Bereavement and grief related to a significant death: A psychological and theological study of attachment styles and religious coping

This dissertation investigates ways in which people's relationships with God and with others and their experience of religion may be related to their response to a significant death. Drawing upon research and scholarship in psychological, religious, and theological studies, specifically attachment theory, religious coping theory, grief theory, and relational theology, this study asks: Among people who have recently suffered a significant death, how do attachments to God and to others (secure, anxious-ambivalent, or avoidant [Ainsworth]) and patterns of religious coping (positive or negative [Pargament]) correlate with measures of depression, traumatic distress, separation distress, stress-related growth, positive religious outcome, and sense of meaning in life?; Ninety-four participants completed the following: Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory, two Relationship with God scales, CES-D scale, Inventory of Traumatic Grief, Stress-Related Growth Scale, Brief RCOPE, Religious Outcome Scale, Life Attitude Profile (Revised), and demographic questionnaire. In the second phase three months later, thirty-four participants completed the same instruments.; Hypotheses included: (1) Secure attachment to God and positive religious coping will be negatively correlated with depression, traumatic distress, and separation distress and positively correlated with stress-related growth, positive religious outcome, and having or seeking meaning in life. (2) Anxious and avoidant attachments to God and to others and negative religious coping will be positively correlated with depression, traumatic distress, and separation distress and negatively correlated with stress-related growth, positive religious outcome, and having or seeking meaning.; Findings confirmed many hypotheses. Secure attachment to God was negatively correlated with depression and traumatic distress. Secure attachment to God and positive religious coping were positively correlated with stress-related growth, positive religious outcome, and having or seeking meaning. Anxious and avoidant attachments to God and negative religious coping were positively correlated with depression, traumatic distress, and separation distress and negatively correlated with having or seeking meaning. Anxious attachment to others was positively correlated with depression. Anxious and avoidant attachments to others were negatively correlated with having or seeking meaning. Avoidant attachment to God and negative religious coping were negatively correlated with positive religious outcome. Attachment to God was more strongly correlated with many outcomes than was attachment to others.