What is relational or attachment trauma
and how can therapy help to heal it?

We humans depend on each other for safety and survival, and our brains and bodies are wired for intimate relationships.

Healthy human development from a baby, to a child, to an adult, is neurobiologically shaped from our relational bonds with our early caregivers. When we are little, we attach to our caregivers, and we’re completely dependent on them for everything we need for physical survival, psychological and emotional nourishment.

There are five developmental principles we must receive relationally to develop a healthy sense of self and a healthy blueprint to relate to other humans: love, attunement, connection, trust, and autonomy. What our earliest caregivers provide or model in these areas, either consciously or unconsciously, we internalize and take into our own self; and this impacts our whole life.

So, our relational attachments are crucial in our development. If we had adults in our lives who were able to protect us, love us, know us, teach us about our minds, emotions and bodies, teach us about forming healthy relationships - then we grow a healthy sense of self, self worth, self esteem, and learn relational skills to build emotionally bonded relationships.

Healthy emotionally bonded relationships are essential in creating happiness and meaning in life; to create resilience and to face life’s challenges with age-appropriate responses; and to navigate our culture and to grow into our power in the world as adults. If we haven’t had healthy attachment figures, or our caregivers were relationally wounded in some way, then we may have attachment or relational trauma.

We strongly believe, and there is excellent evidence to reveal, that attachment trauma is at the root of most human suffering. The emerging new paradigm of trauma-informed, psychobiologically researched psychotherapy calls for a much different framing of “mental health” and “disorders” than previously existed.

Rather than see mental health problems as existing within people, as “disorder” language would suggest, symptoms and problems are seen as contextual within the full life of a human being.

Where we locate a problem, determines how we respond to a problem.

Trauma informed, attachment based psychotherapy insists that we look at what a whole human being needs to be able to be well. We are complex and have a vast amount of needs that will change throughout our whole lives.

Specifically, the early years of our life set the foundational blueprint for our psychology, our nervous system’s ability to regulate, our social engagement system, and communication skills - all things learned from our earliest attachments. Without these, we are vulnerable to a whole host of mental, emotional, and even physical issues later on in life.

A note: you, or your parents having attachment trauma is not a personal failing. It is a result of the human collective existing in survival mode for thousands of years and going through all kinds of traumas that broke relational/emotional bonds within families (war, immigration, genocide, oppression, the industrial revolution, the destruction of nature and our connection to the land - the list of issues goes on and is interwoven and complex.) We all need support to be good caregivers and parents. Tragically, the social contexts and environments that many of our ancestors lived through was not able to provide that support.

Another impact of attachment or relational trauma is that parts of ourselves become fragmented and cut off from one another. The work is to compassionately understand how this fragmentation happened and help the parts reintegrate. This approach to working with the mind is based on a “multiplicity of mind” philosophy from Internal Family Systems Therapy.

This multiplicity philosophy posits that we don’t just have one mind. We naturally have lots of little “minds” or “parts” to our personality. You know when you’re aware of one part of you that wants one thing, but another part of you that wants the opposite thing? That’s two different parts of your mind. And no, this isn’t a disorder, it’s not pathology. We all have multiple parts of mind.

Trauma causes fragmentation of parts, internal conflict or parts acting out in polarized and extreme ways because they’re burdened with the pain that hasn’t been processed. For example, some common ways this shows up: having a strong “Internal Critic” that shames or criticizes you, or parts that engage in emotional eating, drinking, or addictive activities.

No parts of ourselves are bad; they’re just trying to cope in the ways they’ve learned. Our work is to help you become aware of, and learn to relate to, all the parts of yourself with increasing care, compassion, and freedom.

We also teach our clients mindful self-compassion practices and mindfulness meditation practices that will anchor this way of caring for the mind into their daily lives.

While attachment wounds are not the only issue we address, they are always a part of the picture. The foundation for our work is to be a safe attachment figure to our clients. Together, we create a relationship that emotionally and psychologically provides some of the pieces that you may not have gotten back in childhood, or are not getting now.

We would love to do this deep work with you. Both Lauren and Serenne offer individual therapy sessions. To learn more or book a session, reach out and let’s connect.