These are conceptual models and classic texts — influential ways of thinking about people and their choices that haven’t been (and often can’t be) tested as a single empirical hypothesis in the form we use them. We keep them separate from “Evidence-based” precisely because we don’t want to pass off a good idea as a proven fact.

Stoicism — dichotomy of control
Epictetus (teachings recorded by his student Arrian) (c. 125 CE) — Enchiridion (Ἐγχειρίδιον, 'Handbook')
Epictetus opens the 'Enchiridion' with the claim that some things are within our power (judgments, intentions) and others are not (the body, reputation, circumstances) — and that peace of mind requires distinguishing between these categories.
Source
Stoicism — premeditatio malorum (premeditation of evils)
Seneca; Marcus Aurelius (c. 65 CE (Seneca); c. 170-180 CE (Marcus Aurelius)) — Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Letters to Lucilius); cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II
The Stoics advised mentally rehearsing setbacks and losses in advance, in order to soften their suddenness and learn to value what one has — the practice of premeditatio malorum.
Source
Stoicism — officia (duties)
Marcus Tullius Cicero (44 BCE) — De Officiis (On Duties)
In his treatise 'On Duties', Cicero examines how the morally honorable (honestum) and the practically advantageous (utile) relate to each other when deciding on one's duty.
Source
Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics (golden mean, eudaimonia)
Aristotle (c. 340 BCE) — Nicomachean Ethics (Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια)
Aristotle defines virtue as the 'mean' between excess and deficiency (for example, courage between cowardice and recklessness) and links the good life (eudaimonia) to the activity of reason.
Source
Daoism — wu-wei (non-action)
Laozi (traditional attribution; text is composite/multi-author) (c. 4th century BCE) — Dao De Jing (道德經, Tao Te Ching)
The Tao Te Ching teaches wu-wei — 'non-action': acting without forcing, in harmony with the natural course of things (the Tao) rather than against it.
Source
Confucius — harmony without uniformity
Confucius (attributed; compiled by disciples/later followers) (c. 5th-3rd century BCE) — Analects (論語, Lúnyǔ), 13.23
The Analects (13.23) state: 'The noble person seeks harmony but not uniformity; the petty person seeks uniformity but not harmony' — harmony is built through differences, not by eliminating them.
Source
Buddhist philosophy — anicca (impermanence) / three marks of existence
Attributed to the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama); recorded in the Pāli Canon (c. 5th century BCE (teaching); Pāli Canon written c. 1st century BCE) — Pāli Canon — the doctrine of the tilakkhaṇa (three marks: anicca, dukkha, anattā), e.g. Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta
According to Buddhist doctrine, all conditioned things are impermanent (anicca) — the first of the three marks of existence, alongside suffering (dukkha) and the absence of an unchanging self (anatta).
Source
Buddhist concept — eight worldly winds
Attributed to the Buddha; recorded in the Pāli Canon (c. 5th century BCE (teaching); Pāli Canon written c. 1st century BCE) — Lokavipatti Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 8.6) — the aṭṭha loka-dhammā ('eight worldly conditions')
The sutta teaches that the eight worldly conditions — gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain — inevitably alternate, and that wisdom lies in maintaining equanimity (upekkha) toward them.
Source
Bhagavad Gita — karma yoga (selfless action)
Traditionally attributed to Vyasa; part of the Mahabharata (c. 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE) — Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (Sāṅkhya Yoga), verse 2.47
In the well-known verse 2.47, Krishna teaches Arjuna: 'You have a right to action, but not to the fruits of action' — the core of karma yoga, the path of selfless action without attachment to results.
Source
Ecclesiastes (Book of Wisdom Literature)
Traditional (pseudonymous 'Qoheleth', traditionally associated with Solomon) (c. 450–180 BCE) — Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth)
A book of the Tanakh and the Old Testament from the wisdom-literature genre, reflecting on vanity ('hevel') and the meaning of human existence.
Source
Zen Buddhism — Shoshin (Beginner's Mind)
Shunryu Suzuki (1970) — Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
The classic book by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki on the practice of 'beginner's mind' — openness and the absence of preconceptions in perceiving experience.
Source
Ubuntu Philosophy
Southern African ethical tradition (documented and theorized by scholars incl. John S. Mbiti) (traditional oral philosophy; academically documented 20th century) — Hunhu/Ubuntu in Traditional Southern African Thought
The Southern African ethical tradition of 'I am because we are', in which the self is formed through relationships and belonging to a community.
Source
Existential Philosophy — Authenticity
Martin Heidegger; Jean-Paul Sartre (1927 (Heidegger, Being and Time); 1943 (Sartre, Being and Nothingness)) — Authenticity
A review of the concept of authenticity in Heidegger and Sartre — the existential demand to take responsibility for one's own existence and choices.
Source
Søren Kierkegaard — Anxiety and Possibility
Søren Kierkegaard (pseud. Vigilius Haufniensis) (1844) — Begrebet Angest (The Concept of Anxiety)
Kierkegaard's philosophical treatise on anxiety as the 'dizziness of freedom' — the experience of possibility and responsibility that accompanies human choice.
Source
Existential Psychology — Irvin Yalom
Irvin D. Yalom (1980) — Existential Psychotherapy
Yalom's foundational book on a psychotherapy built around the four 'ultimate concerns' of existence: death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.
Source
Socratic Method (Elenchus)
Socrates (as depicted in Plato's dialogues) (5th century BCE) — Plato's Shorter Ethical Works
A review of the Socratic method — a sequence of questions (elenchus) that exposes internal contradictions in an interlocutor's beliefs and leads to rethinking them.
Source
Jungian Analytical Psychology — Persona and Shadow
Carl Gustav Jung (developed early-to-mid 20th century) — Analytic Psychology
An overview of Jung's analytical psychology, including the concepts of the persona (the public image) and the shadow (the repressed, unacknowledged sides of the personality).
Source
Rites of Passage
Arnold van Gennep (1909) — Les rites de passage
Van Gennep's foundational work describing rites of passage as unfolding in three stages: separation, liminality (transition) and reincorporation.
Source
Albert Camus — The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus (1942) — Le Mythe de Sisyphe
Camus's philosophical essay on the absurdity of human existence and the question of whether life is worth living.
Source
Minimalism as a Philosophy of 'Enough' (Cynic Simplicity)
Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynic school (theory documented by later scholarship, e.g. Julie Piering) (4th century BCE) — Cynics
The ancient Cynic school of philosophy, led by Diogenes of Sinope, championed self-sufficiency (autarky) through voluntary simplicity and the renunciation of excess needs — a philosophical ancestor of the modern idea of minimalism as 'enough'.
Source

Philosophical model

Stoicism — dichotomy of control

Stoicism — premeditatio malorum (premeditation of evils)

Stoicism — officia (duties)

Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics (golden mean, eudaimonia)

Daoism — wu-wei (non-action)

Confucius — harmony without uniformity

Buddhist philosophy — anicca (impermanence) / three marks of existence

Buddhist concept — eight worldly winds

Bhagavad Gita — karma yoga (selfless action)

Ecclesiastes (Book of Wisdom Literature)

Zen Buddhism — Shoshin (Beginner's Mind)

Ubuntu Philosophy

Existential Philosophy — Authenticity

Søren Kierkegaard — Anxiety and Possibility

Existential Psychology — Irvin Yalom

Socratic Method (Elenchus)

Jungian Analytical Psychology — Persona and Shadow

Rites of Passage

Albert Camus — The Myth of Sisyphus

Minimalism as a Philosophy of 'Enough' (Cynic Simplicity)