Augustine and Psychology (Augustine in Conversation: Tradition and Innovation)

The essays in Augustine and Psychology, edited by Sandra Lee Dixon, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth, relate St. Augustine to the modern theory and practice of psychology in several ways. The contributors analyze Augustine’s own examination of himself (and occasionally others) to see to what extent he himself was a “doctor” or practiced “therapy” in ways that we can recognize and appreciate; they find connections between his theories of memory and mind, and modern theories of the same; they consider the influences and context in which he worked, and how those affected him and his ideas of the mind and soul; and, lastly, the contributors subject St. Augustine to the scrutiny of modern psychoanalysis (and critique such scrutiny where appropriate).