Psychology · Faith · Human Flourishing Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God By Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor, Author, and Psychologist There is a question most people never think to ask about their faith. It is not a theological question, but a psychological one: where did your felt experience of God come from? Not the doctrine you were taught or the catechism you memorized, but the actual texture of your relationship with God—whether He feels close or distant, welcoming or demanding, safe or unpredictable. For much of the history of psychology, that question was either dismissed or spiritualized. However, a growing body of research at the intersection…