This article examines the first book of Teresa de Cartagena, The Grove of the Infirm, which explores Teresa's pain and loneliness through a number of dialectical techniques of self-knowledge, derived from the daily practices of sacramental confession. Moreover, these discursive processes improve her writing, relieving her sorrow and giving hope to those sufferers who are enduring similar pain. In this way she constructs a symbolic reality of peace based on the patriarchal tradition and, especially, on confessional techniques, a method destined to bestow harmony and self-knowledge on Catholic devotees. Therefore Teresa displays in her dialectical voice some dualities through these meditation strategies, whose nature is to confront the fear of sin through the virtue of faith, exploring her feelings and her self-consciousness. Henceforth she will expose herself to the reader in order to give an account of her pain and her achievements in introspection