Attachment

“If you think you’re enlightened — begins an aphorism by psychologist and spiritual teacher Ram Dass — “[then] go spend a week with your family.” It rings true, right? That’s because we’re never more vulnerable — & therefore more easily triggered — than with our families of origin. And anyone who’s ever been in a partnership knows that those same wounds inevitably show up within the relationship. But there’s hope! In learning to reparent ourselves, we liberate ourselves to a new future

I believe our early attachments create the framework for how we give and receive love and connection. Exploring these intricacies helps us to understand how we show up in relation to others, and ultimately helps us get what we need in our relationships.

Our attachment styles develop when we are young. These patterns affect the way we relate in relationships during both easy and challenging moments. Experiential and practical exercises will help you know your own attachment style. You will find tools to support you to lean into relationships that are healthy as well as learn to ask for what you need and set appropriate boundaries. The capacity to lean into someone, to trust someone and let them trust you, is a great gift.

An individual with attachment challenges may struggle in relationships ( Maintaining them, trusting other people, feeling safe in a relationship and forming healthy bonds with others. Creating healthy emotional bonds has a tremendous impact on our lives. Let me help you create the sense of belonging with your loves ones!

I believe that attachment is the foundation for all relationships. I help my clients to understand their attachment style and how this may be preventing them from living the life that they want/.

Attachment theory offers a research-based framework to understand how we experience and respond to closeness, distance, emotional connection, emotional disconnection, and conflict in our relationships. By examining relationships through both trauma-informed and attachment-informed lenses, we can gain deeper insights into our emotional reactions and behaviors. In therapy, we can explore new ways to manage relational triggers, cope with intense emotions, and communicate more effectively.

Our early formative experiences create a blueprint for our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors later in life. Experiencing rejection, neglect, trauma, or other relational injuries impacts our sense of safety and distorts our core beliefs about belonging, worth, and lovability. This, in turn, hinders our ability to show up authentically and experience genuine connection with others, ultimately creating a repetitive cycle of painful disconnection—but therapy can help break this cycle!

We all have attachment needs from the moment we're born. How those needs are met (or not met) greatly influence our abilities to form healthy relationships with others and ourselves. Attachment (and trauma) has been a special interest of mine throughout my career, and I have completed and provided additional trainings in multiple attachment-related areas.

Lastly, 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 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

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.

I help individuals understand and heal attachment wounds, fostering healthier relationships and deeper self-connection. Whether struggling with insecurity, fear of abandonment, or difficulty trusting others, I guide clients in identifying patterns shaped by past experiences. Using evidence-based techniques, I help build secure attachment within, empowering clients to form fulfilling, authentic relationships while strengthening self-trust, emotional resilience, and connection.

A lot of my work with clients has been related to navigating what happens in their connections with others, where those patterns come from, and how they can achieve a sense of security and safety within those connections.

Our most early relationships shape us. How our needs are met, or not, leave an imprint on our sense of self on a deep, non-verbal level. Our attachment styles are formed by 5 years of age, and we develop core survival strategies to get our needs met in relationships, at the expense of oneself. Therapy can help you heal your relationship with yourself, and reimagine how you'd like to be in relationship with those most important to you.

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.