Religious Attachment: Women's Faith Development in Psychodynamic Perspective

Exploration of religious attachment from a psychodynamic perspective, this book provides a coherent and convincing account of the roots and characteristics of Christian women’s faith experience which will complement and, in some respects correct, existing accounts. Drawing on attachment theory as a conceptual framework, this book employs a qualitative methodological approach, focusing analysis on linguistic meanings, and using autobiographical narrative in-depth interviews with a group of ten Korean Christian women. Examining the patterns of religious attachment in relation to human attachments, the key characteristics in women’s faithing are explored: the language, means and context, and the relational and affective accounts of faith with or in which women practice their faith. Three major patterns of religious attachment are identified in which the women’s faithing strategies and their representations of self and God are presented: these are Distance/Avoidance, Anxiety/Ambivalence and Security/Interdependence. Integrating theoretical and practical implications of religious attachment for Christian education and pastoral practice, this book will be a good use to all concerned with women’s religious attachment, faith development, spirituality and education, and those working in the field of practical theology, pastoral care, Christian education, counselling and psychotherapy.

About the Author :
Eun Sim Joung (PhD) is a research fellow at Birmingham Christian College and a visiting lecturer at Newman University College. She is author of 'Attachment and Women's Faith Development' in Journal of Beliefs and Values (2006) and co-translator of Korean translation of Evangelical Dictionary of Christian Education (M. J. Anthony, ed.) (Seoul: CLC, 2008).

Review :
"This book is what we have been waiting for. Refreshing interpretation and carving out new ground on religious attachments through the honest discourse and with far-reaching implications for Christian education, pastoral care, spiritual direction, counselling and psychotherapy, this book will be well and widely read by those who study and work in the fields."Yong Won Kang, Dr. theol., Professor, Christian Education, Dean of Chaplaincy, Kosin University, Busan, Korea. "This is an excellent study of Korean Christian women at different stages of their spiritual journeys that allow the women to relate their faith ventures in sufficient detail to enable the reader to enter their worlds and come out again both refreshed and challenged."Mark Beaumont, PhD, Deputy Principal, Birmingham Christian College"Eun Sim Joung has made an important and original contribution to the empirical study of women's faith development in many new and striking ways. The work is scholarly, thoroughly embedded in the literature of attachment theory, faith development and women's identity formation. At the same time, drawing as it does on the faith narratives of ordinary women, it is accessible to non-specialists, clergy and other church leaders and particularly those who are working in culturally diverse contexts." Nicola Slee, PhD, MA co-ordinator in Applied Theology, Queen's College"Focused upon the psychological dynamics and examined biographical material gained in conversation with Christian women, Dr Joung's work offers a distinctive insight which will inform practitioners engaged in pastoral and educational work with women."Peter Hammersley, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow, Birmingham University