Attachment

Healthy Attachment to self, family, community, and the world can all be in need of support and counseling. I am able to support you in your work to build healthy attachment rooted in your unique wholeness

As a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and Certified Brainspotting practitioner, my knowledge and approach centers attachment issues throughout a person's lifespan.

Our attachment styles with original caretakers inform the way we relate to others as adults, including partners, friends, and even coworkers. I help patients untangle their feelings and experiences located in the past from their present relationship patterns, decide what’s still needed and useful, and what they can let go of.

Attachment can affect our ability to have stable relationships. Identifying patterns and changing behaviors can get us out of failed relationship loops.

For most people, repetitive, problematic patterns in relationships usually stem from attachment adaptations that were learned in childhood. Because we live with these patterns (sometimes others', sometimes our own) for so long, we often can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak. If you would like to gain more insight into why the same problems keep happening in your relationships, and learn how to change these patterns, please reach out.

Attachment is one of those pieces that we can carry for a long time, and struggle to understand. I use EMDR, IFS, and brainspotting to help you lean in and gain an in-depth understanding of yourself so that you can learn how you adapt and function. In this process, you also learn to see yourself as human and love the human that is inside.

I'm immensely passionate about everything attachment - especially helping folks heal attachment wounds. Since we’re wired to need connection to survive, it makes sense that our relationships can "make or break us." Unfortunately, many of us carry wounds from disrupted / harmful attachments and as a result make choices that go against our own best interest repeatedly. When we understand attachment and how it has impacted us, we’re able to know ourselves deeper and truly heal.

I offer Experiential Attachment Psychotherapy which is a dynamic, present-moment mindfulness process that supports you in understanding the way you orient toward yourself, others, and the world and offers us the opportunity to heal developmental or transitional attachment wounds and trauma in present-moment processing in our relationship. The goals of this process is you feeling a sense of I AM, I WANT, and I CAN rooted securely within yourself and a solid and strong sense internal goodness.

First and foremost placing emphasis on clients identifying and formulating their own understanding of how they have "attached" to the world around them informs my ongoing studies but was the foundation of my education and interest in the world of psychology.

My practice is based in attachment science and theory. I started my career with a focus on attachment-based modalities and have continued to receive specialized, on-going training rooted in attachment theory. I am heavily influenced, personally and professionally, by the work of Jude Cassidy, Phillip Shaver, Sue Johnson, Kent Hoffman & the Circle of Security founders, Dan Siegel, Mary Ainsworth, and John Bowlby.

I have taught college level courses covering the subject of attachment theory. Furthermore, I co-led a year long attachment based group for adults involved with Department of Child Services in the state of Indiana, where the goal was to repair the attachment system of the parent in question, and teach them how to cultivate healthy attachment with children. I also ran a group that targets the symptoms of insecure attachment, such as emotional regulation skills, boundary setting, and assertiveness

Attachment develops when we are born with any caregiver who provides regular physical and emotional care. Any problems between the child and the caregiver can result in attachment disorder, which may result in adulthood having difficulty forming and maintaining friendships and romantic partnerships. Understanding the history of the client's attachment is a critical step that will eventually allow the client to experience different types of attachments.

Some people say that unresolved attachment issues are at the root of most of our relational issues - and I would have to agree. Underneath fights with your partner is a desire to feel safe and secure in your relationship. Fights happen because we don't feel safe and connected. I use proven interventions based on the science of attachment theory to help clients identify and express their important feelings and needs, leading to less conflict and greater connection with others.

While training in Somatic Experiencing®, I was introduced to the work of Dr. Diane Poole Heller. I have completed Modules I – IV of Dr. Heller’s Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience (DARe). DARe is an approach that focuses on helping individuals create more meaning, connection, and emotional intimacy in their relationships by processing early attachment wounds and identifying individual attachment styles.

I have worked through my share of attachment issues, as well as studied attachment theory and done attachment therapy under supervision.

How we attach to others has to do with who we are attaching to, how we see ourselves and what connection has looked like in the past. We often what to ascribe responsibility to someone for the level of discomfort and hurt that comes as a result of attachment challenges but the work of therapy is to shift from blaming or shaming to a place of care, curiosity and emotional security. Regardless of what causes the attachment wound, each situation is an opportunity for a correct experience.

We find how you are attached to help you understand yourself and your relationships. Being securely attached is important to our mental health and well being.

Some people say that unresolved attachment issues are at the root of most of our relational issues. Underneath fights with your partner and unsatisfying dating relationships is a desire to feel safe and secure in your relationship. Fights happen because we don't feel safe and connected. Using attachment-based approaches, I help clients identify, own and express important feelings, needs, and desires, leading to greater connection with themselves and others.

Attachment styles are not developed randomly. They are formed from all the "good" and "bad" encounters with our primary caretakers/family, which construct a mental and physical story of how we view and interact in our romantic, familial, and social relationships. These experiences can shape and distort our authentic self and influence our connections to others and the world. Gaining insight into your own attachment styles can be transformative in making shifts in creating deeper relationships.

You want connection, and yet it's terrifying. Humans are wired for relationships. Our caregivers, friends, families, and partners are essential to our well-being and yet can be very challenging when those relationships also involve pain or abuse. My training is rooted in attachment theory and the ways in which a trusted therapeutic relationship can build towards secure, nourishing, and joyful relationships.