1.2.1 Basic Principles of Normative Attachment Patterns and Processes

1. 1a: All humans engage in this proximity-seeking behavior to meet their basic physical and psychological needs (universality hypothesis).

2. 1b: The strong, enduring emotional bond that develops with an irreplaceable caregiver whose proximity is sought during times of threat or distress is an attachment.

3. 1c: The irreplaceable caregivers who meet these needs are attachment figures (Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 2a: These psychobiological systems of social behavior are interrelated and important for physical survival, environmental adaptation, and genetic reproduction.

2. 2b: Each system has an evolved mental/neural program that motivates behavioral strategies for attaining certain goal states that optimize chances for survival and reproduction. These strategies are mentally/neurally activated by stimuli or situations that make the desired goal state salient. They are deactivated/terminated by other stimuli or outcomes that signal the desired goal state has been attained.

3. 2c: The attachment behavioral system becomes mentally/neurally activated during situations of perceived threat (threat activation hypothesis), namely circumstances of distress, fear, pain, fatigue, sickness, separation, or loss. In these situations, the elicited primary behavioral strategy is proximity seeking to actual, perceived, or internalized attachment figures (Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 3a: There are three phases characterizing the typical response to separation from or loss of an attachment figure: protest, despair, and detachment/reorganization.

2. 3b: Each phase serves an evolutionarily adaptive function. Protest helps draw back the caregiver’s attention, care, and proximity. Despair helps downregulate the attached individual’s emotional/behavioral distress when protest is unsuccessful. Detachment/reorganization helps the person move on without the caregiver, develop new internal capacities (for self-regulation/self-reliance), and form bonds with potential new caregivers (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 4a: The proximity seeking/maintenance function helps support their safety and survival through gaining/maintaining physical or emotional closeness to real, perceived, or internalized attachment figures. This closeness contributes to a psychophysiological sense of feeling safe, calm, cared for, and confident (felt security).

2. 4b: The safe haven function operates when the attachment figure offers protection, care, or comfort during times of real or perceived threat/distress. This function meets basic psychophysiological needs for safety, predictability, and care.

3. 4c: The secure base function operates when the attachment figure provides a sense of confidence to explore surroundings and to face challenging or novel situations. This function meets basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and growth. Over time it leads to improved self-regulation and optimal biopsychosocial–R/S development (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 5a: These mental/neural representations are cognitive/affective structures and neural firing patterns formed from encoded implicit (often-nonconscious) and explicit (consciously available) memories of interactions with one’s physical and social environment.

2. 5b: As generalized memories of experiences, these representations guide perceptions, expectations, and biopsychosocial–R/S responses toward oneself, others, and the world.

3. 5c: These experience-based representations shape how the individual responds to attachment threat and how they perceive and interact with themselves, others, and the world. In other words, these mental/neural representations underlie the attachment dispositions/habits an individual develops (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Granqvist and Sharp2021; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021; cf. Vannucci et al., 2025).

1.2.2 Basic Principles of Individual Differences in Attachment Forms and Processes

1. 6a: A secure attachment disposition is prototypically reflected in a proximity-seeking response to threat/distress and in representations of oneself as lovable and capable, others as available and responsive, and the world as safe and predictable.

2. 6b: An insecure–avoidant/dismissing attachment disposition is prototypically reflected in an emotion-deactivating response to threat/distress and in representations of oneself as alone but capable, others as unavailable and unresponsive, and the world as uninterested and uninteresting.

3. 6c: An insecure–resistant/preoccupied attachment disposition is prototypically reflected in an emotion-hyperactivating response to threat/distress and in representations of oneself as unlovable and incapable, others as inconsistently available and responsive, and the world as variably safe and predictable.

4. 6d: Disorganized–disoriented/unresolved attachment is prototypically reflected in a chaotic/incoherent response to threat/distress and in representations of the world as unpredictable or terrifying and of oneself and others as frightened, frightening, or fragmented (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 7a: Early caregiving that is consistently available, caring, and sensitive, especially during times of threat/distress, contributes to the infant/child experiencing attachment security and initially developing a principal secure attachment disposition (caregiving sensitivity hypothesis).

2. 7b: Early caregiving that is inconsistently available, caring, or sensitive, especially during times of threat/distress, contributes to the infant/child experiencing attachment insecurity and initially developing a principal insecure (resistant or avoidant) attachment disposition.

3. 7c: Early caregiving that is sufficiently frightening or anomalous, especially during times of threat/distress, can lead the infant/child to experience attachment disorientation and develop a habitual response of disorganized–disoriented attachment (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

1. 8a: Over the lifespan, attachment dispositions/habits are somewhat stable across time, situations, and contexts, especially when it comes to a principal secure attachment disposition (attachment stability hypothesis).

2. 8b: Early attachments have a disproportionate effect on subsequent attachments, because early life is a sensitive period for attachment development.

3. 8c: Nevertheless, the possibility of attachment-related change remains open throughout the lifespan. Yet, as humans age, change may happen more slowly, require more effort, or be more unlikely altogether.

4. 8d: At whatever life phase, attachment dispositions/habits (and the mental/neural representations underlying them) can change based on new attachment-relevant experiences (attachment change hypothesis). Such change is particularly likely when new attachment-relevant experiences sharply and persistently contradict previous ones (Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023a, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023b; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021; cf. Vannucci et al., 2025).

1. 9a: A secure attachment disposition often promotes positive psychophysiological health (mental and physical health/well-being). When contrasted with secure attachment, insecure or disorganized attachment can contribute to negative psychophysiological health and functioning (mental or physical illness/dysfunction).

2. 9b: A secure attachment disposition often promotes positive social health outcomes, such as close, caring, and stable relationships. Insecure or disorganized attachment can contribute to negative social health outcomes, including interpersonal difficulties and dysfunction like distant, uncaring, unstable, traumatizing, or abusive relationships (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021).

3. 9c: A secure attachment disposition often promotes positive R/S health outcomes like R/S maturity, whereas insecure or disorganized attachment can contribute to negative R/S health outcomes like R/S struggles (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Granqvist and Sharp2021, Reference Davis, Day, Lindia, Lemke, Davis, Worthington and Schnitker2023; Pargament & Exline, Reference Pargament and Exline2022).

1. 10a: In some cultural groups/contexts, most individuals develop a principal secure attachment disposition (normativity hypothesis). This cultural pattern may emerge because people in these groups/contexts are exposed to relatively higher rates of high-quality attachment relationships (sensitive, responsive caregiving) and environmental conditions (nonthreatening, well-resourced contexts).

2. 10b: In other cultural groups/contexts, comparatively more individuals develop principal insecure and/or disorganized attachment. This cultural pattern may emerge because people in these groups/contexts are exposed to relatively higher rates of poor-quality attachment relationships (insensitive, less-responsive, or traumatizing caregiving) or environmental conditions (threatening or under-resourced contexts; Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Simpson et al., Reference Simpson, Rholes, Eller, Paetzold, Van Lange, Higgins and Kruglanski2021; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Simpson and Berlin2021).

2.1.1 Frida Kahlo: Pets as Surrogate Attachment Figures

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), one of the most famous Hispanic painters of all time, had a challenging, tumultuous life. The Mexican Revolution began when she was 3 years old, embroiling her community and nation in chaos and violence until she was 13. Additionally, at age 6, Frida contracted polio, leaving her bedridden for months and causing her to develop physical abnormalities and difficulties for which she was bullied. She also was in a terrible bus accident at age 18, resulting in severe injuries, lifelong pain, and the physical inability to have children. A few years later, she married Diego Rivera, another famous Mexican painter, but they had a volatile relationship marked by emotional chaos, serial infidelities, recurrent separations, and a divorce and quick remarriage. Frida lived through three other brutal wars – World War I (1914–1917), Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and World War II (1939–1945) – and she and her husband were activists during the latter two (Herrera, Reference Herrera1983).

But not only was Frida’s external world challenging and tumultuous, her internal world was as well. Perhaps because her relationships with each parent were so different, Frida seems to have developed complex, contradictory attachment representations and dispositions that guided how she navigated life. For example, she had a fiery, emotive, and creative personality, which did not mesh well with her stern, rigid, and restrictive mother (a hyper-religious Catholic woman of Spanish, indigenous-Mexican, and Asian-Indian descent). Frida seems to have developed an insecure–resistant/preoccupied attachment with her mother, marked by a mixture of love and contempt. Her mother cared well for Frida physically as a child, but they struggled to connect emotionally and had frequent, intense fights. Conversely, Frida always had a close, secure attachment with her father, a Hungarian-German man who grew up Jewish but became an avowed atheist and emigrated to Mexico in the 1890s. Frida’s father had a quiet and warm but serious personality. Throughout Frida’s life, he was caring, patient, and empowering. He cared for her physical/socioemotional needs and nurtured her resilience, rebelliousness, independence, and assertiveness, as well as her artistic and creative genius (Herrera, Reference Herrera1983).

Besides her father, what helped Frida cope with her challenging internal and external world? Certainly art was a major outlet for her, but Frida also developed many surrogate attachments – with her boisterous gaggle of pets. From early childhood, she was always surrounded by a beloved personal zoo that included a parrot, three dogs, a cat, two spider monkeys, an eagle, two turkeys, and a deer. She relied heavily on these pets for comfort, compassion, and companionship (Brown, Reference Brown2017). She played with them daily and cared for them tenderly, perhaps having learned to care for them with the same sensitivity her father had always shown her. Frida’s pets offered her a lifelong source of joy, confidence, and inspiration, appearing in 55 of her nearly 150 masterpieces, most of which were self-portraits (Esfandiari, Reference Esfandiari2025). They helped Frida care for, understand, and express herself in ways that inspire people worldwide.

2.1.2 Rumi: God(s) as Surrogate Attachment Figure(s)

Mohammad Jalâl al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), the famed Muslim poet, developed surrogate attachments another way. He was born in modern-day Tajikistan. When Rumi was 5 years old, his family began a 17-year, 2,500-mile migration, settling a few times along the way. During their journey, Rumi got married and had two sons, yet his mother died. Three years after Rumi settled permanently in Konya, modern-day Turkey, his father – an Islamic scholar and jurist with whom Rumi had a close and seemingly secure attachment – died as well. After his father’s death in 1231, Rumi developed a surrogate attachment relationship with a spiritual/scholarly mentor who shaped Rumi’s studies, spiritual life, and career but died in 1241. Rumi’s wife died the following year, and he quickly remarried. Ultimately, a surrogate attachment relationship that started in 1244 transformed Rumi’s soul and awakened his masterful poetry (Lewis, Reference Lewis2000).

For the next 4 years, Rumi and Shams al-Din Tabrizi became soulmates. Shams al-Din became a deified spiritual guide and friend. Rumi was transformed by the relational–spiritual experiences they shared. They experienced a deeper relational–spiritual union with God and each other than Rumi thought possible. The zeniths of elevation they shared are what inspired Rumi’s first torrent of poetry (Lewis, Reference Lewis2000).

Unfortunately, some of Rumi’s family and disciples were so jealous of this intense attachment that they drove Shams out of town. Rumi was so devastated and despairing that his disciples eventually apologized and helped find Shams and bring him back. Shams and Rumi enjoyed another year of relational–spiritual bliss, but in 1248, Shams disappeared again – this time for good. Another torrent of poetry deluged from Rumi, mourning the loss of his soulmate. After years of failed attempts to find Shams, Rumi announced having a revelation that he and Shams had spiritually merged: “Since I’m [Shams], for what do I search? I’m his mirror image and will speak myself” (Lewis, Reference Lewis2000, p. 288).

Rumi then redirected his intense attachment needs and energies to attaining perfect union with God. God became Rumi’s supreme surrogate attachment figure. God was the consummate source and focus of Rumi’s love for the remaining 25 years of Rumi’s life (Lewis, Reference Lewis2000). Over the centuries, Rumi’s poems have inspired inestimable souls searching for the echelons of divine, human, and self-actualized love that Rumi painted with words.

2.3.1 Religion/Spirituality as a Loving Relationship

The Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Islam, and especially Christianity – are quite relational in their theology, such that a personal relationship with God is often central to their R/S beliefs and practices. Many theistic believers – particularly Protestant Christians – describe love as central to their relationship with God, akin to how they describe falling and staying in love with a romantic partner or being loved by a caring, security-enhancing parent (Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, Reference Granqvist, Kirkpatrick, Cassidy and Shaver2016). Granqvist (Reference Granqvist2020) has even argued that religion/spirituality is an attachment for large portions of the global population.

2.3.2 God as Uniquely Irreplaceable

Additionally, a theistic believer’s relationship with God is prototypically characterized by a sense of God’s irreplaceable uniqueness. Even as Bowlby (1969/Reference Bowlby1982) described children regarding their attachment figures as stronger and wiser than themselves, theistic believers are normatively taught that God is the ultimate stronger and wiser One who alone is omnipotent (all-powerful – can do anything), omniscient (all-knowing – knows everything in the past, present, and future), omnipresent (all-present – is everywhere at all times), omnipure (all-holy – is without fault and incapable of R/S or moral wrongdoing), and omnibenevolent (all-good – has benevolent qualities and intentions that guide every thought, feeling, and action). Of course, every believer does not represent God mentally in these charitable ways (see Part III), but the Abrahamic faiths usually describe and approach God in ways that align with humans’ deep-rooted yearning for ever-present love, safety, and security – in the form of a uniquely irreplaceable God.

2.3.3 Seeking and Maintaining Proximity to God

Because God is viewed as always available, benevolent, competent, and capable, theistic believers prototypically seek and maintain proximity to God, particularly during times of threat/distress. They seek and maintain this perceived closeness through R/S practices like prayer, worship, or other rituals that foster a sense of believer–God connectedness. Through this felt connectedness, God meets the believer’s basic physical and psychological needs for safety, care, and comfort, restoring or enhancing a sense of felt security (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

2.3.4 God as a Safe Haven

Religious and nonreligious people alike tend to turn to God(s) for protection, care, or comfort in situations that activate the attachment system, namely times of threat, distress, fear, pain, fatigue, sickness, separation, or loss. There is robust experimental evidence of this among adults (Birgegard & Granqvist, Reference Birgegard and Granqvist2004; Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Mikulincer, Gewirtz and Shaver2012b) and children (Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Ljungdahl and Dickie2007b). Moreover, there is longitudinal evidence of it among people affected by major stressors like natural disasters (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Kimball and Aten2019), terrorist attacks (Peterson & Seligman, Reference Peterson and Seligman2003), bereavement (Brown et al., Reference Brown, Nesse, House and Utz2004), and personal suffering (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

2.3.5 God as a Secure Base

Another defining feature of an attachment bond is that the attachment figure offers a secure base for supporting confidence, exploration, play, and creativity. When God provides this sense of felt security, believers feel God is a secure base from which they can navigate new situations, take risks, build new skills, have fun, express creativity, and face challenges. For instance, in a series of seven studies, reminders of God increased people’s likelihood of taking risks in nonmoral situations, especially if they already had a secure attachment relationship with God (Kupor et al., Reference Kupor, Laurin and Levav2015). Similarly, in Cassibba et al.’s (Reference Cassibba, Papagna and Calabrese2014) study of adults diagnosed with a serious disease, patients were most likely to exhibit a “fighting spirit” (p. 252) if they had a secure relationship with God. Patients with an insecure relationship with God tended to exhibit more hopelessness.

2.3.6 Responses to Perceived Separation or Loss

Another defining feature of an attachment bond is that the attached person experiences distress when separated from the attachment figure and grief following the actual/perceived loss of that figure. For theistic believers, this type of separation or loss can take the form of feeling a short-term sense of separation or distance/disconnectedness from God, especially if they are facing an already-distressing situation and are used to feeling God’s closeness and comfort. Even as humans long for their close relationship figures to be there for them when it matters, when it feels like God is not there emotionally, believers can experience distress, frustration, or anger. If this perceived separation persists, then grief or compounded anger can result. Such responses can take on many forms, including a “dark night of the soul” (St. John of the Cross, 1953/2003), divine R/S struggles (anger/disappointment with God; Pargament & Exline, Reference Pargament and Exline2022), or even unresolved R/S trauma or loss (see Section 4’s discussion of connections between unresolved trauma/loss and disorganized attachment; Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

3.2.1 Infancy and Toddlerhood

During their first months, infants typically move through a preattachment phase (Bowlby, 1969/Reference Bowlby1982) in which they interact with others rather indiscriminately (smiling, babbling, etc.). They gradually exhibit increasing preference for familiar caregivers (those caregivers’ voices, faces, and smells), relative to less-familiar people. It usually takes until age 6 or 7 months to form a full-fledged attachment relationship with their primary caregiver(s). Bowlby (1969/Reference Bowlby1982) described infants’ first attachment to a primary caregiver as the key prototype from which their initial attachment representations and dispositions/habits develop.

Between 6 and 12 months, the infant shows an increasingly strong preference for their primary caregiver(s). They also exhibit increasing separation anxiety when away from their caregiver(s) and wariness over interacting with strangers. Separation anxiety and stranger wariness are universally evident, but across children and cultures, this anxiety and wariness can vary in intensity and expression (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1973). The infant actively turns to their caregiver(s) to function as a safe haven (source of comfort/protection) when distressed or threatened and as a secure base (source of confidence/competence) when facing new or difficult situations. As part of this maturation, infants use social referencing (seeking emotional, verbal, and gestural cues from their caregiver[s] to enhance a sense of confidence and competence). This referencing helps guide infants while they explore new physical and psychosocial terrains (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

The second half of the first year is also marked by major increases in the infant’s physical mobility (crawling and eventually walking) and cognitive development, such as the attainment of object permanence (the ability to recognize a person or thing continues existing even when it is not physically present/visible). Rudimentary symbolization (the ability to let one object, gesture, or idea stand for another) begins emerging as well (e.g., pointing toward a desired object). Moreover, the infant is growing rapidly in abilities to recognize and differentiate oneself from others, express one’s needs and desires through language and gestures, and behave in ways that elicit attention and care from primary caregivers. They are starting to recognize symbols in their environment (e.g., a menorah) and may eventually form psychophysiological associations with those symbols (e.g., feelings of awe, joy, and love), laying the foundations for R/S representations if the infant is being raised in an R/S household, community, or culture (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

The developmental window between age 6 and 36 months is perhaps the most impactful sensitive period of attachment in the human lifespan. The attachment bond(s), representations, and dispositions/habits formed during this time often have a disproportionately strong and long-lasting influence on how the developing child relates to themselves and others. There are, of course, ample opportunities for change during subsequent phases, but the formative, often-enduring influence of this sensitive period is noteworthy (Cozolino, Reference Cozolino2024; Siegel, Reference Siegel2020). During this period, the infant–toddler’s attachment system is frequently activated, visibly functioning, and rapidly developing, even as the child is rapidly developing physically, cognitively, linguistically, socially, and emotionally (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

Regarding R/S development and attachment maturation, the infant–toddler period can be viewed as largely pre-R/S until around age 2. Infants and young toddlers are generally absorbed by their senses – how concrete objects and people smell, sound, look, feel, and taste. They may be generally unaware and uninterested in the invisible, nonphysical realms of religion/spirituality, especially if they have no or minimal R/S socialization in their family or surrounding culture. Ideally, the infant–toddler’s main R/S developmental task is simply to bask in their caregivers’ steadfast love, learning to trust attachment figures for practical and emotional comfort, care, and support. In so doing, the infant–toddler develops foundational psychological capacities that eventually enable them to trust other human (and potentially noncorporeal) attachment figures for comfort, care, and support (Fowler, Reference Fowler1987; Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

Because of their nascent cognitive and socioemotional capacities, infants and toddlers younger than 18 months usually do not have the psychological capacity to develop an attachment relationship with a noncorporeal figure. Even for toddlers growing up in a highly R/S household or culture, that capacity may not emerge until between age 2 and 3 (or beyond), once their capacity for mentalizing (the ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the intentional, self-directed mental states of oneself and others; White, Reference White2021) emerges and begins maturing.

Psychoanalysts Winnicott (Reference Winnicott1975/1992) and Rizzuto (Reference Rizzuto1979) have explained how this process often unfolds. Winnicott (Reference Winnicott1975/1992) suggested that, around age 4 to 6 months, infants develop the psychological capacity to rely on concrete “transitional objects” (p. 229; a pacifier, familiar blanket, or favorite stuffed animal) for comfort and support, especially when they are separated physically from their caregiver(s). Winnicott (Reference Winnicott1975/1992) and Rizzuto (Reference Rizzuto1979) posited that over time, as the infant–toddler develops a greater capacity for symbolic thought (the ability to hold a mental representation of a person or object in mind) by around age 18 to 24 months, the mental representation of a “living God” (Rizzuto, Reference Rizzuto1979, p. 41) might also be birthed. This anthropomorphized God representation may start serving as a transitional object, eventually becoming a core foundation for the child’s R/S development.

3.2.2 Early Childhood (Preschool-Aged Children)

Many core acquisitions underlying R/S development unfold during early childhood (~ages 3–6). Even in the first year of life, infants and toddlers begin to develop malleable mental/neural representations of themselves, others (e.g., primary caregivers), and the world. They may develop a nascent mental/neural representation of God towards the end of toddlerhood. Across early childhood, the child’s mental/neural representations of themselves, others, and the world (internal working models) grow considerably in complexity and in how much they are based in symbolic thought (vs. in sensorimotor input during infancy–toddlerhood). This occurs as the child’s relationships with their primary attachment figure(s) continue(s) to evolve, deepening in emotional and cognitive complexity while broadening in contextual applicability and flexibility. These developments are a function of (a) repeated interaction sequences that corroborate/refine the child’s attachment representations and (b) the child’s maturing language and cognitive abilities (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Two particularly key cognitive developments emerge in latter toddlerhood and early childhood:

• mentalization (the ability to understand, interpret, and predict the responses of self and others in terms underlying mental states such as thoughts, feelings, intentions, desires, and perceptions; Fonagy et al., Reference Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist and Target2002) and

• theory of mind (the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others while also understanding that others’ mental states can differ from one’s own and can be false; Wellman et al., Reference Wellman, Cross and Watson2001).

Children who have experienced recurrent security-enhancing interactions with their caregiver(s) can now understand that caregiver separation (and other formerly distressing attachment threats) do not necessitate overt attachment behaviors like crying or following. This is because the child has developed internalized mental representations of (a) their caregiver(s) as planning to come back and as caring for and protecting them even while away and (b) themselves as loved and capable of caring for themselves while physically separated from their caregiver(s). These types of mental representations are called security-based self-representations because they are derived from internalized security-enhancing interactions with attachment figures (see Section 7 and Figure 5). Gradually, these security-based self-representations help reduce the child’s reliance on the attachment figure’s physical availability during times of stress/distress (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1973; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer, Shaver, Rholes and Simpson2004).

With the emergence of mentalization and theory of mind, the child can also have mind-related conversations with caregiver(s) and others. Whenever these conversations are not deceptive, they offer opportunities to expand the child’s understanding of themselves and others and to facilitate relational repair when needed. To illustrate, if a child is at a store with their caregiver and the caregiver unintentionally gets separated, when the caregiver realizes it and finds the frightened child, the caregiver can hug the child and say: “I am so sorry! I did not mean to walk away from you! I thought you saw where I was and were following me. Please forgive me.” Accompanied by compassionate hugs, these types of mentalizing comments (italicized) can restore the child’s confidence they are loved and their caregiver is accessible and has benevolent intentions. The child can begin realizing their caregiver’s mind is truly what drives their caregiver’s behavior. Even if the caregiver’s behaviors are occasionally imperfect, the child can mentally represent the “good-enough” caregiver’s mind as available, responsive, and loving (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Winnicott, Reference Winnicott1975/1992).

Because these types of mentalizing interactions afford increased flexibility and collaboration in the child–caregiver relationship, Bowlby (1969/Reference Bowlby1982) called this last phase of attachment-relationship development the “goal-corrected partnership” (p. 267). The child now can have insights into the caregiver’s mental states (feelings, thoughts, intentions, etc.), and the child and caregiver can influence each other to adjust behaviors to achieve shared goals (e.g., safety, security, repair, or autonomy-supportiveness within developmentally appropriate parameters). During early childhood, the child’s attachment functioning becomes governed more by experienced-gained, symbolic insights than by the trial-and-error, sensorimotor reactivity of infancy–toddlerhood (Bowlby, 1969/Reference Bowlby1982).

Naturally, these cognitive and attachment-related developments have vast implications for R/S development. Even young children raised in nonreligious homes often develop mental representations of God(s) and other supernatural beings. Some scholars argue this phenomenon is because children universally are prepared cognitively to represent some minds as having supernatural knowledge and abilities. Other scholars argue it is because children universally tend to anthropomorphize (attribute human-like characteristics and abilities to nonhuman objects or beings; White, Reference White2021). Regardless, not only do young children normatively develop god representations, but in attachment-activating situations, they also may normatively represent God(s) as a safe haven. This finding has been replicated with children in Italy (Cassibba et al., Reference Cassibba, Granqvist and Costantini2013) and Sweden (Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Ljungdahl and Dickie2007b).

However, children raised in R/S homes and cultures are probably more apt to develop an actual attachment relationship with God(s). This may be especially likely for children raised in a home, place, or tradition where God is prototypically viewed more as a person than an impersonal force. That would include children raised in Abrahamic-faith homes, cultures, or traditions (Christianity, Judaism, or Islam), which are more prevalent in Africa, North and South America, Australia–Oceania, and the Middle East (relative to East and South Asia, where other religions are usually more prevalent; Pew Research Center, Reference Center2012).

In sum, our discussion of early childhood illustrates the pivotal role of social–cultural learning in co-sculpting (amplifying or weakening) the expression of attachment maturation on children’s R/S development (see Section 5 more on social–cultural learning). The influence of social–cultural learning continues growing as children transition from early to middle childhood. During early childhood, social–cultural learning primarily may affect the child’s developing spirituality, whereas during middle childhood, it may more strongly shape their developing religiousness (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

3.2.3 Middle Childhood (School-Aged Children)

During middle childhood (~age 6–12), the child’s attachment representations and dispositions continue to evolve in complexity. School-aged children refine their attachment representations through the greater depth and breadth of relational interactions they have with primary caregivers and surrogate attachment figures. Because their cognitive capacities for mentalization and symbolization are maturing rapidly, children can begin understanding and predicting others’ behavior. If their attachment figures have provided consistent availability and sensitivity, the child’s developing sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence are typically positive and increasingly stable. Likewise, their views, perceptions, and expectations of others are generally positive. These mental/neural representations of self and others become increasingly consolidated and generalizable (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; cf. Vannucci et al., 2025).

As began in early childhood, children in middle childhood rely increasingly on internalized attachment representations rather than actual physical proximity to attachment figures. Additionally, rather than relying on attachment figures to help coregulate their emotions and downregulate their attachment-related distress, school-aged children gradually learn to regulate their own emotions, stress, and distress, partly by relying on internalized security-based representations of self, others, and relationships (self-with-others). They also are developing better psychological capacities for empathizing, perspective-taking, self-regulating, and coping. They are building better social skills like learning how to make/keep friends and resolve conflicts. They may be developing competencies in academics, sports, or other hobbies, affording a greater sense of self-efficacy, mastery, and goal-orientation. They are learning to face challenging tasks and persist in accomplishing them. In sum, normative attachment development in middle childhood involves substantial growth in internalized attachment security, which thereby leads to many positive outcomes (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016, 2023a, 2023b).

As school-aged children grow in internalized security, they broaden their focus to the extrafamilial world of school, peers, and leisure activities. They start preferring to spend time with their peers, not their parents (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016). Peer friendships marked by trust and companionship become hugely important for their well-being and ongoing development (Hartup, Reference Hartup1996). Because school-aged children’s attachment system is activated less readily (due to internalized security), matters of attachment may seem to play a smaller role in children’s everyday lives (Bowlby, 1969/Reference Bowlby1982). Yet by no means does attachment become obsolete or irrelevant. For instance, school-aged children who have difficulty forming friendships and receive little emotional support and engagement from caregiver(s) will often experience painful loneliness due to the perceived absence of meaningful attachment bonds (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Weiss, Reference Weiss1973).

Regarding R/S development and attachment, school-aged children develop more advanced meaning-making capacities, and those capacities can lead them to rely more heavily on religious narratives (Fowler, Reference Fowler1987) in their developing R/S attachment relationship. Moreover, even as they are beginning to develop their own narrative identity (the internalized “stories people have in their minds about how they have come to be the particular people they are becoming,” McAdams, Reference McAdams, John and Robins2021, p. 123), they may also begin developing their own transcendent narrative identity (their internalized, evolving story about themselves and how they fit into a story bigger than themselves; Schnitker et al., Reference Schnitker, King and Houltberg2019). Their transcendent narrative identity can often center on their attachment relationship with God(s).

Research on preschool- and school-aged children has revealed several insights. Preschool-aged children tend to view and relate with God(s) in quite human-like (parent-like) ways, whereas school-aged children often view and relate with God(s) as more superhuman (divine-like, supernatural; de Roos et al., Reference de Roos, Ledema and Miedema2003). Nonetheless, school-aged children report experiencing God as emotionally and personally closer (i.e., more of an attachment figure) than preschool-aged children do (Eshleman et al., Reference Eshleman, Dickie, Merasco, Shepard and Johnson1999; Tamminen, Reference Tamminen1994). In fact, even in Finland (a highly secularized nation), Tamminen (Reference Tamminen1994) found that 40% of school-aged children reported feeling especially close to God during situations of loneliness or perceived danger.

Importantly, for children raised in R/S homes and cultures, their religiousness/spirituality and R/S attachment become increasingly systematized (schematized) during middle childhood. A school-aged R/S child usually develops a faith and relationship with God(s) based strongly on their culturally or familially available religious texts and systems of beliefs, morals, values, stories, and rituals. Comparatively, school-aged children raised in non-R/S homes or cultures may begin leaving behind noncorporeal attachment figures, viewing them as no longer believable or psychologically needed (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

3.2.4 Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Adolescence (~ages 12–18) and young adulthood (~ages 18–30) involve rapid physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. Partly because profound brain development occurs during this period (Cozolino, Reference Cozolino2024; Lerner & Steinberg, Reference Lerner and Steinberg2009), the attachment maturation and development that unfolds during one’s teenage and young adult years has a tremendous impact on the trajectories of one’s adult life (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016).

Psychologically, there are two major developmental tasks of adolescence – identity development (Erikson, Reference Erikson1959/1994) and developing a culturally normative degree of autonomy from primary caregivers (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Attachment plays a key role in each. Adolescents acquire increasing cognitive abilities to think abstractly, reason hypothetically, make planful decisions, engage in complex socioemotional/moral reasoning, and navigate complex personal/interpersonal situations. Their growing striving toward achieving parental autonomy (Lerner & Steinberg, Reference Lerner and Steinberg2009) usually coincides with their growing (and sometimes inappropriate/unwise) dependence on friends and romantic partners. As the adolescent aspires toward autonomy, attachment functions steadily transfer from parents to peers. Peers help support the adolescent’s autonomy and identity development (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Siegel, Reference Siegel2020).

Adolescents’ attachment formation with peers unfolds analogously to how it unfolded with their early caregivers (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016). The proximity-seeking attachment function is transferred from parents to peers during middle childhood, then it climaxes in adolescence as the safe-haven function is transferred, and eventually it culminates in young adulthood as the secure-base function is transferred. Research across the world – in Australia (Feeney, Reference Feeney2004), China (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Chan and Teng2011), the United States (Fraley & Davis, Reference Fraley and Davis1997), and Germany and Sweden (Friedlmeier & Granqvist, Reference Friedlmeier and Granqvist2006) – has now supported this stepwise attachment-transferring process. There may be minor cultural differences regarding timing (e.g., the secure-base function may get transferred a bit later in many collectivistic societies), and the transferring of the secure-base function is likely affected by pertinent contextual factors (e.g., romantic relationship status in young adulthood; Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Typically, long-term romantic partners are selected as the principal attachment figures of adulthood (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1980), and attachment is the emotional “glue” that binds romantic partners together (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016).

Yet, despite how straightforward this transferring process might seem, it can be a long, difficult, and winding road. Many young adults hit several romantic-relationship dead ends before at last seeming to find “the One,” only to end up in a heartbreaking separation and starting all over. When considering such winding roads, attachment-related individual differences often play a role (see Section 4; Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

There are a few more key issues for understanding adolescent and young adult R/S development vis-à-vis attachment. Even as adolescence and young adulthood are periods of profound attachment maturation and development, they can also be characterized by profound changes in religiousness/spirituality. Many adolescents and young adults become more R/S during this phase (Hood et al., Reference Hood, Hill and Spilka2018; Smith & Denton, Reference Smith and Denton2009; Smith & Snell, Reference Smith and Snell2009). Many others who were raised R/S become less R/S during it (Pew Research Center, 2018, Reference Center2020). They might even religiously deconstruct (break down and struggle with their religion/spirituality), reconstruct (expand or rebuild their religion/spirituality in self-determined ways), and/or deidentify (leave religion/spirituality altogether; Van Tongeren, Reference Van Tongeren2024).

Over a century ago, William James (Reference James1902) observed that aspects of religion/spirituality appealed particularly to adolescent sentiments. As we have seen, the cognitive machinery for R/S belief and practice has typically been in place since early childhood, but adolescence is often when the emotional fuel gushes into that machinery (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Adolescence and young adulthood are also the life phases that are most distinctly associated with sudden religious conversions and other spiritually transformative experiences (Hood et al., Reference Hood, Hill and Spilka2018). There are several reasons for the increased religiousness/spirituality that many adolescents and young adults experience. We, of course, do not deny that numerous processes and influences are involved, but the attachment transferring process is one plausible explanation (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Relinquishing one’s parents as the primary source of attachment-need fulfillment can leave an emotional vacuum (Weiss, Reference Weiss1973). Emotionally satisfying and stable relationships with peers can be difficult to come by and even more difficult to maintain, possibly leaving adolescents with a painful socioemotional void that has few, if any, need-satisfying attachments. In this situation, they might turn to God as a surrogate attachment figure (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020). Even for adolescents and young adults who successfully develop strong attachment relationships with friends and romantic partners, they might perceive God as serving attachment functions in ways even their best friend or partner cannot (e.g., helping provide spiritual or moral clarity on difficult, consequential decisions).

Likewise, for adolescents and young adults who choose to become less R/S or to religiously/spiritually reconstruct, many shift from practicing a traditional religion toward practicing a more private, individualized spirituality. That spirituality may center on their perceived attachment relationship with God(s) or other divine/divine-like figures (the Universe, Ultimate Truth, True Self, etc.). Still others may stay irreligious/nonspiritual or become more so over time (Van Tongeren, Reference Van Tongeren2024).

Again, a critical question here is, why do some adolescents and young adults become increasingly attached to God whereas others do not? Answers to that question often relate to the contextual factors and attachment-related individual differences discussed in Part III.

3.2.5 Middle and Older Adulthood

As with adult development generally (Nelson & Dannifer, Reference Nelson and Dannefer1992), attachment development becomes exceedingly diverse, suggesting individual and cultural differences make it hard to characterize “normative” adult attachment development (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016). Even so, as Freud (Reference Freud and Strachey1953–1974), Erikson (Reference Erikson1959/1980), and Kübler-Ross (Reference Kübler-Ross1969) have posited, four major psychological tasks characterize cross-culturally normative adult development – love, work, generativity, and death. There is widespread public consensus that navigating each task well is central to psychologically healthy adult development, and attachment experts generally concur (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016).

For most adults, the domain of love not only includes romantic pair-bonds but also love for one’s children. Caring for one’s children is a major way that adults channel their strivings for generativity. But loving one’s romantic partner is typically what adults find the most challenging (while hopefully still rewarding). Adults’ challenges in navigating romantic attachment relationships are unsurprising considering that a healthy long-term romantic attachment requires successfully nurturing and maintaining the integration of several behavioral systems (attachment, sex, caregiving, etc.) and doing so within oneself, with one’s partner, and within the dyad (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1980; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016). Perhaps because that is so hard – especially given attachment-related individual differences (Section 4) – divorce and recurrent break-ups are on the verge of becoming normative. A large and increasing percentage of adults are choosing to stay unpartnered, or they have trouble finding and maintaining a long-term partnership. Nonetheless, unpartnered adults tend to report poorer health and economic outcomes, relative to partnered adults (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020; Pew Research Center, Reference Center2021).

Regarding love for one’s children, adults’ parent–child bonds are often among the most rewarding relationships in their lives. Those long-but-short years of parenting are frequently characterized by love and joy, but they also can come with ample stress, frustration, worry, and sleep deprivation. The constant balancing act of caregiving, romantic-partner, and work investments mean that many middle-aged adults are overly busy, stretched, and exhausted. Thankfully, bonding keeps most caregivers committed to their children, fueled by an abiding sense of fulfilling and generative love (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016; Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

Regarding R/S development during middle adulthood, this developmental phase is frequently marked by R/S stability (conservation of current R/S beliefs and practices, including a perceived relationship with God, if applicable) and intergenerational transmission of caregiver (non)religion/(non)spirituality to children. That is, barring some life-transformative event (e.g., falling in love with a partner whose religion/spirituality differs significantly from oneself; experiencing profound trauma, struggle, or loss; or developing a terminal or chronic illness), middle adulthood is usually not a period of substantial R/S change. Instead, it is when an adult’s habits are nurtured and passed down to their children, if they have any. Interestingly, growing evidence suggests religion/spirituality (and a collectively shared relationship with God) helps many families form and maintain strong relational/attachment bonds and might help some families experience positive transformative growth. This possibility, of course, depends heavily on familial contextual factors and on individual differences in human attachment and religion/spirituality (Hood et al., Reference Hood, Hill and Spilka2018; Mahoney, Reference Mahoney2010).

As Section 3 concludes, we discuss life’s final phase – older adulthood. Older adults face similar personal, interpersonal, financial, and occupational stressors as their younger counterparts. Yet additionally, older adults face unique challenges, such as an uncertain transition out of the workforce, the recurrent losses of loved ones (siblings, friends, a long-term partner), and the common decline of physical (and/or cognitive) health and social support. The grief and mourning that accompanies these losses can be immense and destabilizing, especially the death of a spouse (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1980; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016).

But many older adults continue to flourish amidst such challenges. Erikson (Reference Erikson1959/1980) described such elderly people as having achieved wisdom and a sense of psychological integrity (a feeling their life’s meaning makes coherent and redemptive sense, their life has been well-lived, and they can face death with calmness, acceptance, and generativity). Attachment relationships with family members and close friends can help nurture this healthy state of mind.

Another health-facilitating developmental process that often emerges in older adulthood is gerotranscendence (Tornstam, Reference Tornstam2011) – a positive aging process by which older people demonstrate “a shift in meta-perspective, from a materialistic and rational view of the world to a more cosmic and transcendent one, normally accompanied by an increase in life satisfaction” (Tornstam, Reference Tornstam2011, p. 166). Frequently, older adults’ R/S attachment to God plays a key role in this positive developmental process (Abreu et al., Reference Abreu, Araújo and Ribeiro2023). Many older people experience a broader R/S “awakening,” especially during times of great attachment loss such as spousal bereavement or terminal illness (Brown et al., Reference Brown, Nesse, House and Utz2004).

4.2.1 Secure Attachment Disposition

4.2.2 Insecure–Avoidant/Dismissing Attachment Disposition

4.2.3 Insecure–Resistant/Preoccupied Attachment Disposition

4.2.4 Disorganized–Disoriented/Unresolved Attachment

4.5.1 Continuity and Variation across Different Attachment Relationships

Contrary to popularized notions of attachment, people do not just have a singular attachment style/disposition. Instead, they have a profile (constellation) of attachment dispositions/habits (and underlying constellation of mental/neural representations) that guide how they navigate the various attachment relationships in their lives. Sometimes these attachment dispositions/habits are quite similar – for example, they may have a secure attachment disposition when it comes to their relationships with their parents, peers, and romantic partner. Yet other times people can exhibit a quite different attachment disposition/habit in a particular relationship domain (e.g., an insecure–avoidant/dismissing disposition in romantic relationships but a secure attachment disposition with close friends) or with a particular person (e.g., an insecure–fearful-avoidant disposition with their mother but a secure disposition with their father). They may have a disorganized–unresolved attachment state of mind that gets elicited readily in certain relationships, situations, or contexts, yet otherwise they exhibit a stably organized attachment disposition – whether secure or not (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Granqvist and Sharp2021; Overall et al., Reference Overall, Fletcher and Friesen2003; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Simpson and Berlin2021).

Attachment scholars tend to understand these differences as reflecting idiographic profiles of attachment mental/neural representations (IWMs) that underlie idiographic profiles of attachment dispositions/habits. For example, at the broadest level of their mind/brain profile of attachment-related processing, people prototypically have an overarching (global) attachment representation of themselves, others, and themselves with others. These can be called global IWMs of self, others, and self-with-others. Like all attachment representations, these mental/neural representations are latent mental/neural structures; they are not directly observable or measurable. In contrast, like all attachment dispositions, people’s global attachment disposition is partly manifest (via behavior, speech, etc.) and hence is directly observable and measurable. Indeed, many attachment measures purportedly assess a person’s global attachment disposition/habit across their attachment relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016). We suggest calling this disposition/habit the person’s principal attachment, which can be defined as the attachment disposition/habit that presently is most mentally/neurally dominant and chronically accessible (i.e., it is the most apt to become activated, given its frequency of usage, degree of overlearning, and extent of neuroconnectivity; Baldwin et al., Reference Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns and Koh-Rangarajoo1996; Davis et al., Reference Davis, Granqvist and Sharp2021; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023a) when the person experiences an actual or perceived threat to felt security.

At the secondary level of a person’s mind/brain profile of attachment-related processing, they have developed a set of attachment representations and dispositions/habits for each major type of attachment relationship – child–parent/caregiver, other family members (siblings, grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.), peers, romantic partners, and surrogate attachment figures (deities, pets, mentors). Finally, at the tertiary level of the person’s mind/brain profile, they have developed a set of attachment representations and dispositions/habits for each specific attachment relationship, such as their relationship with their mother, father, stepmother, best friend, spouse/partner, pet(s), and God(s) (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Granqvist and Sharp2021; Overall et al., Reference Overall, Fletcher and Friesen2003).

As you can see, this understanding of attachment-related individual differences is more complex and nuanced than popularized notions of attachment suggest. Nonetheless, it makes conceptual sense that people vary in how they perceive and respond to different attachment figures. It also is more consistent with growing evidence that people’s attachment dispositions across relationships are only modestly related (usually rs between .10 and .30; Baldwin et al., Reference Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns and Koh-Rangarajoo1996; Fraley et al., Reference Fraley, Heffernan, Vicary and Brumbaugh2011; Klohnen et al., Reference Klohnen, Weller, Luo and Choe2005). In sum, someone’s disposition to perceive and respond to one attachment figure probably shows only a slight resemblance to their disposition to perceive and respond to another attachment figure, and those dispositions may differ from one another more than they resemble each other. These dispositions/habits might also differ across different contexts (situations and settings) and across time. Next we discuss the latter.

4.5.2 Continuity and Variation across Time

There has been considerable research examining the continuity vs. variation of attachment dispositions over time, but most studies have not examined the same attachment-related construct using the same measurement method. Nevertheless, the best available meta-analytic evidence indicates that child–parent attachment dispositions and disorganization are modestly to moderately stable (a) during infancy and early childhood (Opie et al., Reference Opie, McIntosh and Esler2021), (b) from infancy to late adolescence (Groh et al., Reference Groh, Roisman, Booth-LaForce, Booth-LaForce and Roisman2014), and (c) from infancy to young adulthood (Fraley, Reference Fraley2002; Pinquart et al., Reference Pinquart, Feussner and Ahnert2013). Additionally, longitudinal evidence suggests adults’ attachment dispositions to their parents are highly stable over time (test–retest rs of .80 or higher over periods ranging from a few weeks to 1 year). By comparison, adults’ romantic attachment disposition is quite stable in the short-term (rs ≈ .70) but is much less stable over the longer-term (rs ≈ .30 over 1 year; Fraley et al., Reference Fraley, Heffernan, Vicary and Brumbaugh2011). The continuity vs. variation of other types of attachment-related individual differences (peer, best-friend, and R/S attachment) is unknown.

5.4.1 Anne Frank: Security-Based IWM Correspondence and Socialized Correspondence

Anne Frank (1929–1945) is one of the world’s youngest and most beloved authors. Her Diary of a Young Girl, chronicling 2 years of hiding during the Holocaust, has inspired generations. It begins 4 weeks before her family and a few others went into hiding in a secret annex of her father’s office building. It ends 3 days before they were discovered and transported to concentration camps. Only Anne’s father survived (Anne Frank House, 2025).

Based on Anne’s diary and other records, Anne seems to have had a principal secure attachment disposition. She had a close, loving relationship with her father, and both her parents provided reliably sensitive caregiving. Anne was consistently able to make and keep friends, even amid the stressful circumstances of economic uncertainty and rising antisemitism in her earliest years and the major adjustment of emigrating from Germany to Holland at age 4. Throughout her short life, Anne exhibited a security and autonomy of thought, behavior, and expression that was remarkable given her culture, age, and circumstances. She was a curious, courageous, outspoken, optimistic, lively, insightful, humorous, strong-willed, and self-motivated girl. She apparently internalized security-based IWMs of herself, others, and herself in relationship with others (Müller, Reference Müller2013).

Anne’s mother was a religiously educated, orthodox, and observant Jew, and her father was a religiously liberal and less-observant Jew. Anne’s parents allowed Anne considerable autonomy in developing her unique expression of Jewish religion/spirituality. Anne was not particularly R/S before going into hiding, but as commonly happens under stressful circumstances (see Section 6), her faith and relationship with God deepened during those 2 years. Perhaps mainly because of the strength of her secure attachment to her father, Anne’s religion/spirituality came to resemble her father’s religion/spirituality more than her mother’s. Anne’s views of God were more benevolent, inclusive, expansive, character-oriented, nature-incorporative, and relationally focused than her mother’s, which seemed more reverently fearful, punishment-avoidant, commandment-oriented, and duty-focused. Anne viewed and related with God as a strong, loving attachment figure who knew and loved her deeply, helped her live morally, always protected and delivered her and the Jewish people, and steadfastly breathed hope, joy, and courage into her soul (Frank, 1947/Reference Frank2023; Müller, Reference Müller2013).

Even after living in hiding a year and a half, Anne maintained this buoyant spirit. In her March 7, 1944, entry, she shared: “I lie in bed at night, after ending my prayers with the words ‘I thank you, God, for all that is Good and Dear and Beautiful,’ and I’m filled with joy” (Frank, 1947/Reference Frank2023, p. 211). A month later, she shared a poignant anthem that reverberated with social learning she had internalized from her mother’s cherished Jewish heritage and her father’s resilient faith that God and goodness always prevail:

5.4.2 Abraham Lincoln: Insecurity-Based IWM Correspondence and Socialized Correspondence

Historians and the public almost universally agree Abraham Lincoln was the greatest US President, citing his exemplary leadership during the American Civil War, his pivotal role in ending US slavery, and his inspiring vision for global liberalism and human equality. Yet Lincoln’s life was marked by tremendous suffering, loss, and grief. His infant brother died when Lincoln was 3 years old, his beloved mother died when Lincoln was 9, and his other sibling (and best friend) died when he was 19. Ann Rutledge – his dear friend and likely first love – died when Lincoln was 26. Furthermore, his courtship, broken-off engagement, and eventual marriage to Mary Todd were fraught with emotional turbulence and reciprocal attachment insecurity, fueled by each partner’s chronic mental health difficulties. Abraham struggled with recurrent, persistent, and sometimes suicidal depression, and his wife Mary Todd struggled with bipolar disorder (recurrent manic and depressive episodes), complicated grief, and likely borderline personality disorder (with histrionic features). Moreover, the Lincolns suffered the tragic loss of several loved ones, including their young son “Eddie” at age 4 and their third son “Willie” at age 11. These losses and stressors are compounded by the financial and social stressors that Lincoln faced throughout his life, along with the political, legal, public opinion, and military stressors he endured during adulthood (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012; White, Reference White2009).

The evolution of Lincoln’s attachment patterns and religion/spirituality are every bit as complex and multifaceted as he was. Lincoln had a close and secure attachment relationship with his mother. She was a kind, loving, and sensitive caregiver who was a devout Christian. Her tragic, sudden loss (due to a fast-acting disease that caused horrifying, convulsive vomiting) was traumatizing to 9-year-old Lincoln, who watched her die over a few days and rarely spoke about her or her death after that. This traumatizing loss may have led Lincoln to develop a principal disorganized–disoriented/unresolved attachment by the time of adolescence. He seemingly developed a secondary insecure–avoidant/dismissing attachment by then as well, probably due to his emotionally distant and insensitive relationship with his father Thomas, who was a rageful, unpredictable, demanding, critical, and physically violent man and whom Lincoln long despised. In fact, it is possible Thomas Lincoln exhibited a similar attachment classification as Abraham, given that Thomas witnessed his own father’s murder by Native Americans when he was 8 years old and subsequently grew up under difficult, survival-oriented life conditions (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012; White, Reference White2009). Intergenerational transmission of unresolved loss and disorganized attachment – a well-documented psychological phenomenon (Cassidy & Shaver, Reference Cassidy and Shaver2016) – probably affected Abraham Lincoln’s religion/spirituality as well.

Until his mother’s death when Lincoln was 9, Lincoln received strong Christian socialization through his mother’s modeling of Christian character and her sharing of Bible stories. However, once she passed, Lincoln’s R/S socialization took a sharp turn. His exposure to Christianity was then limited to family attendance at religious services at their local Separatist Baptist church (which emphasized predestination and heavy-handed legalism) and at itinerant camp/revivalist meetings (which were common on the western US frontier, drew huge interdenominational Christian crowds, and were characterized by melodramatic sermons and audience responses). After both types of services, Lincoln would often get up on a stump and reenact a sermon – recited nearly word-for-word and hilariously “performed” using the preacher’s caricatured voice and mannerisms. Lincoln’s irate father eventually forbade it (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012).

At age 22, a year after helping his father and stepmother move to Illinois, Lincoln moved to start a life of his own. Lincoln’s despisal of his father and his father’s legalistic, melodramatic Christianity intensified. Through voraciously consuming works by Enlightenment-era, anti-Christian minds (like Robert Burns, Thomas Paine, Edward Gibbon, and C.F. Volney), Lincoln came to believe God did not exist, that the Bible was a myth and an uninspired human book full of contradictions, and that Jesus Christ was “a bastard” and not the Son of God. Lincoln’s anti-Christian beliefs and vitriol became so well-known that he gained a widespread reputation as an “infidel.” The anti-Christian public comments Lincoln made during this phase cost him personally and politically for a long time (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012).

Historians are unsure whether the “angry atheism” of Lincoln’s 20s and 30s was mainly fueled by his hatred of his father, his despisal of self-righteous Christian preachers, or his rage against God for the unremitting suffering he had endured. Regarding the latter, Lincoln was notoriously closed-lipped about his childhood but later confided in his friend and law partner: “My mother was a bastard [and] the daughter of a nobleman … of Virginia” (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012, p. 1). Ashamed of his origins, throughout life, Lincoln always thought he was cursed, that “God had forsaken him” (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012, p. 44), and that he was left to suffer alone because of the sins of his ancestors. It was not until his late 30s that Lincoln’s struggles with his own soul and the soul of the American nation led to an R/S transformation that personalized a blend of his mother’s Christian faith with an Enlightenment evolution of it (Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012). This type of transformation from insecurity-based R/S attachment to compensatory R/S attachment is the topic to which we will turn in Section 6, and we will revisit Lincoln’s R/S journey along the way.

6.2.1 Research on Dispositional Emotional Compensation

In research on dispositional emotional compensation, one of the most well-replicated findings is that people with an insecure childhood attachment history are especially likely to experience sudden R/S conversion or increase. This finding has been replicated cross-culturally in studies of adolescents (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2002; Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2001, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2003) and adults (Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull1999; Greenwald et al., Reference Greenwald, Mikulincer, Granqvist and Shaver2021; Kirkpatrick, Reference Kirkpatrick1997; Kirkpatrick & Shaver, Reference Kirkpatrick and Shaver1990). Studies suggest this sudden R/S conversion or increase is particularly probable during times of transition or heightened stress, such as adolescence (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2002) or after a romantic breakup (Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2003). It also may be more probable when the insecurely attached person was raised in a non-R/S home (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist1998, Reference Granqvist2005; Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull1999). Conversely, if an insecurely attached person was raised by highly R/S caregivers, they may be more likely to deconvert from their caregivers’ religion/spirituality (Zarzycka et al., Reference Zarzycka, Grupa, Krok and Rynasiewicz2024), like what Lincoln did during young adulthood (Section 5).

More broadly, research has found evidence that adolescents or adults with an insecure attachment history or disposition often develop an emotionally compensatory religion/spirituality and/or relationship with God(s). This finding has emerged with adolescents navigating a romantic breakup (Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2003) and young adults who are single (Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2000). It also has emerged with Israeli Jewish adults (Greenwald et al., Reference Greenwald, Mikulincer, Granqvist and Shaver2021), Orthodox Jewish converts (Pirutinsky, Reference Pirutinsky2009), Christian undergraduates (Kimball et al., Reference Kimball, Cook and Flanagan2013), adults who have joined new religious movements (popularly called “cults”; Buxant et al., Reference Buxant, Saroglou and Tesser2010), and adults who have developed a personalized spirituality that blends traditional and nontraditional R/S beliefs and practices (Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Broberg and Hagekull2014).

Other research indicates that adults with a principal disorganized–unresolved attachment are especially apt to report having had mystical R/S experiences during their lifetime (Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Hagekull and Ivarsson2012a) and having adopted New Age R/S practices (Granqvist et al., Reference Granqvist, Ivarsson, Broberg and Hagekull2007a, Reference Granqvist, Fransson and Hagekull2009). Mystical R/S experiences and/or New Age R/S practices may provide these individuals with an emotionally compensatory – and potentially helpful – way of framing or channeling the altered states of consciousness (e.g., dissociation/absorption) that often arise for people with a principal disorganized–disoriented/unresolved attachment (Granqvist, Reference Granqvist2020).

6.2.2 Research on Situational Emotional Compensation

The research on situational emotional compensation focuses on more than just individuals with insecure/disorganized attachment histories or principal attachments, recognizing that all humans experience attachment threats that evoke mental/neural states of attachment insecurity for which surrogate emotional compensation may be helpful. For example, in a study of US collegiate student–athletes, Upenieks et al. (Reference Upenieks, Bounds, Melton, Glanzer and Schnitker2024) found that student–athletes who were low in trait courage but had an emotionally compensatory secure R/S attachment reported lower depressive symptoms than those who reported having a less-secure R/S attachment. Likewise, in a longitudinal study of older adults who had recently lost a spouse, Brown et al. (Reference Brown, Nesse, House and Utz2004) found that both securely and insecurely attached widows/widowers became more R/S over time. However, insecurely attached widows/widowers benefited the most emotionally from this increased religion/spirituality (in terms of their mental health and grief resolution), relative to their more securely attached counterparts.

Additionally, there now is robust empirical evidence that emotionally compensatory (security-enhancing) experiences in perceived relationship with God can help individuals cope with a wide range of attachment-threatening situations, many times regardless of the person’s pre-existing individual differences in human or R/S attachment. Such situations include stressful contexts like postdisaster recovery (Davis et al., Reference Davis, Kimball and Aten2019), circumstances of socioeconomic deprivation (Liu & Froese, Reference Liu and Froese2020), or situations in which people are facing heightened identity-related discrimination (Counted, Reference Counted2019). There are many other situations in which emotionally compensatory experiences with God can help people cope, like when navigating stressors like a romantic breakup (Granqvist & Hagekull, Reference Granqvist and Hagekull2003), the loss of a loved one (Frei-Landau et al., Reference Frei-Landau, Tuval-Mashiach, Silberg and Hasson-Ohayon2020; Kelley & Chan, Reference Kelley and Chan2012), the experience of a serious or chronic physical illness (Cassibba et al., Reference Cassibba, Papagna and Calabrese2014; Francis-Tan, Reference Francis-Tan2024; Hatefi et al., Reference Hatefi, Tarjoman and Borji2019; Runnels et al., Reference Runnels, Parker and Erwin2018), or the experience of a significant or persistent mental health difficulty (Diaz et al., 2010; Homan & Boyatzis, Reference Homan and Boyatzis2010; Rieben et al., Reference Rieben, Huguelet, Lopes, Mohr and Brandt2014). Next, we explore case examples of two historical figures who exhibited dispositional or situational emotional compensation during consequential phases of their lives.

6.3.1 Abraham Lincoln: Dispositional Emotional Compensation during His 40s and 50s

In Section 5, we explored the earlier phases of Lincoln’s life and career, including his prolonged phase of “angry atheism.” Historical accounts suggest Lincoln may have softened these R/S beliefs during the 1840s (e.g., he began reaffirming God’s existence and providence), but it was ultimately a personal tragedy that catalyzed Lincoln’s R/S transformation and reconversion to Christianity. In 1850, the Lincolns’ 3-year-old son Edward fell ill, battled for 2 months, and died. In their grief, the Lincolns turned to a local minister who helped guide and comfort them through bereavement. They started attending this minister’s church regularly, and Lincoln began a gradual process of R/S transformation and slow resocialization to his late mother’s heartfelt, guiding Christian faith. Evidencing this nascent R/S transformation, in an 1851 letter Lincoln wrote to his brother upon hearing their father was dying, Lincoln shared from a seemingly forgiving, compassionate, and spiritually awakened heart: “I sincerely hope Father may yet recover his health; but at all events, tell him to remember to call upon, and confide in, our great, and good, and merciful Maker; who will not turn away from him in any extremity” (quoted in Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2012, p. 88).

Throughout the antebellum years, Lincoln started giving generously to several churches. Since childhood, he had voraciously read the Bible (his lifelong favorite book), but he now relied on it for emotional comfort, and it became the guiding compass for his moral character and conduct. He began always keeping a Bible nearby or in his pocket, and his conversations became replete with Scripture verses, whether his hearers realized it or not. Lincoln’s wife recounted his R/S transformation in an 1870 letter:

Lincoln’s Christian faith became even more personal and experiential after the death of their son Willie, who died in 1862 at age 11. After that, Lincoln not only seems to have developed an attachment bond with God but an secure R/S attachment disposition as well. He prayed daily and fervently, making personal vows to God at pivotal points in the Civil War, and publicly calling for national days of thanksgiving and praise to God. His famous Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address seem to evidence a fervent Christian faith akin to his mother’s. In the latter speech, Lincoln referred to the Civil War as God’s judgment against the North and South for the sin of American slavery, but he concluded with a conciliatory Christian call:

6.3.2 Mother Teresa: Situational Emotional Compensation during Her “Dark Night of the Soul”

Saint Mother Teresa (1910–1997) grew up in a loving, close-knit, and devout Roman Catholic family, yet her childhood surroundings were marked by intense and often violent sociopolitical upheaval. Her Albanian people won short-lived autonomy from the Ottoman Empire around her second birthday, but for the next year, her people were embroiled in the Balkan Wars. For several more years, intense cultural tensions, border disputes, and political instability persisted, fueled by nationalist movements. Her father was a prominent activist in the Albanian nationalist movement, and he died when St. Teresa was 8 years old, due to suspected political assassination (Spink, Reference Spink2011).

Even amid these difficult circumstances, St. Teresa seems to have developed a principal secure attachment, thanks to sensitive caregiving from both her parents. She was especially close with her mother. From early on, St. Teresa also developed a close, secure R/S attachment with God (reflecting security-based IWM correspondence). Even after her father’s tragic death and her family’s ensuing grief and financial instability, her mother continued instilling in St. Teresa the guiding Christian values of compassion, generosity, and kindness, particularly toward the poor, vulnerable, or marginalized. Their family prayed nightly and attended church faithfully. Love for God and neighbor and humble acts of service toward the “least of these” (Matthew 25:40) were the central elements of the Catholic religion/spirituality that St. Teresa internalized from her mother (via socialized correspondence) and eventually shared with the world.

St. Teresa felt called to a life of religious service when she was only 12, and at age 18, she left home to join the Catholic Sisters of Loreto. Due to precluding sociopolitical circumstances, she never saw her beloved mother or sister again (Kolodiejchuk, Reference Kolodiejchuk2007; Spink, Reference Spink2011).

St. Teresa continued to experience a vibrant relationship with Jesus from when she left to join the Sisters of Loreto (age 18), moved to India to start her religious training in Ignatian Catholic spirituality (age 19–21), and taught at and eventually led a Catholic school in Calcutta (age 21–38). Over those two decades, she was known privately and publicly for her compassion, kindness, cheerfulness, and dedication. However, her interior world began to shift seismically around age 36, after she discerned a call to serve “the poorest of the poor” (Kolodiejchuk, Reference Kolodiejchuk2007, p. 44) and was released to do so at age 38. St. Teresa sensed a calling toward greater union with Christ through suffering but had no idea a half-century inner storm was brewing in her soul (Kolodiejchuk, Reference Kolodiejchuk2007).

St. Teresa’s private letters/writings were released posthumously and revealed that she experienced profound spiritual struggle, pain, darkness, and dryness from 1948 until her death in 1997. Throughout this “dark night of the soul” (St. John of the Cross, 1953/2003), St. Teresa faithfully served the poor, sick, lonely, and dying, both in India and around the globe. She founded her religious order Missionaries of Charity, which started in India, spread across the world, and gained global acclaim, and made an enormous societal impact.

Throughout her public ministry, St. Teresa served with the same cheerfulness, compassion, and vibrancy that had characterized her earlier ministry. Yet privately she struggled intensely, experiencing chronic attachment threat in her relationship with God and her religious faith more broadly. The ocean of her soul vacillated between fleeting states of R/S attachment security (which she had enjoyed throughout the first half of her life) and prolonged states of R/S attachment insecurity (which she experienced frequently during the last half of her life). St. Teresa’s own words poignantly illustrate her torturous dark night. In an undated letter to Jesus, she lamented:

How did Mother Teresa cope with this relentless R/S attachment insecurity and turmoil? For a while, she used hyperactivating (insecure–anxious/preoccupied) strategies, sublimating her attachment-related distress into tireless acts of service to the poor, sick, and dying. When not doing that, she micromanaged the administrative tasks of running her worldwide religious order. In her public ministry, St. Teresa was still known for being cheerful and compassionate, but privately, the sisters and staff often experienced her as exacting, irritable, and moody. This behavior may have reflected displacement of the tortuous R/S distress she felt. More adaptively, St. Teresa seems to have coped through her private communication (proximity-seeking behavior) with Jesus, the saints, her confessors, and her spiritual directors (Kolodiejchuk, Reference Kolodiejchuk2007).

During her last two decades of her life, St. Teresa may have come to more of a place of acceptance and R/S attachment security amid her “dark night of the soul.” She seems to have surrendered to Christ that this “dark night of the soul” was an expression of His love toward her and toward the precious people she loved and served. In this way, she may have regained a type of “earned” R/S attachment security that eluded her for decades of R/S turmoil (Kolodiejchuk, Reference Kolodiejchuk2007).

7.2.1 R/S Attachment and Mental HWB

Both concurrently and prospectively, R/S attachment security has been associated with higher positive emotions, psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and trait self-esteem, as well as with lower depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and negative emotions (Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024; Bradshaw & Kent, Reference Bradshaw and Kent2018; Currier et al., Reference Currier and Abernethy2017; Kent et al., Reference Kent, Bradshaw and Uecker2018; Leman et al., Reference Leman, Hunter, Fergus and Rowatt2018; Monroe & Jankowski, Reference Monroe and Jankowski2016; Stulp et al., Reference Stulp, Koelen, Schep-Akkerman, Glas and Eurelings-Bontekoe2019). It also has been linked to lower trait neuroticism, pessimism, and hopelessness (Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013; Cassibba et al., Reference Cassibba, Papagna and Calabrese2014).

To date, there is no research on HWB’s association with R/S attachment disorganization, and most research on the link between R/S attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) and HWB has been cross-sectional. Both R/S attachment anxiety and avoidance have demonstrated associations with higher concurrent depression, anxiety, psychological distress, eating disorder symptoms, and nonsuicidal self-injury (Buser et al., Reference Buser, Buser and Pertuit2020; Stulp et al., Reference Stulp, Koelen, Schep-Akkerman, Glas and Eurelings-Bontekoe2019). R/S attachment anxiety and avoidance are also related to (a) lower trait self-esteem and agreeableness (Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, Reference Rowatt and Kirkpatrick2002; Stulp et al., Reference Stulp, Koelen, Schep-Akkerman, Glas and Eurelings-Bontekoe2019); (b) higher trait neuroticism, shame, and pessimism (Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013; Reinert, Reference Reinert2005); and (c) higher identity distress, body image concerns, and difficulty coping with stress/grief (Captari et al., Reference Captari, Riggs and Stephen2021; Homan & Boyatzis, Reference Homan and Boyatzis2010).

7.2.2 R/S Attachment and Physical HWB

Few studies have examined the link between R/S attachment and physical HWB, but evidence suggests R/S attachment security is associated with healthy lifestyle behaviors (adequate sleep, nutritional eating; Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024), good sleep quality (Ellison et al., Reference Ellison, Deangelis, Hill and Froese2019), and better health-related quality of life (Counted et al., Reference Counted, Possamai, McAuliffe and Meade2020). Additionally, R/S attachment security has been linked to lower levels of physical illness (Kirkpatrick & Shaver, Reference Kirkpatrick and Shaver1992) and to anxious health preoccupation (Cassibba et al., Reference Cassibba, Papagna and Calabrese2014). Conversely, R/S attachment anxiety/preoccupation has been linked to more frequent dieting behavior among women (Homan & Boyatzis, Reference Homan and Boyatzis2010) and to heightened risk of obesity among adults with low social support (Krause & Hayward, Reference Krause and Hayward2016).

7.2.3 R/S Attachment and Volitional HWB

R/S attachment security has been linked to lower substance use (Badr et al., Reference Badr, Taha and Dee2014; Hernandez et al., Reference Hernandez, Salerno and Bottoms2010) and to higher (a) adaptive coping behaviors (Parenteau et al., Reference Parenteau, Hurd, Wu and Feck2019), (b) positive dispositions and virtues (trait hope, optimism, compassion, humility, forgiveness, and generosity; Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024; Bradshaw & Kent, Reference Bradshaw and Kent2018; Pettit et al., Reference Pettit, Jin, Rosales, Fung and Fung2022; Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Jordan and Worthington2014), and (c) vocational clarity/commitment (Feenstra & Brouwer, Reference Feenstra and Brouwer2008). Conversely, R/S attachment insecurity (anxious/preoccupied and avoidant/dismissing) has demonstrated associations with higher substance use (Horton et al., Reference Horton, Ellison, Loukas, Downey and Barrett2012), more dysfunctional coping behaviors (Parenteau et al., Reference Parenteau, Hurd, Wu and Feck2019), lower positive dispositions and virtues (trait self-control, self-compassion, mindfulness, forgiveness, and courage; Ghorbani et al., Reference Ghorbani, Watson, Omidbeiki and Chen2016; Sutton et al., Reference Sutton, Jordan and Worthington2014; Upenieks et al., Reference Upenieks, Bounds, Melton, Glanzer and Schnitker2024), less vocational clarity/commitment (Feenstra & Brouwer, Reference Feenstra and Brouwer2008), and lower job engagement (Bickerton & Miner, Reference Bickerton and Miner2021). R/S attachment anxiety has also been related to more inauthentic behavior and a higher propensity to accept external social influences on one’s behavior (Counted & Moustafa, Reference Counted and Moustafa2017).

7.2.4 R/S Attachment and Social HWB

R/S attachment security has been associated with (a) higher social support and lower loneliness (Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024; Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013), (b) better social and environmental quality of life (Counted et al., Reference Counted, Possamai, McAuliffe and Meade2020), and (c) stronger attachment to one’s parents and family (Badr et al., Reference Badr, Taha and Dee2014). Moreover, there is longitudinal evidence that R/S attachment security is linked to increased differentiation of self (the ability to maintain a strong sense of self and emotional connection to others, even during conflict or stress; Jankowski et al., Reference Jankowski, Sandage and Ruffing2022). In contrast, R/S attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) has been linked to less positive relationships (Stulp et al., Reference Stulp, Koelen, Schep-Akkerman, Glas and Eurelings-Bontekoe2019), poorer marital adjustment/satisfaction (Knabb, Reference Knabb2014), lower social support, and higher loneliness (Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024; Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013).

7.2.5 R/S Attachment and R/S HWB

Finally, R/S attachment security has been linked to several R/S HWB outcomes. For example, it is linked concurrently to higher R/S well-being, positive R/S coping, positively valenced God representations (benevolent, loving, forgiving), and R/S social support (from fellow congregants; Almaraz et al., Reference Almaraz, Saiz, Baumann and Moreno Martín2024; Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013; Cassibba et al., Reference Cassibba, Papagna and Calabrese2014). Longitudinal evidence suggests R/S attachment security contributes to decreased R/S struggles and increased congruence between benevolent doctrinal and experiential representations of God (Currier et al., Reference Currier, McDermott and Sanders2024a, Reference Currier, Stevens and McDermott2024b). Similarly, cross-sectional studies indicate that R/S attachment insecurity (anxious/preoccupied and avoidant/dismissing) is associated with (a) more negatively valenced God representations (authoritarian, judging, distant; Ano & Pargament, Reference Ano and Pargament2013; Bradshaw et al., Reference Bradshaw, Ellison and Marcum2010); (b) lower positively valenced God representations (Leman et al., Reference Leman, Hunter, Fergus and Rowatt2018); (c) higher R/S struggles, instability, and disappointment (Reinert, Reference Reinert2005; Sandage et al., Reference Sandage, Jankowski, Crabtree and Schweer2015); (d) lower positive R/S coping (Pirutinsky et al., Reference Pirutinsky, Rosmarin and Kirkpatrick2019); and (e) greater self-directed (less God-reliant) coping (Bickerton & Miner, Reference Bickerton and Miner2021).

7.3.1 Transformation of Human Attachment

As Bowlby (Reference Bowlby1988) predicted, there is strong evidence that chronically accessible human attachment insecurity/disorganization can be transformed toward more chronically accessible attachment security. This transformation can occur via numerous avenues, typically through healthy relationships or some form(s) of intervention (psychotherapy, counseling, ministry, etc.; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023a, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023b; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Simpson and Berlin2021). Regarding the latter, there are several research-supported attachment-based interventions, including those focusing on parents–children (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up; Circle of Security), families (Attachment-Focused Family Therapy), romantic couples (Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy), individual adolescents or adults (Mentalization-Based Therapy; Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), or groups of adolescents or adults (Attachment-Based Group Psychotherapy). Most of these interventions are grounded in Bowlby’s (Reference Bowlby1988) model of psychotherapeutic change, which suggests change in attachment dispositions/habits occurs through repeated security-enhancing interactions with attachment figures and the corresponding transformation of insecure/incoherent IWMs into more secure/coherent models (Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016).

More specifically, Bowlby (Reference Bowlby1988) argued there were five psychotherapeutic tasks involved in transforming insecure IWMs:

• Offer the person a secure base and safe haven from which to explore painful experiences from their past and current relationships, including any maladaptive beliefs/behaviors that those experiences led them to internalize about themselves, others, and relationships.

• Support the person in developing insight into how they perceive and relate with other people, especially as it involves unhelpful (and often-nonconscious) beliefs, expectations, perceptual biases, emotional reactions, and behavioral responses formed through past insecurity-enhancing relational interactions.

• Help them explore how they perceive and engage with whichever attachment figure is primarily helping facilitate transformation (psychotherapist, clergy, spouse/partner, God[s], etc.). Reflect on how identified maladaptive patterns of perceiving, thinking, feeling, expecting, and relating emerge in this relationship, affecting oneself and the relationship.

• Explore the origins and contours of maladaptive IWMs that underlie these maladaptive attachment dynamics.

• Assist the person in recognizing their maladaptive attachment representations and dispositions/habits are no longer as functionally beneficial as they were with suboptimal-caregiving attachment figures. Help them realize these unhelpful representations and dispositions/habits can be replaced by new representations and dispositions/habits that are more health-promoting (personally and interpersonally).

In short, these tasks involve psychological exploration of one’s relationships with previous attachment figures, psychological and behavioral exploration of one’s current relationships, and corrective experiences in relationship with at least one security-enhancing attachment figure (e.g., psychotherapist, friend, clergy, or even God[s]; Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023a, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023b). This helps the person’s attachment representations and dispositions/habits change through a process whereby the person (a) has repeated interactions with a security-enhancing attachment figure; (b) develops awareness of previously internalized mental/neural representations (of themselves, others, and relationships) that have been health-undermining in past and current relationships; (c) develops new attachment representations and dispositions/habits to replace previously internalized maladaptive ones; (d) envisions and practices new attachment representations and dispositions/habits in their current relationship(s) with the security-enhancing figure(s); and (e) internalizes those security-enhancing interactions into increasingly chronically accessible security-based representations of oneself, others, and relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, Reference Mikulincer, Shaver, Rholes and Simpson2004, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2016, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023a, Reference Mikulincer and Shaver2023b). Figure 5 depicts this process.

Figure 5 The Formation and Activation of Security-Based Self-Representations

Reprinted from Adult Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications (p. 186), edited by W. Steven Rholes and Jeffry Simpson, 2004, Guilford Press. Copyright 2004 by Guilford Press. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 5Long description

The flowchart depicts the formation and activation of security-based self-representations. Four top-to-bottom boxes show the increased internalization of security-enhancing interactions. 1. First comes Actual interaction with a security-enhancing attachment figure. The attachment figure recurrently interacts with the person in a soothing, calming way. 2. Second comes Internalization of interactions with a security-enhancing attachment figure. The person develops security-based mental representations of the attachment figure and themselves-in-relationship with them. 3. Third comes the Incorporation of internalized representations into model of the self. They develop security-based self-representations. 4. Fourth is the Activation of security-based representations during encounters with threats. When they encounter attachment threats, they can restore felt security by relying on internalized security-based representations of others, relationships, and themselves.

7.3.2 Transformation of R/S Attachment and Associations with HWB

There has been much less research on whether and how R/S attachment insecurity/disorganization can be changed through healthy relationships (including security-enhancing interactions with God[s]) or through psychosocial–R/S interventions. Only a dozen such studies have been published, most with significant methodological limitations.

For example, in a noncontrolled study of 99 psychiatric inpatient adults, Tisdale et al. (Reference Tisdale, Key and Edwards1997) found evidence a multimodal spiritually integrated inpatient treatment program led to positive change in patients’ self-reported emotional experience of God as security-enhancing (close, loving, accepting). These adaptive changes were associated with adaptive changes in self-representations, consistent with Mikulincer and Shaver’s (Reference Mikulincer, Shaver, Rholes and Simpson2004) theorizing about the formation and activation of security-based self-representations.

Another noncontrolled study of 27 outpatient adults participating in Christian-integrated individual psychotherapy yielded similar results. Through in-depth behavioral and affective coding of in-session microprocesses, Kim and Chen (Reference Kim and Chen2022) found evidence of a 10-step rational–empirical model of therapeutic change whereby corrective emotional (security-enhancing) experiences in perceived relationship with God led to positive shifts in God representations, which in turn led to positive shifts in self-representations and consequent HWB outcomes.

In one more noncontrolled study of 26 US Christian outpatient adults, Thomas et al. (Reference Thomas, Moriarty, Davis and Anderson2011) found evidence a spiritually integrated group psychotherapy intervention (targeting the treatment of negative God representations) led to greater experience of God as security-enhancing. Participants reported experiencing lower R/S attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) and adaptive change in their God representations (more positive/benevolent God representations, less negative/authoritarian God representations, and greater congruence between their doctrinal and experiential God representations).

As a follow-up, Rasar et al. (Reference Rasar, Garzon, Volk, O’Hare and Moriarty2013) conducted a pilot study that randomly assigned 30 US Christian undergraduates to a waitlist control group, spiritually integrated group psychotherapy intervention (the Thomas et al., Reference Thomas, Moriarty, Davis and Anderson2011 protocol), or a comparable manualized group Bible study intervention. The group psychotherapy and group R/S interventions did not yield significant self-reported change in God representations or R/S attachment insecurity. However, relative to the control group, the psychotherapeutic and R/S intervention groups both evidenced significant increases in the felt love of God, self, and others (felt security from God, from oneself, and extended toward others).

In a similar controlled, nonrandomized study with 61 US Christian adults, Olson and colleagues (Reference Olson, Tisdale and Davis2016) evaluated the effectiveness of a manualized group-based R/S intervention designed to use narrative–experiential techniques to improve God representations, R/S attachment security, and narrative identity. Like the Rasar et al. (Reference Rasar, Garzon, Volk, O’Hare and Moriarty2013) study, Olson et al. (Reference Olson, Tisdale and Davis2016) found no quantitative evidence the intervention led to adaptive change in God representations or R/S attachment security. However, qualitative data from participants’ postintervention journal entries and debriefing sessions told a different story. Several participants described experiencing positive psychospiritual transformation, including higher R/S attachment security, lower R/S attachment insecurity, more doctrinal–experiential congruence in their God representations, and increased self-insight and self-acceptance. The researchers pointed to the promise of using non-self-report measures of R/S attachment and God representations when conducting intervention studies (e.g., Religious Attachment Interview; God representation figure drawings).

Results from a previous study may help explain these findings. Cheston et al. (Reference Cheston, Piedmont, Eanes and Lavin2003) conducted a controlled, nonrandomized study of general outpatient individual psychotherapy. Psychotherapy participants reported positive change in their God representations over the course of treatment (e.g., experiencing God as more agreeable/loving and less neurotic/volatile). These adaptive shifts in God representations were more pronounced among participants whose psychotherapist rated them as exhibiting high (vs. low) emotional and/or R/S change through treatment. In other words, Cheston et al. (Reference Cheston, Piedmont, Eanes and Lavin2003) found evidence that adaptive psychotherapeutic change in psychological and R/S outcomes are associated.

Recent studies have replicated this finding. Currier et al. (Reference Currier, McDermott and Sanders2024a) conducted a noncontrolled study of 1,227 adults participating in spiritually integrated psychotherapies at practice settings in the United States (92% of clients) and other countries (8%). Patients reported significant declines in psychological distress and R/S distress, especially during the first month of treatment. Baseline levels of psychological and R/S distress were moderately correlated (r = .42), as were rates of decline in psychological and R/S distress (r = .39). Higher baseline R/S distress was linked to slower rate of decline in psychological distress (r = .24), but there was a strong association between higher rate of decline in R/S distress and a higher rate of decline in psychological distress. In other words, improvements in psychological HWB and R/S HWB (including R/S attachment security) were strongly and bidirectionally related. Secondary analysis of a subsample of 880 patients found that a few interventions were particularly effective in reducing psychological and/or R/S distress. For example, R/S assessment was effective in reducing both. Discussing self-control helped reduce psychological distress. Exploring R/S doubts/questions and encouraging acceptance of God’s love (supporting security-enhancing interactions with God) helped reduce R/S distress.

A few other studies deserve mention. In a noncontrolled study of 241 US adults who completed a spiritually integrated inpatient program, Currier et al. (Reference Currier and Abernethy2017) found that patients evidenced adaptive shifts in their experiential representations of how God views them (reduced R/S attachment insecurity). Patients also demonstrated improvement in their R/S HWB (lower R/S struggles, higher R/S comforts) and mental HWB (lower negative emotions, higher positive emotions). One noncontrolled pilot study of a Christian-integrated residential substance use disorder program for US adult women revealed evidence of decreased R/S attachment insecurity (avoidance and anxiety) and improved mental and volitional HWB (Kerlin, Reference Kerlin2017). Additionally, in a noncontrolled pilot study with US adults, Monroe and Jankowski (Reference Monroe and Jankowski2016) found evidence a contemplative/receptive prayer intervention led to improved R/S attachment security and mental HWB, and improvements in R/S attachment security led to reduced psychological distress via increased positive emotions. Supporting the broaden-and-build theory of attachment security, boosts in felt security in perceived relationship with God led to increases in positive affect, which in turn reduced feelings of psychological distress. In one other noncontrolled study of an R/S intervention, Jankowski and colleagues (Reference Jankowski, Sandage and Ruffing2022) found evidence a humility-focused, spiritual-formation intervention led graduate seminary students to experience improved R/S attachment security, trait humility, and differentiation of self, and these improvements were especially pronounced for students who entered the intervention with higher R/S attachment security.

Besides the US studies just reviewed, a process-based Norwegian psychodynamic therapy study (N = 56) found that patients’ attachment behaviors toward God increased during the 3-month treatment period and remained higher than baseline at a 12-month follow-up, suggesting patients turned to God as an extension of the therapy (Halstensen et al., Reference Halstensen, Gjestad and Wampold2025). Intriguingly, increased attachment behaviors toward God predicted increased depressive symptoms in the early phases of treatment but also larger attenuations of depressive symptoms at treatment termination, once again highlighting the dynamic nature of connections between R/S attachment and HWB.

7.4.1 Oprah Winfrey: Positive R/S Transformation via Sacred Relationships and R/S Attachment

American media icon Oprah was born in 1954 and spent her first 6 years raised primarily by her grandmother. Her grandmother was strict but provided well for Oprah’s physical and socioemotional needs, and Oprah seems to have developed a secure attachment with her. Her grandmother’s strong Baptist Christian faith was transmitted socially to Oprah. Oprah grew up going to church every Sunday, where she often recited or enacted Bible stories. She described herself as lonely during that time, growing up as an only child on their extended family’s farm, but otherwise Oprah’s early attachment and R/S development (and HWB) were generally positive (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010).

This developmental trajectory took a sharp turn at age 6, when Oprah moved to live with her mother. Oprah’s mother was of low socioeconomic status and struggled to care financially and emotionally for Oprah and Oprah’s half-siblings. Consequently, Oprah was often shuttled back-and-forth to live with her father and stepmother (9 hours away). Unfortunately, this caregiving instability was not the only contributor to the shift in Oprah’s developmental trajectory during this period – sexual abuse and trauma were as well. Oprah was raped by a cousin at age 9, sexually molested by another relative’s boyfriend from age 10 and 14, and raped by a close relative at age 14. Likely because of the latter rape, Oprah became pregnant, and her son was born very prematurely and died 5 weeks later (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010).

Together, these experiences of caregiving instability, poor living conditions, sexual abuse, relational trauma, stressful teenage pregnancy, and traumatic/unresolved loss led to negative transformation in Oprah’s attachment, religion/spirituality, and HWB between the ages of 6 and 15. During that period, she seems to have developed a principal disorganized–unresolved attachment with secondary avoidant–dismissing attachment. Oprah began coping by engaging in sexually promiscuous and disruptive behaviors (truancy; disobedience; argumentativeness). She also developed significant trauma-related somatic symptoms (excessive stomachaches). During this period, Although Oprah still went to Baptist church whenever living with her father, she likely experienced R/S struggles such as anger at God (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010).

Oprah’s developmental trajectory began shifting more positively once she came to live permanently with her father at age 14. Her father was strict – presumably to overcorrect for Oprah’s acting-out behavior and unstable prior home environment – but he and Oprah’s stepmother provided needed stability for Oprah to improve her HWB and regain a sense of attachment security. Oprah started pouring herself into achievements. She was elected as her school’s first Black student body officer, won school and state competitions for drama and public speaking, and became locally famous by doing dramatic R/S readings in Black churches (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010).

During her college and early professional years, Oprah struggled again in her attachment functioning and HWB, partly due to experiences of racism and sexism but partly due to resurfacing attachment insecurity and disorganization. During college, Oprah behaved quite haughtily and dismissively toward her peers, isolating herself socially. In her early 20s, she developed long-persisting habits of compulsive eating and cocaine abuse. Throughout her 20s, she had dysfunctional romantic relationships, including two affairs. And yet, positive psychospiritual transformation was brewing (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010).

Oprah met Gayle King at age 22, and they have been best friends for nearly 50 years. Their sacred friendship has probably been Oprah’s most psychospiritually nurturing and security-enhancing attachment relationship. The mutual love, care, vulnerability, and companionship they have shared are likely the main contributor to Oprah developing an (experience) “earned” secure attachment disposition during adulthood. Gayle not only helped Oprah recover successfully from substance abuse and compulsive eating, but for decades, Gayle has helped support Oprah’s HWB and personal/professional flourishing (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010; Winfrey, Reference Winfrey2024).

Oprah met her long-term partner Stedman Graham in her early 30s. Their sacred partnership has also been a steadfast source of security-enhancing support. Additionally, since her early 20s, Oprah has cultivated security-enhancing relationships with close friends she considers as sacred family. These cherished souls have included Maya Angelou, Maria Shriver, Bob Greene, Quincy Jones, and the Obamas (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010; Winfrey, Reference Winfrey2024). The cast and crew of her first movie – The Color Purple (1985) – were similarly cherished and transformational for her. Oprah recalled their experiences as “the only time she ever felt part of a family surrounded by unconditional love … . [so] it was a spiritual evolvement for me … I learned to love people doing that film” (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010, p. 127).

Lastly, Oprah has cultivated a security-enhancing R/S attachment throughout her life, but it has evolved along with her religion/spirituality. Until her mid-20s, her religion/spirituality was squarely Baptist Christian and centered on her relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Since then, her religion/spirituality has become more expansive and universalist. It still centers on connecting with a Higher Power (“God”), but the beliefs and practices she draws on to do so seem to derive from an eclectic blend of Judeo-Christian, New Age, Afrocentric, Buddhist, Hindu, and other sources. This syncretic R/S attachment has been a consistent source of security, care, comfort, and inspiration for Oprah, and she often credits God for the positive global impact of her life, work, and humanitarianism (Kelley, Reference Kelley2010; Taylor, Reference Taylor2002; Winfrey, Reference Winfrey2024).