The Nature of the Psalms

All of the Psalms have been spoken and arranged by the Spirit so that the emotions of our soul may be understood in them according to what was written before-time, and so that all of them may have been written as about us and become our very own words, for a reminder of our emotions and a corrective of our conduct. Those things the psalmists have said are types and characterizations of us.

Athanasius -- Letter to Marcellinus 12.
from Inheriting Wisdom by Everett Fergusion; pp. 141-142