Attachment Theory

I believe that attachment issues are at the core of many relationship and interpersonal concerns. I have found that integrating some psychoeducation and exploration around attachment theory has helped to improve clients interpersonal relationships through self-awareness and understanding.

As babies, we come into the world quickly forming relationships with our caregivers. Those caregivers can either be a source of safety and connection or a distant or harsh parent. As children dependent on our caregivers we begin to create safety for ourselves in any way we can. As we grow older we carry these ways of survival with us which plays out in our adult relationships. These may manifest in us as codependency, low self-esteem, and people-pleasing.

Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. (Wikipedia) Those that do not develop this strong attachment may find various psychological, psycho-sexual and/or interpersonal difficulties in their lives. Understanding their attachment can help resolve issues.

Much of my lens is founded in exploring the relational coping mechanisms developed in childhood, and how they live on and impact relationships today. The better we are able to understand the ways we have been unconsciously trying to protect ourselves and how these actions impact others, the more empowered we are to shift to emotional processing and communication tools that help support the relationships and lives we strive for.

Everyone has strategies to get their needs met. Often times these once essential strategies become patterns in our life that keep us from connecting and turning toward one another. Attachment and emotion-focused therapy invites us to understand and build compassion for our old patterns, while building new, healthier strategies for connection by identifying our emotions and giving voice to our needs.

All people want to feel connected to and valued by others. Attachment therapy recognizes that we cannot heal in isolation and honors the profound difficulties that can arise when we feel disconnected from those we rely on for support. I completed a one-year internship in my graduate program focused on attachment-based therapy and use this theory as the bedrock for my work. Working from this lens, I work to build secure and authentic relationships with my clients so they can feel safe and valued.

Our bonds with our early caregivers form the basis for our future relationships. I help clients uncover their attachment style and understand how their early experiences impact their adult relationships today.

I work from an attachment perspective to de-escalate the problematic interactional cycle maintaining attachment insecurity and relationship distress by creating a therapeutic alliance and accessing unacknowledged primary emotions. Working from an attachment perspective allows individuals and couples access in underlying attachment-related emotions and the needs associated with these emotions opens the individual, couple, and/or family to address needs in new ways.

Through my work and training as a couples therapist I have come to understand that we are social creatures and we need to feel safe. The way we were nurtured as children impact the way we form attachments now and they affect every aspect of our identity especially our relationships with others. One of the main approaches I use comes from an attachment lens. As a couples counselor I work with couples to strengthen their connection with their partner to heal attachment wounds.

Understanding attachment and how it has played out in our life assists us in developing a greater understanding of how we act in relationships, whether platonic, professional, or emotional. Utilizing attachment theory we work through breaking down unhealthy attachment patterns and developing healthier views of attachment to others.

Reflections of our early relationships with caregivers often show up in our adult relationships. We will explore attachment style as part of preparation for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). I learned Somatic and Attachment Focused (SAFE-EMDR) so I incorporate building healthy secure attachment throughout the therapy process. Our attachment styles are not doomed to be stuck in anxious, avoident, or a combination of the two!

Understanding attachment theory and add in the PloyVagal theory you get a sense of greater ways to regulate yourself in and out of your relationships. The patterns you learned in the styles of attachment in your multigenerational linage can play a large part in the way your body responds to conflict and connection. Over time we get to explore and heal these old patterns to bring on more thrive in your life.

I have trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as well as studied other sources of attachment theory, and ways that this shows up in our individual patterns as well as relationship dynamics.

The journey to healing is so much about relationship, and the "theory of attachment" is a wonderful way to put into words how we relate to everything in our world. I use the language of attachment alongside the other modalities in order for couples, individuals, groups to understand how and why they relate they way they do. This awareness allows us to adjust how we relate, and in doing so, move towards healing and health.