Rieben I., Huguelet P., Lopes F., Mohr S., Brandt P.-Y., Mental Health, Religion, & Culture, Vol. 17, N°8, 2014, pp. 812-826.
Many studies on spirituality in psychosis have shown that, compared to a nonclinical
population, patients make more use of spiritual beliefs/religious practices to deal with their
problems. Our research question was to test whether attachment to spiritual figures could be
a good explanation for religious coping strategies in patients with psychosis. First, adult
attachment was investigated in 28 patients with chronic psychosis and 18 controls, using the
Adult Attachment Interview. Diagnostic evaluations were performed with the Structured
Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition,
Text Revision) Axis I disorders and symptomatic evaluation with the Brief Psychiatric
Rating Scale. Results also show a high prevalence of insecure avoidant attachment in
patients, and suggest that a significant part of religious coping might be explained by the
theory of attachment (64% of the patients, 78% of controls). The implications of these
results are interpreted in light of correspondence and compensation hypotheses.
