Björn Paulini

This paper examines the Stoic attitude as a daily psychological resource rather than as an occasional emergency strategy. The text distinguishes attitude (a stable disposition) from technique (a momentary intervention) and shows that the principal effect of Stoic practice is the formation of a coherent stance toward self, others, and circumstance. The paper identifies four constitutive elements of this stance: the consistent assignment of value, the disciplined handling of impressions, the structural acceptance of finitude, and the orientation toward responsibility rather than complaint. It analyses how this attitude shapes routine experience, including how it absorbs minor friction without ego activation, how it preserves capacity under fatigue, and how it functions as a baseline that makes acute interventions effective when they are needed. The argument draws on the Stoic corpus and on contemporary work on character, resilience, and self-leadership, and is framed for readers interested in the practical psychology of an examined life.

This paper develops a Stoic framework for clear thinking and sound judgment under conditions of acute pressure. It identifies the cognitive failure modes that emerge in high-stakes situations, including narrowing of attention, premature closure, identification with outcome, and reactivity to provocation, and shows how each is addressed by a specific Stoic operation: the prosoche of disciplined attention, the discipline of assent, the dichotomy of control, and the practice of negative visualisation. The framework is not presented as a set of comforting maxims but as an operational architecture for the moments in which clarity matters most: emergency decisions, ethical confrontation, public exposure, and irreversible commitments. The paper draws on the classical Stoic corpus and on contemporary work on decision-making under stress, and is written for practitioners in law, medicine, leadership, and public office.

This paper examines how Christian faith functions as a substrate of inner leadership. Inner leadership is treated as the capacity to govern oneself through value-based decisions under conditions of pressure, uncertainty, and competing demands. The paper argues that faith does not replace self-governance with external command but supplies the orientation against which self-governance becomes coherent: a stable referent for values, a non-instrumental account of the human person, and a horizon for the meaning of action. The text contrasts this account with two reductive readings of religion, the comfort reading and the social-control reading, and shows that both miss the structural function of faith for the leading self. The paper draws on Stoic ethics, Christian moral theology, and contemporary self-leadership research and is written for readers concerned with self-governance, regardless of their own religious commitments.

This paper investigates the function of Christian faith as a stabilising factor during personal crisis. It identifies three mechanisms through which faith stabilises the subject under acute pressure: it provides a continuous frame of meaning that survives the collapse of immediate plans, it locates the self within a relation that is not contingent on success or capacity, and it offers a temporal horizon that extends beyond the crisis itself. The paper distinguishes adaptive religious coping from rigid or defensive religious responses and identifies the structural features that determine which form emerges under pressure. The argument draws on the psychology of religion, existential analysis, and contemporary work on resilience, and is framed for readers who are neither apologists nor critics of religion but interested in the actual psychological work that faith performs in crisis.

This paper analyses Christian faith as a psychological resource for self-regulation, meaning-making, and resilience under sustained pressure. Without arguing for or against the truth of religious propositions, it asks what psychological work faith does for the believing subject: how it organises attention, stabilises identity across crisis, and provides a frame for the integration of suffering. The analysis distinguishes faith from belief, from religious affiliation, and from coping strategies in the narrow sense, and identifies the structural features that make it function as a load-bearing inner orientation rather than as a comforting illusion. The paper draws on the psychology of religion, existential psychology, and Stoic-influenced contemporary self-leadership research, and outlines conditions under which faith can be a stabilising rather than a destabilising factor.

This paper presents a systematic reconstruction of the core structure of Stoic ethics. It identifies three load-bearing elements: the dichotomy of control, the doctrine of the prohairesis, and the orientation toward virtue as the only intrinsic good. The paper shows how these three elements combine into a coherent operational system rather than a loose set of maxims. From this structural view, central Stoic claims (such as the indifference of externals, the role of impressions, and the unity of virtue) are derived rather than postulated. The reconstruction is intended both as a contribution to the interpretation of classical Stoic texts and as a basis for translating Stoic ethics into modern frameworks of self-regulation and value-based decision-making.

This paper develops a Stoic ethics for situations of acute finitude and impending end. Drawing on classical Stoic teaching, in particular the doctrine of the prohairesis and the ethical reading of mortality, it asks how a coherent moral stance can be maintained when conventional time horizons collapse. The text shows that Stoic ethics is not an ethics of resignation but an ethics of the present act under the assumption of finitude. Each day is treated as morally complete in itself. The paper distinguishes this position from fatalism, escapism, and short-termist hedonism, and outlines the practical consequences for self-leadership when crisis, illness, or other end-conditions remove the illusion of unlimited future time.

This paper explores the psychological and spiritual foundations of inner strength as a resource for resilient living under conditions of uncertainty. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, cognitive psychology, and contemplative traditions, it analyses how stable self-regulation, value-based orientation, and acceptance of what cannot be controlled enable a coherent inner stance even under sustained external pressure. The text differentiates inner strength from resignation, suppression, or performative resilience and identifies practical structures by which it can be cultivated. The aim is a model of self-leadership that holds in the face of unpredictability without collapsing into either denial or despair.

This article systematically compares Stoic philosophy and Christian thought, identifying their commonalities and differences across ethics, anthropology, and the conception of the human telos. Both traditions develop comprehensive responses to suffering, moral responsibility, and inner stability, yet they rest on different metaphysical foundations. Stoic ethics emerges from the rational order of cosmos and the dichotomy of control; Christian ethics from a personal relation to God, grace, and the doctrine of redemption. The article distinguishes structural parallels (the role of virtue, inner orientation, attentiveness, the relativisation of external goods) from substantive divergences (the source of normativity, the role of hope and grace, the conception of the self). It rejects facile syntheses that flatten these differences and develops a differentiated account of where convergence is possible and where it must yield to systematic difference.

This article examines possible relations between Stoic philosophy and modern psychological concepts in the context of depressive burden. Central Stoic principles — the distinction between controllable and uncontrollable factors, reflection on one's appraisals, and orientation toward inner posture — show structural overlap with contemporary work on emotion regulation, resilience, and cognitive behavioural therapy. The focus is the question to what extent Stoic thinking can support psychological regulation processes relevant to dealing with depressive symptoms. Stoic principles are read here not as philosophical ideals of abstract self-control but as a form of reflective self-regulation under conditions of uncertainty, burden, and emotional pressure. The article develops the concept of Stoic self-regulation — the capacity to stabilise emotional burden through deliberate cognitive contextualisation, acceptance of limited control, and value-oriented action, without denying emotional reality or idealising distress. Limits are also marked. Stoicism does not replace psychotherapeutic or medical treatment. Modern misreadings that equate emotional hardness or suppression with inner strength are rejected.

Christian faith is increasingly examined in psychology as a resource that strengthens cognitive appraisal, emotion regulation, and coping. This article analyses it as a multidimensional system that shapes perception, motivation, and resilience. Building on research into religious coping, meaning-making, and self-transcendence, it asks how Christian beliefs support psychological stability. The Paulini Stoic stress model is integrated theoretically to expose the interfaces between religious meaning-making and philosophical emotion regulation.