7.7 ANALYSIS OFTHE ATTACHMENT TO GOD :

         Attachment with god and religion can be evaluated and it can be compared with childhood attachment dynamics and some logical conclusion may be made.

Recent theoretical and empirical work by Lee Kirkpatrick and others has suggested that relationship with God can be fruitfully described as an attachment bond.   Empirically we can prove the differences between various group of population[i] . They have devised a scale called attachment to god inventory  and have tested their hypothesis on people and   compared personality issues and religios styles.     

   

Attachment to God Inventory[ii] (AGI) well  provides tests of the correspondence and compensation hypotheses. In general, the AGI subscales of Avoidance of Intimacy and Anxiety about Abandonment display good factor structure, internal consistency,and construct validity.

                 Comparisons of the AGI with adulthood attachment measures appear to support, although weakly, a correspondence between working models of romantic others and God. identification as a mother, father, and a lover, it is less clear how an attachment model describes Deity/Person relationships in other world religions, particularly if the Deity is not thought of as “personal” in nature.

Empirical research concerning attachment with God

                     The limited but growing empirical literature concerning attachment with God and the  relationship between attachment styles and religiosity has suggested that attachment perspectives are a fruitful line of investigation in the psychology of religion research[iii],[iv].

                            It is found relationships between attachment style and religious variables such as religious belief, commitment,and involvement; God image; conversion experiences.

                             In addition it has been found evidence that God may serve as a compensatory attachment figure for individuals displaying insecure attachment patterns. There is  evidence that individuals may use God as a substitute attachment figure; although  that this process may be more complex than previously thought. Others have found relationships between adulthood attachment and spiritual maturity[v].

Assessing attachment to God and the “compensation or correspondence hypothesis”

                           The empirical research has suggested intriguing relationships between attachment variables and religious constructs has been limited by the lack of a  psychometrically sound instrument to assess attachment to God.

                          This void has limited researchers from addressing one of the more intriguing questions in this literature. The “correspondence or compensation” question is an attempt to determine

a)     if attachment to God basically mirrors the person’s caregiver and lover attachment style (the correspondence hypothesis)

b)    b) if relationship with God helps the person compensate for deficient caregiver bonds, where a relationship with God fills an attachment void  (the compensation hypothesis).

                        As noted above, some evidence suggests that the compensation hypothesis may be correct. However, other evidence building upon Object Relations theory, suggests that the correspondence hypothesis may be correct.

                       Specifically, it has been shown that positive relationships with caregivers are associated with more loving and nurturing God images. Conversely, it appears that negative relations with caregivers are associated with God being experienced as more demanding and authoritarian.

                          

                       These conflicting lines of evidence suggest that researchers must be careful when framing the issue  of correspondence versus compensation. Specifically, there is a distinction between compensatory behavior (e.g., conversion, religious practices) and how an individual experiences God (i.e., Is God perceived as loving and kind, or distant and judgmental?).

     Within the attachment to God literature, this issue is even more vexing due to the lack of a psychometrically sound instrument assessing attachment to God. Consequently, comparisons between attachment to God, God imagery, and compensatory religious behavior cannot proceed until the psychometric issues are resolved.

The Attachment to God Inventory

Building upon attachment pattern classification schemes for childhood bonds with  caregivers  and adulthood love relationships . It is  argued that two dimensions underlay most attachment classification models:

a)Avoidance of Intimacy

b) Anxiety about Abandonment. 

                 Consequently, this model is dimensional in nature allowing individuals to vary along the two  continuous dimensions of Avoidance and Anxiety.Yet, should one choose to use a typological model,these dimensions can be dichotomized to generate the classic fourfold typology of Secure, Preoccupied, Fearful, or Avoidant attachment.

                 The flexibility of this classification model is clear in that it can incorporate both dimensional and typological schemes of attachment classification.

        To synthesize the wide variety of adulthood attachment measures used by researchers, and to operationalize the Avoidance and Anxiety dimensions, the study wanted to develop a measure that assessed the attachment dimensions of Avoidance of Intimacy and Anxiety about Abandonment as they apply to relationship with God.

                      Consequently, the Experiences in Close Relationships scale became a model for our Attachment to God Inventory (AGI). Our conceptualizations of the Avoidance and Anxiety dimensions as they apply to relationship with God were straightforward and paralleled descriptions other studies.

                         Specifically, Avoidance of Intimacy with God involves themes such as a need for self-reliance, a difficulty with depending upon God, and unwillingness to be emotionally intimate with God.

                            In contrast, Anxiety over Abandonment involves themes such as the fear of potential abandonment by God, angry protest (resentment or frustration at God’s lack of perceived affection), jealousy over God’s seemingly differential intimacy with others, anxiety over one’s lovability in God’s eyes,and, finally, preoccupation with or worry concerning one’s relationship with God.

The study can be in three parts as done by Kirk Patrick.et al.,

Study1:  An overview the scale construction and validation of the AGI.

Study 2:The AGI is then used to test hypotheses concerning correspondence or compensation in  a college

Study 3: The AGI is then used to test hypotheses concerning correspondence or compensation , in the adult community sample and the faith group differences concerning attachment to God are explored

              Since relationship to God is often fostered within diverse religious communities, we wanted to determine if the construct was stable across religious affiliation.

Assessing attachment to God

                       The main goal of the study -1  was the development and validation of the Attachment to God Inventory and it was observed to be good.

This scale was theoretically derived from and closely parallels currently used adulthood attachment measures. Specifically, the AGI has two subscales assessing the attachment dimensions of Anxiety

1)concerning potential  abandonment and lack of intrinsic lovability

2) Avoidance -avoidance of intimacy and compulsive selfreliance.

                These two dimensions seem to underlay most attachment classifications schemes, childhood and adult.  This study  suggested that they also might describe attachment bonds to the God.

           Relationship with God may be characterized as an attachment bond. And yet, this question  demands continued theoretical and empirical attention.  The AGI was developed to provide psychology of religion researchers a tool to more directly assess attachment to God.

Correspondence versus compensation?

A secondary goal of this series of studies, was to use the  AGI         ( attachment to god inventory) to address the correspondence versus compensation hypotheses.

Do people seek out relationship with God to compensate for deficient caregiver and adulthood attachment bonds? Or do people, when in relationship with God, simply continue employing the same working-model they use for all attachment bonds?

A trend was noted, it was for a correspondence between the adulthood and God Anxiety dimensions.That is, in both Study 2 (a college sample) and Study 3 (a community sample), the more attachment anxiety the person reported in their love relationships, the greater their expressed attachment anxiety in relationship with God.

                

 Although  findings tend to lean toward the correspondence hypothesis,  the literature cited earlier were supporting the compensation hypothesis ?  the data may be consistent with both hypotheses. Specifically, individuals with deficient childhood and attachment bonds may be attracted to or seek out an attachment to God to fill an attachment void (compensation).

This idea is supported by Kirkpatrick’s  observation   that insecure (anxious and avoidant) women were more likely over the span of four years to report having “found a new relationship with God” or to have had a conversion experience[vi].

However, once this relationship is initiated, previous working-models may begin to assert themselves in this new relationship.

As noted earlier, this line of argument is also supported by work using Object Relations Theory to understand relationship with God . Specifically, this evidence suggests that object relations development is related to God image.

                In short, the motives to seek out and establish a relationship with God may have compensatory goals. However, once the relationship is established, the person’s working-models may tend to manifest themselves.

Consequently, in the literature we may see evidence for both compensation (the need to fill an attachment void with a relationship with God) and correspondence (the convergence of working-models across all attachment bonds: Caregiver, lover, God.   

Avoidance of intimacy

The trends for correspondence regarding the attachment dimension of Anxiety were relatively clear,  however findings for the dimension of Avoidance were much more equivocal.  specifically, in Study 2 ( of Kirckpatrick), AGI-Avoidance failed to converge on adulthood ratings of Avoidance.

 Since the Avoidance dimension corresponds to a “negative views of others,” one might expect that Avoidance ratings would be qualitatively different across caregiver, lover, and spiritual attachment bonds. However, Avoidance themes are present in relationships with God, specifically, discomfort with depending upon God and with emotional displays of affection toward God.

 In short, although  attachment Avoidance can describe facets of relationship with God, this relationship is unique enough in that demonstrating correspondence between working-models of others may be difficult to establish (positive or negative views of: God vs. caregivers vs. lover).

Future directions

An obvious limitation in this series of studies, was the exclusive focus on western religions. How well an attachment to God framework generalizes to saivism, is an open theoretical and empirical issue.

From a theological  point of view, one prerequisite for an attachment bond to exist in a faith would be that the believer experiences God as “personal” in nature and that the relationship with the Deity approximates the criteria of an attachment bond-similar to one the child has with parents.            

Of the major monotheistic world religions, Islam and Judaism appear to have many of the features required to explore attachments to God. It would be of interest to compare these and other religions to observe how they might differ in their attachment bonds to God. 

Depending upon the theological configuration of a particular faith, that attachment frameworks in many cases would be unsuitable in describing the experiences of certain groups of believers. It would also be of interest to continue exploring faith group differences for attachment to God.

              

 The comparisons in Study 3 ( by Kirckpatrick)suggest that within a religion,  groups may systematically differ in their attachment bonds with God. The causes for these differences  probably result from different theological worldviews which regulate how believers in a particular group view and interact with God.

             This suggests that attachment to God may proceed in a developmental fashion as the believer grows and interacts with a single faith group or, through the lifespan, different faith groups.

              We are particularly intrigued by how life events might affect the attachment bond to God. Traumatic life events tend to affect believers in unpredictable ways. Some (the Old Testament character Job comes to mind), tend to turn to God as a haven of safety during difficult life experiences.

                           

Others may view the traumatic life event as evidence of God’s disinterest, malevolence, or nonexistence. We expect that the prior attachment bond may be predictive of how the believer would respond. Finally, future research should also explore how early caregiver experiences affect or are related to attachment to God. 

God imagery appears to be driven by paternal and maternal caregiving images  Consequently, comparing caregiver attachments, God imagery,and attachment to God may provide a better test of the  correspondence and compensation hypotheses.

To conclude, due to work by Kirkpatrick and others,increasing attention is being given in the empirical literature to the attachment to God construct.Many interesting and, in some cases, longstanding, questions continue to be debated or have yet to be examined quantitatively. The Attachment to GodInventory is offered as a tool for researchers interested in exploring this intriguing area of research.

NEED FOR SIMILAR SRESEARCH AMONG HINDUS AND SAIVITES:

Monotheistic religions like the Judaism,Christianity or islam are not be taken very different from saivism. Saivism also preaches monotheism.

We have to experiment with similar objectives in saivite attachments too. This can be done retrospectively going through the life of the individual nayanmaars or the important saints like vallalar,patinathar,thayumanavar..etc. 

Or else prospectively we can go through contemporary saints and bakthars using similarly divised scales and find what kind of attachment problem they have in mind. This would enable us more systematic knowledge about the normal or abnormal style of progress of spiritual activity.

Saiva tenets clearly have demonstrated that the growth of spirituality follows the steps we have seen so far like iruvinai oppu,malabaribaham and sakthinibatham.

The normal attachments and the normal progress to spirituality can be achieved only by the systematic following of the sadhana. These sadhana are analogous to the psychotherapies of the west. The improper method od merging with sivam may lead to such a pathological god attachment as we see in the above mentioned nayamaars.

 These methods are well discussed in the pandara sastra texts. They take the individual in stepwise fashion towards proper merger with the sivam. They are the PANCHKRA PAHRODAI,DHASAKARIAM AND  NITTAI VILAKKAM .  These sadhana methods will be seen in the subsequent chapters in detail.

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[i] ATTACHMENT TO GOD: THE ATTACHMENT TO GOD INVENTORY,TESTS OF WORKING MODEL CORRESPONDENCE, AND  AN EXPLORATION OF FAITH GROUP DIFFERENCES;RICHARD BECK Abilene Christian University ANGIE MCDONALD Palm Beach Atlantic University Journal of Psychology and Theology2004, Vol. 32, No. 2, 92-103

[ii] THE ATTACHMENT TO GOD INVENTORY

The following statements concern how you feel about your relationship with God. We are interested in how you gener- ally experience your relationship with God, not just in what is happening in that relationship currently. Respond to each statement by indicating how much you agree or disagree with it. Write the number in the space provided, using the following rating scale:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Disagree Neutral/Mixed Agree Strongly Strongly

_____1. I worry a lot about my relationship with God

. _____ 2. I just don’t feel a deep need to be close to God

. _____3. If I can’t see God working in my life, I get upset or angry.

 _____4. I am totally dependent upon God for everything in my life. (R)

 _____5. I am jealous at how God seems to care more for others than for me

. _____6. It is uncommon for me to cry when sharing with God.

 _____7. Sometimes I feel that God loves others more than me.

_____8. My experiences with God are very intimate and emotional. (R)

 _____9. I am jealous at how close some people are to God.

_____10. I prefer not to depend too much on God

. _____11. I often worry about whether God is pleased with me.

____12. I am uncomfortable being emotional in my communication with God.

 _____13. Even if I fail, I never question that God is pleased with me. (R)

 _____14. My prayers to God are often matter-of-fact and not very personal.*

 _____15. Almost daily I feel that my relationship with God goes back and forth from “hot” to “cold.

 _____16. I am uncomfortable with emotional displays of affection to God.*

 _____17. I fear God does not accept me when I do wrong

. _____18. Without God I couldn’t function at all. (R)

 _____19. I often feel angry with God for not responding to me when I want.

_____20. I believe people should not depend on God for things they should do for themselves

. _____21. I crave reassurance from God that God loves me.

 _____22. Daily I discuss all of my problems and concerns with God. (R)

 _____23. I am jealous when others feel God’s presence when I cannot

. _____24. I am uncomfortable allowing God to control every aspect of my life.

 _____25. I worry a lot about damaging my relationship with God.

 _____26. My prayers to God are very emotional. (R)

 _____27. I get upset when I feel God helps others, but forgets about me.

 _____28. I let God make most of the decisions in my life. (R)

Scoring: Avoidance = sum of even numbered items Anxiety = sum of odd numbered items Items 4, 8, 13, 18, 22, 26, and 28 are reverse scored * Researchers may want to consider dropping these items (14 and 16).BECK and MCDONALD.

[iii] J Relig Health. 2014 Dec 6. [Epub ahead of print],A Critical Comprehensive Review of Religiosity and Anxiety Disorders in Adults.Khalaf DR¹, Hebborn LF, Dal SJ, Naja WJ.¹Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon, Over the past three decades, there has been increasing research with respect to the relation of religion and mental health disorders. Consequently, the current article aims to first provide a comprehensive literature review of the interplay between different domains of religiosity and a wide variety of categorical anxiety disorders in adults, and secondly, to uncover the major methodological flaws often yielding mixed, contradictory and unreliable results. The search was conducted using the PubMed/Medline database and included papers published between 1970 and 2012, under a rigorous set of inclusion/exclusion criteria. A total of ten publications were retained as part of the current study, and three main outcomes were identified: (1) certain aspects of religiosity and specific religious interventions have mostly had a protective impact on generalized anxiety disorder (40 % of the studies); (2) other domains of religiosity demonstrated no association with post-traumatic stress disorder (30 % of the studies); and (3) mixed results were seen for panic and phobic disorders.

[iv] See comment in PubMed Commons belowJ Relig Health. 2013 Jun;52(2):657-73. doi: 10.1007/s10943-013-9691-4.Mental disorders, religion and spirituality 1990 to 2010: a systematic evidence-based review.Bonelli RM¹, Koenig HG. Author information¹Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria.AbstractReligion/spirituality has been increasingly examined in medical research during the past two decades. Despite the increasing number of published studies, a systematic evidence-based review of the available data in the field of psychiatry has not been done during the last 20 years. The literature was searched using PubMed (1990-2010). We examined original research on religion, religiosity, spirituality, and related terms published in the top 25 % of psychiatry and neurology journals according to the ISI journals citation index 2010. Most studies focused on religion or religiosity and only 7 % involved interventions. Among the 43 publications that met these criteria, thirty-one (72.1 %) found a relationship between level of religious/spiritual involvement and less mental disorder (positive), eight (18.6 %) found mixed results (positive and negative), and two (4.7 %) reported more mental disorder (negative). All studies on dementia, suicide, and stress-related disorders found a positive association, as well as 79 and 67 % of the papers on depression and substance abuse, respectively. In contrast, findings from the few studies in schizophrenia were mixed, and in bipolar disorder, indicated no association or a negative one. There is good evidence that religious involvement is correlated with better mental health in the areas of depression, substance abuse, and suicide; some evidence in stress-related disorders and dementia; insufficient evidence in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and no data in many other mental disorders.

[v] Can J Psychiatry. 2009 May;54(5):283-91.Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review.

Koenig HG¹.Author information¹Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA. oenig@geri.duke.eduAbstractReligious and spiritual factors are increasingly being examined in psychiatric research. Religious beliefs and practices have long been linked to hysteria, neurosis, and psychotic delusions. However, recent studies have identified another side of religion that may serve as a psychological and social resource for coping with stress. After defining the terms religion and spirituality, this paper reviews research on the relation between religion and (or) spirituality, and mental health, focusing on depression, suicide, anxiety, psychosis, and substance abuse. The results of an earlier systematic review are discussed, and more recent studies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries are described. While religious beliefs and practices can represent powerful sources of comfort, hope, and meaning, they are often intricately entangled with neurotic and psychotic disorders, sometimes making it difficult to determine whether they are a resource or a liability.

[vi] Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1997). A longitudinal study of changes in reli- gious belief and behavior as a function of individual differences in adult attachment style. Journal for the Scientific Study of Reli- gion, 36 (2), 207-217.