Abstract
Assessment of attachment to God (ATG) has generally focused on tapping the construct via self-report measures. Littie, if any attention has been paid to assessing ATG via independent ratings of Christians' relationship with God narratives, obtained at interview. The current study addressed this deficit. It documents the development of a template for assessing Christians' relationship with God narratives for specific ATG experiences. Three uieoretically-derived ATG profiles, labeled as secure-autonomous, insecure-anxious/preoccupied and insecure-dismissing ATG were operationally defined as a series of relational markers. Thirty-one Christians participated in a God Attachment Interview Schedule (GAIS), a semi-structured interview which taps Christians' past and present relationship with God experiences. Participants' narratives were analyzed using the template, this revealing relational evidence supportive of the hypothesized relational markers. Validation of the template is an important milestone in the development of a scoring protocol to assign an overall ATG profile based on die narrated experiences of Christians.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 245-264 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Psychology and Theology |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Keywords
- Christians
- God
- psychology, religious
- spiritual life