“Relational Confession as Therapy of the Heart?” A Postmodern Dialogue between Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions and Elementary Experience in Psychology

This research project is entitled “Love and desire in Saint Augustine's Confessions in dialogue with Elementary Experience in Psychology as a relational narrative for the postmodern context.” This project seeks, first, to situate Augustine within the therapeutic perspective of ancient world and set his confessional perspective in dialogue with the postmodern reception and the implications of a “postmodern confession”. Secondly, to explore the concepts of love and desire in Augustine’s Confessions and how his theological anthropology brings forth not an ‘auto'biography, but a theography. Third, to introduce Elementary Experience Psychology (EEP), a new psychological approach by Brazilian Miguel Mahfoud, evaluating similarities and comparing EEP with Augustinian concepts such as desire, love and restlessness. By reading Augustine in conversation with EEP, this project seeks to actualize the Augustinian understanding on desire and love in its relational implications in a contemporary context.