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John Bowlby Attachment Theory

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After the death of my husband, I have watched my children grapple with grief. At times it seems as if they are in a tug-of-war with God. Losing a loved one has always been a part of life and eventually everyone will go through a time when they will have to grapple with grief. The death of a father at any age can be devastating, but when children lose their father at a young age their feelings of security disappear. If children lose their attachment to their father they are left wondering if they can even trust to put that attachment somewhere else due to the fear of losing it again. Children grieve differently than adults. There is no well-defined model for grieving children, but most go through “denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression …show more content…

Kelley (2009) states “an international study of 77 leading bereavement specialists revealed that attachment theory and a psychodynamic model are their preferred conceptual models for understanding the process of grieving”. Unfortunately, the area of attachment to God is still mostly unexplored. John Bowlby first introduced research in “attachment theory” due to observational studies of young children and their attachment to their parents. Kelley (2009) states “Bowlby maintains that attachment behavior is an instinctual and a constitutive dimension of being human and endures throughout the lifespan”. So if attachment behavior can be seen throughout one’s lifetime, how does it affect religious development? Kirkpatrick (1988) suggests that “attachment theory is an important psychological framework for understanding religious experience because a personal relationship with God is at the core of monotheistic religions”. Studies that have been conducted by Kirkpatrick include “a meta-analysis of numerous studies that have considered the correlation between sudden religious conversions and the converts’ history of parental attachments. Across those various studies, rates of conversion were significantly correlated with insecurity of either maternal or paternal attachments” (Kelley,

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