This article focuses on the difference between the personal God image and the God image that people perceive as normative, that is to say, the God image they believe they should have according to religious culture. A sample of 544 Dutch respondents, of which 244 received psychotherapy, completed the Dutch Questionnaire of God Images (QGI). In general, there appeared to be a discrepancy between the personal and the normative God image. Whether discrepancies were experienced as conflictive was related to religious denomination and mental health. Conflictive feelings were associated with lower religious saliency and higher educational level. Moreover, they were associated with mental health per se and the interaction between mental health and denomination, with patients reporting more conflicts than normals except in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox-Reformed group, where patients and non-patients hardly differed in the experience of conflict.

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The development and functioning of representations of God are complex processes, in which psychological and cultural factors mutually influence each other. Attachment is a psychological factor that can provide insights into the representation and communication of ideas and experiences regarding supernatural agents in children’s drawings and narratives. Our hypotheses: (1) Securely attached children will use more God representation-related symbols in their drawings than insecurely attached children, (2) These symbols will have a referring and self-transcending character. We explore children’s drawings of God and their accompanying narratives with regard to attachment styles. We describe our theoretical framework and discuss the research process, our use of theory and materials, and our findings. We also present a qualitative analysis of drawings by both insecurely and securely attached children, focusing on qualitative aspects of the drawings and their use of religious symbols. Secure attachment is associated with more God representation-related symbols. Other drawing aspects also relate to attachment. We compare the occurrence of attachment characterizations of relationships with God, the padding of the paper, and the use of anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic images. Finally, we focus on the concrete localization of God on the paper, and the figurative place where children imagined God to be.