Religious Healing Experiences and Earned Security
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Religious Healing Experiences and Earned Security Marianne Rodriguez Nygaard 1 Elisabeth Mæland 3
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& Anne Austad & Tormod Kleiven &
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
This article focuses on religious healing experiences related to resources from Christian faith and practices and attachment theory. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine informants. The results indicate that they perceived healing experiences as intense encounters with a loving, sensitive, external power with detailed insights into their burdens. The respondents interpreted the external power as the Christian God. They characterized these experiences as life-changing spurs to further healing processes. We suggest that these encounters can be understood as perceived experiences of God as an attachment-like figure. Earlier research on religious attachment showed that God is often approached as a safe haven in stressful times. Although there is less evidence implying that God is seen as a secure base or a starting point for new exploration, our respondents indicated that these experiences prompted new explorations of their lives, selves, others, and God. We discuss how healing experiences may provide a sense of earned security that changes insecure internal working models into more secure models and argue that this insight can be relevant in the field of pastoral care. Keywords Religious healing . Attachment . Earned security . Pastoral care . Qualitative interviews
When they prayed for me, I got such a picture. It was just an inner picture, and it was beautiful. It was that I saw, in a way, God’s hands, and then he holds me like a baby . . . safe, safe wrapping. . . . And that’s one of the most healing perceptions I’ve experienced, the deepest, healing and life-transforming experience in relation to the deep, deep rejection that I * Marianne Rodriguez Nygaard [email protected]
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Faculty of Theology, Diaconia and Leadership Studies, VID Specialized University, Box 184, Vinderen, N-0319 Oslo, Norway
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Centre of Diaconia and Professional Practice, VID Specialized University, Box 184, Vinderen, N-0319 Oslo, Norway
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Faculty of Health Studies, VID Specialized University, Box 184, Vinderen, N-0319 Oslo, Norway
Pastoral Psychology
experienced as a little child. . . . I came home, in a way. So, it’s really the precursor for me daring to take new steps and make new things. (Elisabeth, informant, about her healing experience) Some people have what they perceive as extraordinary religious experiences, often described as visions, hearing voices, sensing an extraordinary warmth, or seeing a light (Geels and Wikström 2006; Henriksen and Pabst 2013; James 2019; Lundmark 2017; Nygaard et al. 2017). Extraordinary religious experiences may be regarded as lifechanging (Geels 2014; Geels and Belzen 2003; Nygaard et al. 2017). Nevertheless, many hesitate to tell other people about these experiences because they are afraid of being regarded as unreliable. Thus, life-changing religious ex
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