Attachment Theory

How we are raised affects how we act in a relationships. We can reparent ourselves and change our behavior.

My training is grounded in attachment theory and the neurobiology of attachment. Attachment wounding and trauma impact brain and nervous system development, which then impacts the way we experience ourselves, relationships, and the world around us. By providing a therapeutic partnership that offers and encourages the safety, freedom, and reverence that many of us lacked during childhood, I can help support the gradual development of secure attachment.

New attachment relationships can be created through the support of therapy which help to heal old attachment wounds.

I believe our early attachment relationships inform our adult relationships and view of the world.

As humans we are biologically wired to attach to our parents when we are babies. How we experience this attunement of safety, love and connection stays with us through our childhood and into adulthood. We unconsciously carry our attachment style into relationships as adults. The main styles of attachment are anxious, avoidant, disorganized and secure. In healthy relationships both adults strive for secure attachment, but attachment injuries from childhood or past relationships can prevent se

Our early attachments have profound impacts on us. The therapeutic relationship offers a unique opportunity for repair.

You learned how to interact with others based on your first relationships; relationships with your caregivers. Perhaps your parents were able to be loving, attentive, and supportive of you from the moment you met them. Or, maybe that was not always the case. Working from an attachment perspective, I will be able to help you hone relationship skills that you can use to enhance your parenting the your relationship with your child.

As an attachment therapist, I am well versed in the needs of babies and children and the ways these create trauma and future problems as adults. If our parents did not teach our brains how to regulate our emotions, we do not magically gain these skills later, and often experience trauma or anxiety as a result. In couples & parenting work I help couples/parents recognize and unlearn the attachment styles they learned as children showing up in their relationship to be effective partners & parents.

Having relationships that feel safe and secure and loving is a basic human need. Sometimes the struggles we are having are clearly related to our attachments. Other times, the connection may be less obvious, but our ways of feeling and navigating interpersonal relationships tends to be a deep underlying factor of our distress. That is why attachment theory is my favorite lens through which to view therapy, although I certainly have many others.

Growing up you were subjected to many massages and beliefs, usually passed down from your parents but also from the culture. These beliefs and messages impact you today. Therefore, we will help you uncover and change these messages to help you live an authentic life.

I like to think about attachment this way: the templates we use to shape our experience of the world are 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 people to develop a secure sense of attachment, even if their beginnings were scary-unsafe-not okay.

Attachment theory is focused on the relationships and bonds between people, particularly long-term relationships, including those between a parent and child and between romantic partners. My background is in human development which focuses heavily on childhood attachment. I have taken that experience and applied it to my current client work while continuing to study and research current attachment information.

By the time we are 3 years old, we are already programmed to relate to others in specific ways, either securely or insecurely. For those of us who grew up with inattentive parents who could not meet our emotional needs as children, this can show up in a myriad of unhealthy ways as adults, either being very anxious, avoidant or fearful in relationships. If we can figure out our attachment-style, we can re-program it through news ways of connecting with others in a secure manner.

Like Family Systems Theory, I use Attachment Theory as a way to help clients process their relationships to their parents and their partners. This approach I use less frequently, but it is something I employ when there is significant anxiety around relationships with parents or partners.

Attachment theory, first developed by John Bowlby, is a psychology concept focused on the importance of attachment in relation to personal development. Fundamental to attachment theory is the belief that a child's relationship with the primary caregiver (usually the mother), affects their attachment style for the rest of their life. Unresolved or insecure attachment issues experienced in early childhood can have a negative impact on relationships into adulthood.