Struggling with Self-Love

A Thomistic Perspective on Anxious Attachment and the Vice of Self-Diminishment

Sheryl Overmyer

Abstract generated by AI: This article examines the relative absence of a robust account of deficient self-love within Thomistic moral theology through an interdisciplinary dialogue with Attachment Theory. While Thomistic thought has extensively treated the problem of excessive self-love, it has largely neglected the ways in which a lack of self-love may also undermine human flourishing. Drawing on the psychological framework of anxious attachment, the article shows how early relational experiences marked by inconsistency and insecurity give rise to enduring patterns of emotional dependency, low self-worth, and impaired self-regard, structured through what Attachment Theory calls “internal working models.” Building on these insights, the author proposes the concept of “self-diminishment” as a Thomistically grounded vice corresponding to deficient self-love. This vice is distinguished both from self-centeredness, which reflects excessive self-love, and from genuine self-sacrifice, which presupposes a rightly ordered love of self rooted in charity. Employing an Aristotelian framework of virtue as the mean between extremes, the article situates self-diminishment as a defect relative to authentic self-love. It then develops this account further through the Thomistic notion of the part-whole relation, arguing that proper self-love entails recognizing one’s own good as integrated within the common good and ultimately within God as the highest good. In this light, the failure to love oneself rightly is not only a psychological deficit but a moral and theological disorder that disrupts both personal integrity and relational communion. The article concludes by highlighting the fruitfulness of integrating contemporary psychological insights with Thomistic anthropology, suggesting that such dialogue can deepen our understanding of moral development, relational dysfunction, and the pathways toward healing and flourishing.

Keywords: Thomistic psychology; self-love; self-diminishment; attachment theory; anxious attachment; moral theology.