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Similarities and differences in perspective: "...you were taught in [Jesus]... to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." -- Ephesians 4:20-24 "[O]ur mind is trained to function this way in response to some stimuli" vs "our old self is corrupted through deceitful desires". The former sounds non-judgemental, but by saying that this realization should "lead you to develop new, more wholesome habits, in adequation with reality, which make you and others suffer less", it's implying that the previous habits were unwholesome (cf "corrupt"), not in adequation with reality (cf "deceitful") and made you and others suffer more. I think insofar as psychotherapy is reluctant to discard bits of the "[old] self", the two perspectives would agree that it's a dead end. I do have to say, personally I like the sound of having a "new self, created after the likeness of God" better than "realizing I'm just a bundle of habits, then replacing some habits with better ones." :-) |
To me, the "new self vs old self" framing is just more abstract. You should do what works for you, but I think breaking down one's identity into a set of habits or responses is simply a higher resolution of the same.