Gregory (Tommy) Lofgren (He/him)

Various factors of our lives, including how we learn to process our own emotions, plays a huge role in overcoming depression. Like a blanket that covers our ability to process safely with someone else, depression can lead to isolation, loneliness, or in other cases, suicidal ideations. This is different for everyone, but the pattern of attunement in our relationships (and the relationship to self) plays a key role in actively building regulation strategies to overcome these experiences.

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy helped guide me into the application of attachment theory for couples. Relationship and marriage issues, however "big" or "small," center on the capacity for partners to bounce back quickly. Resiliency is key when forming a secure attachment with a partner; it's about how each partner is able to access their deepest vulnerabilities and show compassion and empathy for one another's experiences.

Attachment theory explains the universal experience of emotional connection to those around us. It envelops the very human drive we have to bond with those closest to us. It also informs how we begin to develop emotional attachments with others, including ourselves. Without the consistency of emotional attunement in our childhood, we find struggles connecting in our adult bonds.

Developed by John Bowlby, alongside Mary Ainsworth, attachment theory centers on the research behind adult-child dynamics. In order to develop a secure attachment in those first years of a child's life, John Bowlby researched the integral factors of a secure attachment: safe haven, proximity maintenance, secure base, and separation distress. These are factors still applied to adult bonds between adult partners today.

In couples counseling, we work with couples to cultivate a stronger vulnerable connection between partners. This means that partners start to capture an image of the patterns they get caught in and understand how to better communicate their emotions and needs with one another.

As we emphasize in couples counseling approaches, it's important that partners navigate relationship challenges through having vulnerable conversations with one another. EFT helps couples develop a stronger understanding of the cycles they get caught in, what's happening in the moment, and grasp those deeper, underlying messages that partners often send them, all whilst learning to share those deeper wounds and underlying attachment needs.

In couples counseling, we work with couples to cultivate a stronger vulnerable connection between partners. This means that partners start to capture an image of the patterns they get caught in and understand how to better communicate their emotions and needs with one another.