Attachment Theory

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.

Attachment theory is one of the keys to understanding yourself and your patterns in relationships. Attachment work in therapy is crucial to helping you strengthen the relationship you have with yourself and with other people. Working on attachment issues can help relationships make more sense and flow with more ease. This work is a game changer when it comes to finding and maintaining healthy, satisfying, long-lasting relationships.

Understanding one's attachment style alongside other attachment styles, generally known as anxious, avoidant, and secure attachment styles, helps illuminate great opportunities for interpersonal and personal growth in one's life. This is determined through assessment, bibliotherapy, insight into one's condition, and experiencing growth through the integration of one's Self within their efforts to connect and bond with 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 integrate attachment theory to help clients understand how early relationships impact their current emotional and relational patterns. By exploring attachment styles, we uncover the roots of trust, intimacy, and dependency issues. My approach aims to heal attachment wounds, foster secure relationships, and enhance emotional regulation. Through this understanding, clients can develop healthier connections and build more fulfilling, stable relationships in their personal and professional lives.

Attachment theory is everywhere! Once we were born, we attached to something, an object, a person, or an existence! Attachment theory explains or predicts how we connect with others, including our loved ones, intimate partners, parents, children, or even in a professional setting. If you want a meaningful and healthy relationship with others, let's dive right into your attachment style!

I like to think about attachment this way: our experience of the world is formed in childhood. If we were raised by caregivers who projected that everything is okay, that is the default way we tend to view life situations. If we were raised by caregivers who were in fear, rage, depression, then we tend to see the world as scary-unsafe-not okay. I love to work with clients to develop a secure sense of attachment, even if their beginnings were scary-unsafe-not okay.

In my work with clients facing sex addiction, I employ attachment theory to understand the condition as an intimacy disorder. By exploring the roots of attachment patterns, I help clients recognize how these influence their behaviors and relationships. This approach fosters empathy and understanding, aiding in the healing process for both the individual and their partner. Through compassionate guidance, we aim to rebuild connections, promoting resilience and hope for a healthier future.

Attachment-Based Family works by rebuilding trust within the parent-child relationship—providing a solid foundation that promotes authentic connection and enhances teen mental health. This type of family counseling provides a clear path to achieving what both parents and children want most: closer, more meaningful relationships with one another. As a result, teens feel safe turning to their parents for support—and that leads to improvements in teen mental health and reductions in suicide risk.

Attachment-Based Family works by rebuilding trust within the parent-child relationship—providing a solid foundation that promotes authentic connection and enhances teen mental health. This type of family counseling provides a clear path to achieving what both parents and children want most: closer, more meaningful relationships with one another. As a result, teens feel safe turning to their parents for support—and that leads to improvements in teen mental health and reductions in suicide risk.

I have worked extensively with families where attachment trauma has impacted relationships and connectedness. I work with families to identify where attachment styles may be harming the relationship and addressing alternative approaches.

Attachment Theory has the strongest evidence base as a way of understanding human relationships in all of the social sciences. as an Attachment-based Family Therapy-trained clinician, I utilize a wide range of approaches that incorporate attachment theory to help you live a more fulfilling life and have better relationships.

Our early experiences with attachment and bonding shape the way we relate to others throughout our lives. If you're struggling with attachment issues, such as fear of abandonment, difficulty trusting others, or feeling disconnected from yourself or others, my approach could be well suited to working on these issues. I offer therapy that focuses on understanding and healing attachment wounds, which is correlated with healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

I am grounded in the Psychodynamic approach of Attachment-based theory because how we experienced our first attachment figures most influences the way we show up, respond and interact in our current relationships. Psychotherapy with a trained attachment therapist is a wonderful way to heal our own attachment wounding and to earn a secure attachment style in which we can then show up more grounded, choosing our responses, and have more satisfying relationships with ourselves and others.

I seek to provide a secure attachment with my clients. Many of you have attachment wounds from childhood. I will have an attuned presence, and help you connect to your emotional parts, among using other supportive interventions.

We’ll explore where you learned to protect yourself emotionally and how those early experiences shape current relationships. By understanding these protective strategies, we'll shift old patterns and create healthier, more secure connections. This process builds emotional resilience, deepens trust, and opens the door to richer, more fulfilling relationships. You’ll learn to navigate relationships with more clarity, safety, and confidence, leading to deeper and more meaningful bonds.

I integrate Attachment Theory by exploring how your early relationships have shaped the way you connect with others today. Together, we’ll examine how past patterns of connection, comfort, and security—or the lack thereof—have influenced your current relationships, sense of self-worth, and emotional responses. By understanding these dynamics, we’ll work to create healthier, more secure connections with others, while also building a deeper, compassionate relationship with yourself.

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 use an attachment theory lens as I treat clients who are dealing with a wide range of symptoms. My approach is relational and person-centered which helps to support a trusting therapeutic relationship and which is essential to success in therapy. I employ specific techniques which target the early brain system to help develop new neural networks around safety and security.