Parental Attachment Styles and Religious and Spiritual Struggle: A Mediating Effect of God Image

The ideas that religion capitalizes on the operation of the attachment system and that believers’ perceived relationships with God can be characterized as symbolic attachment relationships have been well established in the psychology of religion. This study aims to explore the relationships between early caregiver experiences and religious and spiritual struggle and whether loving, distant, and cruel God images are mediators of these relationships. The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale, God Image Scale, and Religious and Spiritual Struggle Scale were applied to the research. Correlations of parent–child attachment with religious and spiritual struggle measures support a correspondence between working models of parents and God. The study has shown that a distant God is a mediator of the relationship between avoidant attachment to one’s parents and divine, meaning making, and religious doubt struggle. A cruel God is a mediator in the relationship between avoidant attachment to one’s parents and interpersonal struggle