Attachment Patterns Affect Spiritual Coping in Palliative Care.

Research has shown that spiritual coping is essential for palliative care patients in enhancing quality of life and that attachment patterns affect the emotional well-being of the terminally ill. This is the first study evaluating how spiritual coping and attachment are associated in palliative care patients. Four different attachment patterns-secure, dismissive, preoccupied, and unresolved-were examined, as well as how they relate to three different spiritual coping strategies-search, trust, and reflection.

[Attachment and psychosomatic health among Catholic pastoral professionals].

Objectives: The study examines attachment representations and psychosomatic symptoms of Catholic priests and other pastoral professionals in Germany.

Method: We conducted structured biographical interviews with 83 Catholic pastoral professionals (47 priests, 36 lay pastoral workers). Attachment representations were diagnosed by use of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP).

Attachment theory and spirituality: two threads converging in palliative care?

The aim of this paper is to discuss and explore the interrelation between two concepts, attachment theory and the concept of spirituality, which are important to palliative care and to founding a multivariate understanding of the patient's needs and challenges. Both concepts have been treated by research in diverse and multiform ways, but little effort has yet been made to integrate them into one theoretical framework in reference to the palliative context. In this paper, we begin an attempt to close this scientific gap theoretically.