We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Christian Psychotherapy's Anger Problem: How the History of Emotions Can Help.
- Authors
Wojdak, Christopher P.
- Abstract
When it comes to anger, its moral status, and its remediation, Christian counselors and psychotherapists may find themselves torn between rival traditions. Until very recently, the mainstream tendency among Christian writers has been to view the emotion of anger with suspicion, if not outright condemnation. These views stand in stark contrast to a popular psychotherapeutic attitude that considers anger as a morally neutral feeling that can be accepted and safely felt. In this article, I suggest that at least some of the perceived dissonance between these traditions is the result of anachronistic readings of premodern texts. Though Christian writers like Evagrius Ponticus and Thomas Aquinas had much to say about anger and other passions of the soul and body, historians of emotion have compellingly argued that premodern treatments of the logismoi or passiones animae cannot be simply understood through the contemporary Western category of "emotion." The history of emotions offers Christian therapists the conceptual tools necessary to avoid anachronism and more fruitfully negotiate apparent tensions between rival traditions concerning anger. I argue that such historicism presents new challenges as well as new possibilities for the integration of Christian tradition with psychotherapy practice.
- Subjects
PSYCHOTHERAPY; EMOTIONS; ANGER; THOMAS, Aquinas, Saint, ca. 1225-1274; SUSPICION; PSYCHOTHERAPISTS
- Publication
Journal of Psychology & Christianity, 2023, Vol 42, Issue 4, p291
- ISSN
0733-4273
- Publication type
Article