Attachment Theory

I am trained in Attachment Based Family Therapy which I have used to support families in reconnecting and remembering the love they have for one another. Individually, I utilize Attachment Theory to help clients find a secure base within themselves to strengthen their security in relationships with others.

Attachment is created when we are children, but affects all of us as adults. If you have an Anxious or Avoidance Attachment Style, then you can face a lifetime of challenges with connecting in family or romantic relationships. If you need support in creating healthy balanced relationships, I can guide you to changing the way that you connect.

I use an attachment theory framework in my work and have experience working with anxious, avoidant and disorganized attachment styles in adults and children. Part of my goal as a therapist is to help people become more securely attached and increase relational security.

The attachment or bonding that we have as babies influences the our relationships across our lifespan. Babies who have responsive caregivers learn that people are trustworthy and reliable. This allows us to have secure relationships. Babies who have caregivers who are inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive learn that people are not safe and trustworthy. This leads to relationships that are chaotic and high drama. Exploring your attachment experiences can help improve your adult relationships.

Recognizing the significance of interpersonal relationships in fostering healing and resilience, I use an integrative approach that is grounded in attachment theory and draws from a variety of clinical and therapeutic modalities to provide personalized, trauma-informed care.

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.

Often, the relationships in our lives follow the pattern of the relationships we have witnessed or experienced in our past. The importance of how we form these attachments to others and whether or not those attachments are secure cannot be overstated. Bowlby's work and others that followed demonstrated the importance of how we connect with other human beings and the significance of what happens to us psychologically if these attachments are unhealthy. This is crucial to one's health.

I have the training in the skills to understand attachment theory

Attachment therapy submits that the bonds between caregivers and children in early life significantly influence emotional and relational patterns throughout an individual's life. This approach aims to address and repair disruptions in these early attachment relationships. It emphasizes the therapeutic relationship as a secure base from which clients can explore & understand their attachment patterns. This trusting relationship with the therapist helps clients heal past attachment disruptions.

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.

Attachment-Based Therapy is a wonderful, life-changing approach to healing and psychological restoration. It helps adults and children build strong and meaningful relationships with their family members, friends, significant others, and communities. A lot of times, childhood trauma leads to unsatisfying relationships. This type of therapy allows clients to identify and heal from their trauma in order to live a fulfilling life.

I'm well versed in attachment theory through clinical training, research, and personal therapy. Attachment theory is a foundational piece of my integrative and relational approach.

When using attachement theory, I take a look at how your childhood environment, including your relationships with your parent(s) and primary care giver(s), played a role in how you move through your current relationships. Research shows that how you and your primary caregiver bonded plays a role in your adult romantic relationships. By acknowleding the bonds and shifting the behaviors that are currently not serving you, we can make lasting changes in how you relate to others.

We connect with others based on the templates that we have created from past relationships. Attachment theory considers the helpfulness of these templates, as well as creating a framework for more intentional and specific connection with others.

I use attachment theory as a basis to meet the client where they are, authentically and wholeheartedly​. It is a process​ to understand, communicate and experience the​ client's ​ ​life experiences​​ with them​, and to help them gain their own insights​. I utilize attachment theory as the basis for understanding the individuals development, impacting their relationships, work and life. When we look through this lens we increase a sense of connection and safety.