Page 101 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 15
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Rodger K. Bufford (USA)
Comment to Graduate School
“A Christian Psychological of Clinical Psy-
Perspective on Attachment chology at Geor-
ge Fox Univer-
Theory“ sity, Newberg,
Oregon – United
States of Ameri-
ca
Attachment: A Christian Perspective Rodger is a gra-
Attachment is a positive relationship with si- duate of The King‘s
gnificant others. Attachment matters; it matters College with a BA in psychology and recei-
deeply. When French King Louis XIV sought to ved master‘s and doctoral degrees in clinical
raise a race of super warriors by limiting human psychology from the University of Illinois
contact to the barest minimum needed to meet at Urbana-Champaign. He has written The
biological needs his would-be super soldiers Human Reflex: Behavioral Psychology in
died in infancy. Today we call the resulting fatal Biblical Perspective and Counseling and the
disorder failure to thrive syndrome. Neglect of Demonic as well as numerous articles. Buf-
social nurturance stunts development at best; at ford is a contributing editor for the Journal
worst it can be fatal. The attachment literature of Psychology and Theology, and formerly
is about this vital (life-giving) human relation- was contributing editor to the Journal of
ship. Its counterpart for religious/spiritual well- Psychology and Christianity and Marriage
being is attachment to God. and Family: A Christian Journal.
Research interests include: empirical psy-
In study of humans, attachment has been chology of religion emphasizing spiritual
measured both by interviews and self-report wellbeing and spiritual maturity, grace, spi-
surveys. The best-known interview measure of ritual/religious interventions in psychothe-
attachment is that of Ainsworth and Bell (1970). rapy, and spiritual outcomes of psychothe-
As Hyrdkovets noted (2020), Ainsworth uses a rapy; theoretical understanding of the rela-
categorical approach that distinguishes secure, tionship of psychology and Christian faith;
avoidant, ambivalent, and disordered attach- professional ethics; and clinical supervision.
ment. Crittenden (2015a, 2015b, 2016) offers He practices part time
a second interview approach that emphasizes
cognitive and affective information processing,
but proposes somatic information may also
influence attachment. Both cognition and af-
fect are thought to vary on a continuum from how to measure it. One explanation of this dif-
very accurate to severely distorted. Distortions ference is that there are aspects of attachment
in either cognition or affect impair attachment; that we do not consciously recognize and can-
distortion in both causes more severe impair- not measure by self-report.
ment.
Like Ainsworth, Crittenden uses categorical
In addition to these two interview-based ap- labels for various forms of attachment. But her
proaches, a number of self-report attachment model more readily lends itself to thinking of
measures have also been developed. While used attachment as the interaction of two (or possib-
extensively in social psychology research, they ly three if somatic information is included) rela-
show only weak relationships to the Ainswor- tionship domains. Each can be rated on a conti-
th and Crittenden measures (Pace & Bufford, nuum. Thinking in terms of continua is impor-
2018). Thus in psychology we have two largely tant in two ways. First, we are able to talk about
disconnected ideas of what attachment is and the degree to which Maria is secure or Pavel
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