Attachment and the Gospel

Attached to God

by Krispin Mayfield, LPC

Purpose and Audience:

Attached to God is written for Christians who long for closeness with God but struggle to feel it. Mayfield’s central thesis is that many spiritual struggles are rooted not in a lack of faith, but in attachment wounds formed early in life. Using the science of attachment, he shows that our relational “maps” for connection often determine how we approach God—whether anxiously, avoidantly, or with shame. His goal is to help readers experience secure attachment with God: knowing they are fully loved, safe, and delighted in. This book serves believers, ministry leaders, and counselors who want to understand emotional dynamics in faith more deeply.

Identification of key themes or ideas:

• Attachment Defined: Mayfield frames attachment as the felt sense of safety, availability, and responsiveness we expect in close relationships—and shows how that expectation carries into our spirituality. He introduces the idea through “still-face” dynamics and then clarifies how attachment styles become the “maps” we use to pursue (or protect from) closeness with God (Chapters 1–2).
• The Still Face of God: Borrowing the still-face paradigm, Mayfield names the painful mismatch many believers experience between what they believe about God and what they feel in prayer: perceived non-responsiveness. This chapter normalizes the experience of spiritual distance and builds a compassionate frame for repair (Ch. 1).
• How insecure attachment patterns relate to faith: He maps three insecure spiritual styles to lived faith: anxious spirituality (monitoring and performing to keep God “close”), shutdown spirituality (muting emotion to avoid relational threat), and shame-filled spirituality (self-condemnation to earn worthiness). Each style distorts God’s character and our approach to connection (Chs. 3–5).
• Moving from insecure patterns to healthier attachments: The second half offers pathways from anxiety to rest, from shutdown to engagement, and from shame to delight, culminating in the embodied risk of trust. Practices emphasize emotional honesty, receiving care, and experiencing God as consistently available and responsive (Chs. 7–10).

Points of interest and points of personal agreement and disagreement

Points of interest

• Attachment Theory as a Spiritual Lens: Mayfield adapts classic attachment theory to describe three insecure ways Christians relate to God—through anxiety, avoidance, or shame—and the behaviors that accompany each (Chapters 3–5).
• The Gospel as Relational Repair: Rather than presenting salvation as transactional, he reframes it as God’s ongoing pursuit to restore emotional safety and intimacy with humanity (Chapter 6).
• Distorted Images of God: Early attachment injuries often shape distorted perceptions of God as distant, disapproving, or unpredictable. Healing begins with reimagining God as safe, available, and responsive (Chapters 2–4).
• Emotional Honesty in Faith: Mayfield emphasizes that emotions like fear, grief, and doubt are integral to authentic connection rather than signs of spiritual immaturity (Chapters 7–8).
• Community as Secure Base: Just as secure human attachments foster resilience, emotionally safe church communities can help believers experience God’s love more tangibly (Chapter 10).

Points I agreed with

• Faith Often Becomes Performance: I agree with Mayfield’s insight that many believers are taught to “do more” to feel close to God. When these efforts fail, shame increases, deepening the sense of spiritual distance (Chapters 3–4).
• Divine Delight: His emphasis that God not only loves but delights in us reframes the Gospel from performance to belonging, challenging perfectionistic spirituality (Chapter 9).
• Secure Attachment Mirrors Grace: The description of secure attachment—trusting that God is available and responsive—beautifully parallels the grace-centered nature of Christian faith (Chapter 10).
• Relational Repair as the Heart of the Gospel: His portrayal of salvation as God’s initiative to repair relational rupture captures both biblical and psychological truth (Chapter 6).

Points of disagreement

• Bait and Switch: Knowing that the author has since deconstructed or deconverted from his faith feels like a dismissal of everything he was arguing for in the book. I recognize that each person’s spiritual journey is complex and personal, yet it is difficult to separate the message from the messenger. The book calls readers to trust in a securely attached relationship with God, but the author’s later disconnection from the faith can make that invitation feel hollow.
• Reduction of Faith to Felt Security: The emphasis on emotional safety can blur the line between trust in God and emotional comfort, which are related but not identical (Chapter 8).
• View of Sin and Holiness: He doesn’t delve much into conviction of sin, and implies at times that “shame-based theology” is entirely unhealthy. Furthermore, he fails to distinguish between toxic shame and conviction. Readers from a Reformed or holiness tradition might feel he downplays repentance and transformation (Chapters 4–5).
• Awareness is Enough: While Mayfield names secure attachment and portrays it as the destination, he offers limited depth on the process of (re)formation—how readers can actively move from insecure to secure patterns with God and others. This gap leaves readers with vivid insight but less guidance for practical transformation.

Significance of the book to the counseling field:

Mayfield’s work contributes to the growing field of spiritually integrated counseling by offering a model that connects attachment repair with spiritual formation. It equips counselors to understand how clients’ God-images relate to early relational wounds and how therapeutic attunement can parallel divine empathy. The book deepens clinicians’ ability to explore spirituality without pathologizing faith.

Critique of the overall work:

The book is a compassionate and creative exploration of how attachment theory can illuminate the way believers experience closeness or distance from God. Mayfield writes with warmth and vulnerability, helping readers name feelings of spiritual insecurity and understand how these patterns may stem from early relational experiences. However, while he defines the qualities of secure attachment with God beautifully, he offers limited guidance on how to cultivate that security in practice. The emphasis remains largely descriptive rather than formative.

While not an academic text, it is helpful in translating complex psychological theory into pastoral wisdom. Its weakness lies in a limited theological framework and an occasional overemphasis on emotional experience. Still, it remains a valuable contribution to Christian counseling and spiritual care literature. However, the author’s later deconstruction from faith adds a layer of complexity for readers, as it can make his earlier assertions about secure attachment and intimacy with God feel unresolved or incomplete.

Usefulness of the book for potential clients

This book would be valuable for Christian clients who struggle with perfectionism, shame, or feeling unloved by God. It could also help individuals recovering from spiritual abuse or rigid religious environments rediscover a loving image of God. However, for nonreligious clients or those needing more traditional clinical guidance, the theological framing would likely not resonate.

Mayfield, K. (2022). Attached to God: A practical guide to deeper spiritual experience. Zondervan.