Mental well-being in ancient Greece: Comment on Graiver (2021).

Abstract

In her thought-provoking article, Graiver (2021) argues that many early Christian monks achieved sustained psychological health, perceived as joyful serenity by their contemporaries, and admired within their milieu and the society at large. This state was attained by means of dispassion (apatheia) and culminated in spiritual enlightenment. In the author's opinion, conclusions of this historical research call for a reassessment of modern attitudes to psychological health that can be construed only "in a culturally sensitive manner" (p. 1).Both points are compelling. In fact, the understanding that a dominant ideology of a society determines the notions of behavioral norm and deviance has by now been with us for several decades. The developing discipline of medical anthropology insists that "medicine formulates the human body and disease in a culturally distinctive fashion" (Good, 1994, p. 65;Kleinman, 1980;Wiley & Allen, 2009). Turning to ethnopsychiatry, it is clear that although every ailment has multiple social aspects, in mental disorders, these aspects acquire paramount significance (Helman, 1990, pp. 214 -266;Romanucci-Ross & Tancredi, 1991). The historically conditioned environment is perhaps the most significant factor determining the society's attitude toward mental health and disease (Kleinman, 1980, p. 8; G. Rosen, 1968, p. 90). It is therefore the exploration of the interaction between the universals of the human nature-whatever this term may signify-and the particular cultural situation that is most promising for both historians and psychologists (Slingerland, 2008, p. 24). Graiver convincingly demonstrates that in the monastic circles of late antiquity, the well-being of a holy person could result from contemplation and transcendence of the limits of the ego, in sharp contrast to modern definitions of mental health as fulfilment of personal aspirations of the individual.The comparison of the notions of mental health in two dramatically different periods, such as late antiquity and the present, is undoubtedly valuable for modern psychologists dealing with contemporary Western individuals. However, from the point of view of history of psychology, sensu lato, that is, a field of knowledge on human behavior and mental well-being (as Graiver understands it), a brief enquiry into Ancient Greece and Rome, chronologically and culturally close to late antiquity, might be no less useful. Such an enquiry could shed light on the transformation of some concepts in the evolving social environment. Furthermore, a study of mental well-being and misery in antiquity also has to take into account evidence contained in texts belonging to a wide range of genres. Therefore, I offer a few remarks on heterogeneous Greek sources on mental health and disorder and some insights that they suggest.