Augustine, Divine Agency, and Therapeutic Change

摘要

SUGGESTING THAT UNDERLYING SOHie violent behavior is an unhealthy identification of one's self with one's behavior, such that there is no reflective space between the acting self and unwanted or violent action, Alexandra Parvan echoes many contemporary psychothera-peutic models in suggesting that a central goal of psychotherapy for perpetrators and recipients of violence should be to encourage clients to distance the acting self from the self's experience and behavior (Parvan, 2017). Parvan observes that this is already a feature of "attachment-informed psychotherapy," but she argues that "the distinction between self and action can only be effectively established from outside strictly psychological perspectives" (p. 243) and that, specifically, the metaphysics of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) is not only 'compatible' with these psychotherapies but can confer a 'healthy stability' to revised internal working models of the self. Parvan makes two broad claims about the usefulness of Augustine's thought for modern psychotherapy with perpetrators and victims of violence.