Attachment and Spiritual Maturity 31
Mahler describes in the infant separation-individuation process which she states is rarely
ever fully resolved. The move from the "symbiotic" state with no sense of self to
vacillating between feelings of omnipotence and helplessness in restoring the symbiotic
state with mother is not unlike the longing for reunion Tillich describes. If symbiosis is
prolonged, it works against the development ofmature love. The illusion of our
omnipotence and self-sufficiency is destroyed by estrangement pushing us toward
reconciliation or reunion (Talley, 1980).
On the other hand, if the 'episodic memory' as described by Stem (1985) is
developed, one wonders whether this schemata may represent the created social
spirituality that Anderson ( 1997) and Bonhoeffer (1963) have suggested. Stern ( 1985)
suggests that the infant comes into the world bringing capabilities to establish human
relationship. If so, one could suggest that the more a person experiences a secure sense
of belonging as an infant the stronger the core of social cohesion is present in spiritual
maturity. The relational capacity for the development of spiritual maturity is awakened
through the bonding process and threatened during separation/individuation as self
identity emerge. The psychological theory of attachment is helpful as a theoretical model
that begins to help explain how this theological concept of social spirituality is related to
spiritual maturity and can be experienced throughout a lifetime.
The relational process shows how the social aspect of the self is developed
promoting development of other self aspects including spiritual life. Attachment may
then be the means by which social cohesion begins with relationship to one's parents and
then continues in other relationships including the marital union, developing the core in
which spirituality is expressed. This relationship of relational maturity being the roots of
spiritual maturity has been explored in different ways by Shackelford (1978), Kirkpatrick
(1994), Rizzuto (1979), and Noller (1992).
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