In classical Christian theological anthropology, it is customary to condemn the human temptation to sinful, self-aggrandizing pride. For this reason, reflection on self-love is underdeveloped and even considered invalid by some in the Christian theological community. However, this project is fundamentally an apologia for non-prideful self-love and its place within Christian reflections on the human person. Specifically, this project centers around the experience of the self-hating person and contains a description of proper self-love in response to such a person. To offer this account of good self-love, I first explore recent psychological literature on self-hatred and formulate a description of the figure I designate as "the impoverished person": the person who experiences herself as worthless and empty. With such a person in mind, I then return to the Christian figure who ostensibly deployed the definitive critique of self-love and pride: Augustine of Hippo. This examination reveals Augustine's astounding complexity on the topic of self-love, including his firm distinction between harmful pride and positive self-love. Augustine thus has surprisingly compelling resources for speaking about the importance of self-love and recognizing one's own self-worth. Furthermore, in order to explore questions about "the self" of self-love, I examine Augustine on "the self" and on his celebration of human interiority. Not only does Augustine's understanding of interiority avoid individualism, it also allows him to speak about the boundaries and the dignity of the individual in a manner that protects against various toxic forces that would impugn this dignity. His positive reflections on interiority thus make his work especially relevant for the impoverished person. However, this project also identifies certain inconsistencies in Augustine's articulation of human dignity. For this reason, this project explores sixteenth-century mystic Teresa of Ávila, who inherits the discourse of Augustinian interiority but also accents more strongly—through her spiritual metaphor of the soul as an interior castle—the abiding God-given dignity of the individual as the "dwelling place" of God. By way of conclusion, I engage with contemporary feminist theologian Sarah Coakley to show how the promotion of proper self-love—and the theological anthropology that makes this promotion intelligible—is deeply compatible with contemporary feminist theological recommendations of vulnerability. In sum, this project offers an Augustinian-Teresian account of proper self-love that is grounded in God's promise of loving, intimate friendship so as to dismantle self-hatred while enabling openness to God and others.