, it’s what I believe.
Well, it’s a book. And like all books it is composed, in purely physical terms, of paper (wood, water, a binding agent) stuck together (glue, I suppose) and printed with symbols (ink). There will also be an electronic version, which is composed of pixels, I guess, of glass and filaments, plus the data banks where the text itself is stored.
That sounds like a pedantic answer, but I do sort of mean what I’m saying. Such is the approach I take in my book – trying to talk about familiar things in a different way, with the intention of helping readers pay renewed and closer attention to them. We’ve all seen the Mona Lisa a million times… but who is the woman we’re looking at? Hardly anybody knows. Her name was Lisa Gherardini, and she never saw the finished portrait. My book is intended to teach people a few things about what we usually call “culture” – by which I mean paintings, cathedrals, temples, love poetry, political philosophy, football, rhetoric – in a way that “culture” isn’t usually taught. Not as a series of facts to be learned, but as living and breathing beast, as a genuinely endless and eternally rewarding adventure that leads both outwards and inwards.
Though, to answer the question more directly, I should say that The Cultural Tutor is the summation and crystallisation of everything I’ve been doing for the past three years, my attempt to create an all-encompassing cultural primer for beginners and experts alike. It’s a book that gives you a little bit of everything, that helps point you in the right direction – whether that be art, architecture, poetry, philosophy, history – and, above all, gets you excited. I suppose it’s a manifesto for a different way of living in the 21st century, a manifesto for cultural enrichment as a way of life. Education is uplifting, thrilling, shocking, terrifying, and transcendent; my work, therefore, both as “The Cultural Tutor” online and in my book of the same name, is to offer an antidote to doomscrolling and an alternative to the 24 hour content cycle.
The story of a human life is merely the story of what that particular person has paid attention to over the course of whatever span of time they have been blessed with.
That some things are worth knowing. It sounds trivial when you put it like that, but what I’m talking about is a matter of the supremest, most apocalyptic urgency. You can’t know everything, just like you can’t read every book. In fact, you can’t even read just one percent of all the books ever written. You couldn’t even read, in a whole lifetime, all the books published around the world on a single day of the year! In which we case we must decide what to read from among the ocean of books; we must decide what to know from among the ocean of things we might know. And, subsequent to that, I am convinced that some things are more worth knowing than others, that certain things make our lives better and other things make them worse. I suppose it doesn’t sound like a radical or even surprising idea… but the way we behave (myself included) in the 21st century says otherwise.
Perspective. The more I read history, the more I learn how little things change. We are always complaining about the same things – and I mean that literally! Untrustworthy politicians, ever-increasing rent, inflation, the inability to find a boyfriend or girlfriend, the declining quality of art… you can read 16th century Elizabethans, Ancient Athenians, Genghis Khan’s Mongols, and Medieval Japanese monks all grumbling about these very things. To have this perspective makes modern life much less troubling.
Architecture matters. The way our world looks affects how we think, feel, and behave. A fact that is very obviously true and accepted as such, but rarely acted on with sufficient care. We design our world improperly at our peril. Ordinary beauty is vital, is of unspeakable significance! Art doesn’t just belong in galleries or museums or ancient monuments sealed off behind glass panes and ropes. Art and beauty belong everywhere, belong to people, and ought to be present on each and every one of our streets and houses.
In the end, though, the north star of all my work is simply this: attention. The story of a human life is merely the story of what that particular person has paid attention to over the course of whatever span of time they have been blessed with. Really, I mean that. Any biography is a description of what a given person spent their time looking at it, where they went, who they spoke to, and so on. All these are simply forms of attention. To what, then, shall we pay attention? To reels and shorts… or to flowers, bumblebees, and the stars?
The 14th century Dutchman Thomas a Kempis once said,
I would rather feel contrition than know the definition thereof.
He means it is better to live the right way, even if you can’t quite explain it, than to be able to explain it and not live it. Sometimes we think of education as the accumulation of facts, of mastering knowledge. Not at all. Education is an active moral, emotional, psychological, and spiritual force. If education does not make us happier, stronger, and more noble, if it does not help us to make better decisions, to sympathise more intensely with our fellow humans, to do the right thing, then it is not real education in any sense of the word.
The best place to begin is with my forthcoming book; as I said, it’s the summation and crystallisation of everything I’ve been doing for the past three years. You can buy it here. Otherwise you can follow me X or Instagram, although the best place to keep up with what I’m doing is by subscribing to me newsletter. You can do so here. The newsletter, as it happens, is called “Areopagus”. Make of that what you will!
I could hardly imagine an opportunity more thrilling or meaningful. Athens is the place where it all began, a city that has left its mark on all subsequent human history. Even if we leave Earth one day, colonise the stars, and build metropolises on far-off planets, Athens will forever remain one of the sparks that catalysed our journey, and its impression will remain on everything we humans do, for good or bad, for all eternity. Dramatic words, but I mean them! To talk or give a workshop at the original location would be add my own little pebble, my own little daub of paint, to the great cathedral of learning that is represented by the Academy. Who knows, I might even tell a joke there that nobody has ever told before… maybe!
What was the last thing you paid real attention to, and was it worthwhile?