How Effective is Stoicism as a form of Psychotherapy?

One in four people in the world today will at some §point suffer from mental illness. Increasingly, §traditional drug based approaches to treatment are §being seen as, at best, short term solutions, and at §worst, completely ineffective and often producing §dangerous side effects. Consequently, there is now a §desire within the medical profession to find a more §holistic cognitive approach to the treatment of §mental illness, one which treats the patient''s body, §mind and soul. The Stoics claim to go far deeper in §their treatment of mental suffering than any modern §drug based, or even modern psycho-analytic approach, §to mental illness: they propose to work directly on §the human soul itself. The desire of the Stoic §Philosophers §was to unite each individual''s soul with the divine §order of the universe, with individuals achieving §a ''God-like'' view of themselves and their human §predicaments within the cosmos. This is an attempt §to assess the Stoics'' claims, and to see if we can §extrapolate psychotherapeutic methodology from their §ancient wisdom in the fight against §mental illness.