Distress, Distance and Disconnection: The Intersection of Trauma and Attachment

Understanding the Link Between Trauma and Attachment

Trauma and attachment are deeply intertwined aspects of our mental and relational make-up. The interaction between trauma and attachments informs our emotional experiences and shapes the way we navigate relationships. In this article, we will delve into the complex relationship between trauma and attachment, explore how childhood trauma impacts attachment development, and identify therapeutic interventions to heal attachment wounds in trauma survivors.

Exploring the Complex Relationship Between Trauma and Attachment

Trauma and attachment are inseparable. Traumatic experiences in childhood are sometimes referred to as attachment breaks, as they can disrupt the formation of a secure attachment style, leading to attachment challenges in adulthood. Understanding the intricate connection between trauma and attachment is essential for effective trauma work and healing. Trauma can occur in big events or small, daily ways that may not even register as trauma until adulthood. To understand trauma, specifically the difference between Big T and little t traumas, head over to our other blog, Trauma Informed Care. 

The Impact of Childhood Trauma on Attachment Development

Childhood trauma, whether it be abuse, neglect, or other adverse experiences, can negatively impact attachment development. Early life experiences shape attachment styles, influencing how individuals form and maintain relationships throughout their lives.

Here are a few forms of trauma that lead to insecure attachment: 

• Emotional neglect – when a parent isn’t in tune with their child, and therefore can’t meet their child’s emotional needs, or straight up ignores them. The child will grow up to have an insecure attachment
• Too rigid or fluid boundaries – not setting appropriate boundaries for your child can lead them to feel unsupported and shape their attachment styles later in life
• Overactive parenting (e.g., helicopter or snowplow parenting) – when a parent does too much for their child, trying to ensure their child doesn’t experience adversity can actually hurt them into adulthood. These adults don’t know how to trust themselves or others and often find themselves on the extremes of being dependent or rejecting their lovers
• Underactive parenting – when a parent does not show interest in their child’s life, doesn’t show up to important events, or participate in the daily life of their child, their child will develop an insecure attachment
• Empty promises – a child learns through their parent how to trust the world. When a main caregiver lies or makes promises they don’t follow up on, it can create insecure attachments and distrust
• Abuse (sexual, emotional, or physical) – any type of abuse will impact the child during childhood and adulthood if the child does not receive proper treatment 

Trauma and Attachment Theory: An Overview

Trauma theory explores how individuals respond to and cope with traumatic experiences. Bloom (2019) discusses human stress response: Bloom states that the earlier stress, adversity, and trauma start in life, the longer it lasts, the more frequently it happens, and the more distrust develops, making the effects more challenging and long-lasting. Attachment theory examines the formation of emotional bonds between caregivers and children, which later drive adult interactions and how one carries themself and relates to the world around them. Together, these theories provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the impact of trauma on attachment and how one derives core beliefs, or instructions for how they move through life. 

The Core Tenets of Trauma and Attachment Theory

Trauma Theory:

• Trauma is an emotional response to a distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope.
• Traumatic experiences can range from single incidents to ongoing situations, such as abuse, neglect, accidents, or natural disasters.
• Trauma comes in different sizes, big T or little t.
• Trauma disrupts an individual’s sense of safety, leading to feelings of helplessness, fear, and vulnerability.
• Trauma can have profound and lasting effects on mental, emotional, and physical well-being, impacting various aspects of functioning and behavior.

Attachment Theory:

• Attachment theory explores the emotional bonds formed between caregivers and children, shaping individuals’ relational patterns throughout life.
• Secure attachment develops when caregivers are consistently responsive and sensitive to a child’s needs, fostering a sense of trust, safety, and security.
• Anxious attachment occurs when caregivers are inconsistently available or responsive, leading to heightened anxiety and fear of abandonment in relationships.
• Avoidant attachment develops when caregivers are consistently unresponsive or dismissive of a child’s needs, resulting in a discomfort with intimacy and emotional distance in relationships.
• Disorganized attachment arises from severe neglect, abuse, or trauma, leading to conflicting behaviors and difficulties in regulating emotions and relationships.

How Traumatic Experiences Shape Attachment Patterns

Traumatic experiences can disrupt the secure attachment bonds formed in childhood, leading to the development of insecure attachment styles such as anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment. These attachment patterns influence how individuals perceive themselves and others in relationships. Traumatic experiences can profoundly shape attachment patterns by disrupting trust, safety, and emotional regulation in relationships. Understanding the impact of trauma on attachment can inform therapeutic interventions aimed at promoting healing, resilience, and the development of secure attachment bonds.

• Disruption of Trust and Safety: Traumatic experiences can disrupt an individual’s sense of trust and safety in relationships. When caregivers are unable to provide protection or support during traumatic events, children may develop insecure attachment patterns characterized by fear and mistrust. As adults, individuals with trauma struggle to open themselves up to others, have hyper independence, and deny closeness of others.
• Hyperarousal and Hypervigilance: Trauma often leads to heightened states of arousal and hypervigilance, where individuals remain on high alert for potential threats. This hyperarousal can interfere with the development of secure attachment bonds, as individuals may struggle to relax and feel safe in relationships. As adults, these individuals will be good at sensing others’ emotions, often over their own. They may also be people pleasers or say yes before they know what they’re saying yes to.
• Attachment Ambivalence: Traumatic experiences can create conflicting emotions and behaviors within attachment relationships. Individuals may simultaneously desire closeness and connection while fearing rejection or harm, resulting in disorganized attachment patterns characterized by ambivalence and uncertainty.
• Impact on Emotional Regulation: Trauma can disrupt the development of healthy emotional regulation skills, making it difficult for individuals to manage their feelings and responses in relationships. This dysregulation can contribute to anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment patterns, as individuals may struggle to express or contain their emotions appropriately. Symptoms of emotional dysregulation tend to be quick to anger, overly anxious about things, or withdraw (or stonewalling in relationships according to John Gottman, renowned couples researcher). 
• Repetition of Traumatic Dynamics: Without intervention, individuals who have experienced trauma may unconsciously replicate traumatic dynamics in their relationships. This repetition compulsion can perpetuate insecure attachment patterns and contribute to a cycle of trauma across generations. A theory as to why this happens is because our brain, while plastic, seeks comfort through familiarity. Without proper processing and healing from, our brains cannot discern if what we are seeking is another trauma or not. 
• Difficulty in Seeking Support: Traumatic experiences may lead individuals to avoid seeking support or assistance from others, either due to feelings of shame, fear of vulnerability, or mistrust. This avoidance can hinder the development of secure attachment bonds and perpetuate feelings of isolation and disconnection.

The Effects of Childhood Trauma on Attachment Styles

Understanding the Influence of Early Trauma on Attachment Security

As previously stated, early trauma can erode feelings of safety and security, leading to insecure attachment styles characterized by fear of abandonment, difficulty trusting others, and challenges with emotional regulation.

Identifying Common Attachment Patterns Among Trauma Survivors

Trauma survivors may exhibit a range of attachment patterns, including anxious preoccupation with relationships, avoidance of intimacy, or disorganized behaviors in times of stress. These attachment challenges can significantly impact their ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.

By paying attention to these indicators and patterns, individuals can gain insight into common attachment patterns among trauma survivors. This awareness can inform therapeutic interventions aimed at addressing attachment wounds, fostering healing, and supporting the development of secure attachment bonds.

• Awareness of Emotional Responses: Trauma survivors may exhibit heightened emotional responses in relationships, such as intense fear of abandonment, excessive need for reassurance, or difficulty expressing vulnerability. A trauma survivor may also feel a visceral discomfort in their body: tightening in their chest, shortness of breath, tension in their back, cold/clammy hands or feet, or anything else that is representative of a fight/flight response. Recognizing these emotional or physical patterns can provide clues to underlying attachment dynamics. Dissociation, or disconnecting from one’s self and emotions, is also common among trauma survivors.  
• Observation of Relationship Dynamics: Paying attention to the dynamics within a survivor’s relationships, including patterns of closeness, distance, and communication reveal consistent themes of mistrust, avoidance of intimacy, or difficulty establishing boundaries. 
  • Mistrust:
    • Example: A trauma survivor may struggle to trust others’ intentions, particularly in close relationships. They may question the motives of their partner, friends, or family members, fearing betrayal or abandonment.
    • Behavior: They may be hyper-vigilant for signs of deception or disloyalty, interpreting neutral actions as evidence of betrayal. They might withhold personal information or keep secrets to protect themselves from perceived harm.
  • Avoidance of Intimacy:
    • Example: A trauma survivor may avoid emotional or physical intimacy as a way to protect themselves from vulnerability and potential harm.
    • Behavior: They may resist sharing their thoughts, feelings, or experiences with others, keeping conversations surface-level or avoiding topics that feel too personal. They might also avoid physical closeness, such as hugs or cuddling, for fear of becoming too attached or being hurt. Or, they may seem like they’re passive aggressive because they want to avoid conflict but can’t hold in their discontent after time. 
  • Difficulty Establishing Boundaries:
    • Example: A trauma survivor may struggle to assert their own needs, desires, and limits in relationships, leading to boundary difficulties.
    • Behavior: They may have difficulty saying “no” to requests or demands from others, feeling obligated to comply even when it goes against their own wishes. Alternatively, they might erect rigid boundaries as a way to protect themselves from perceived threats, leading to interpersonal conflicts or isolation.
  • Hypervigilance:
    • Example: A trauma survivor may be constantly on edge, anticipating potential threats or dangers in their environment. 
    • Behavior: They may exhibit heightened sensitivity to changes in their surroundings, constantly scanning for signs of danger. They will notice when you changed your hair or when you’re feeling different than normal. This hypervigilance can lead to difficulty relaxing, sleep disturbances, and a sense of being constantly on guard. The hypervigilance also tends to come at a cost to themself, often not noticing when they are close to burnout, unhappy, or disconnected. 
  • Withdrawal or Isolation:
    • Example: A trauma survivor may withdraw from social interactions or isolate themselves from others as a way to cope with their distress.
    • Behavior: They may decline invitations to social gatherings, avoid making plans with friends or family members, or spend excessive amounts of time alone. This withdrawal can stem from feelings of shame, fear of judgment, or a belief that others cannot understand their experiences.

Factors that Influence Attachment Styles and Behaviors 

Early Attachment Experiences: Understanding a survivor’s early attachment experiences with caregivers and significant others will provide insight into attachment wounds and their manifestation in one’s beliefs and behaviors. Some questions to explore are: What did celebrations, punishments, daily life look like? How did they know they were loved? Were their caregivers present emotionally and physically? How would you describe your caregiving environment, or the quality of your relationship with primary caregivers? Have you had any experiences of neglect, abuse, or loss?

Coping Mechanisms: An assessment of coping mechanisms will provide valuable information on how a survivor copes with stress, conflict, and emotional distress in relationships. Do they tend to withdraw, avoid difficult conversations, or become overly dependent on others for support?

• Repetitive Patterns: Repetitive patterns or themes in the survivor’s relationships may reflect unresolved attachment issues stemming from past trauma. These patterns may manifest as difficulties in forming close connections, fear of intimacy, or patterns of self-sabotage in relationships. Do they tend to date the same types of people or have the same issues in their relationships? Do they have long-term friendships? 
• Triggers and Responses: A survivor’s triggers and responses to situations that evoke memories or reminders of past trauma reveal places where they are unresolved trauma or need for trauma work. If certain relational triggers lead to defensive or avoidant behaviors, this may indicate underlying attachment insecurities.
• Attachment Behaviors: One can gain valuable insight on impact of attachment breaks by observing a survivor’s attachment behavior, such as seeking proximity, expressing distress when separated from loved ones, or exhibiting avoidant or dismissive behaviors in intimate relationships 

Attachment Styles in Trauma Survivors

Trauma survivors may exhibit a range of attachment styles, each influenced by their unique experiences and coping mechanisms. Understanding these attachment patterns is crucial for tailoring effective therapeutic interventions.

These examples below highlight how trauma survivors may exhibit manifestations of anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles as a result of their past experiences. Understanding these dynamics can inform therapeutic interventions aimed at promoting healing, resilience, and the development of more secure attachment patterns.

• Anxious Attachment:
  • Mistrust: Trauma survivors with anxious attachment may exhibit pervasive mistrust in relationships, worried that the other person won’t stay, affirming the “everyone leaves” narrative they grew up learning. Anxiously attached trauma survivors participate in behaviors that seek constant reassurance or approval from others. They might subconsciously test their loved ones to make sure they will stay, which inadvertently pushes them away to where they do end up leaving. Thus, perpetuating the cycle of mistrust. 
  • Avoidance of Intimacy: Despite their desire for closeness, they may struggle with fears of being rejected or abandoned, so they tend to be more surface level or share things under the guise of vulnerability but they aren’t actually being vulnerable. These individuals may participate in meaningless sex or use sex as a way of proving their worth. 
  • Difficulty Establishing Boundaries: They may have difficulty asserting their own needs or setting boundaries in relationships, fearing that asserting themselves will lead to rejection or conflict. This is another example of where anxiously attached individuals may seem passive-aggressive. 
• Avoidant Attachment:
  • Mistrust: Trauma survivors with avoidant attachment may develop a deep-seated mistrust of others, leading them to avoid forming close relationships altogether as a way to protect themselves from potential harm.
  • Avoidance of Intimacy: They may actively avoid emotional or physical intimacy in relationships, preferring to keep their distance and maintain a sense of independence to avoid vulnerability.
  • Difficulty Establishing Boundaries: They may have rigid boundaries in place as a way to protect themselves from perceived threats, making it challenging for others to get close or establish meaningful connections with them. Another version of this is black and white thinking, which is a trauma response. 
• Disorganized Attachment:
  • Hypervigilance: Trauma survivors with disorganized attachment may exhibit hypervigilance in relationships, constantly scanning for signs of danger or unpredictability due to past experiences of trauma and it’s unpredictable nature.
  • Withdrawal or Isolation: They may oscillate between seeking closeness and withdrawing from others, struggling to maintain consistent relational patterns and experiencing difficulty trusting themselves or others. These are individuals who might go through several break-ups with one person, who rage quit their job but apply to the same place a few months later, or who leave a party without saying goodbye. 
  • Boundary Difficulties: They may have inconsistent or unclear boundaries in relationships, resulting in unpredictable behaviors or emotional outbursts that create confusion and instability for themselves and those around them.

Strategies for Addressing Attachment Challenges in Trauma Therapy

In trauma therapy, addressing attachment challenges is a key component of the healing process. Therapeutic interventions focus on building secure attachment bonds, promoting emotional regulation, and fostering healthy relationships. Secure attachment bonds can happen within the therapeutic relationship or as the therapist guides the client to creating these relationships outside of the sessions. 

Attachment-Based Approaches to Trauma Healing

Introducing Attachment-Focused Therapeutic Interventions for Trauma Recovery

Attachment-based approaches to trauma therapy emphasize the importance of creating a safe and supportive therapeutic environment. Therapeutic interventions focus on repairing attachment wounds, building trust, and fostering resilience.

Tailoring therapeutic interventions to accommodate the specific needs and attachment styles of each client, psychotherapists can create a safe and supportive environment conducive to healing, growth, and the development of secure attachment.

• Secure Attachment:
  • Validate Feelings of Safety: Reinforce the client’s sense of safety and security within the therapeutic relationship by consistently demonstrating empathy, warmth, and acceptance.
  • Foster Collaboration: Encourage open communication and collaboration in therapy sessions, inviting the client to actively participate in setting goals and directing the therapeutic process.
  • Provide Consistent Support: Offer consistent emotional support and validation, acknowledging the client’s strengths and resilience while exploring areas for growth and healing.
• Anxious Attachment:
  • Offer Reassurance: Provide reassurance and validation to address the client’s distrust of close relationships and fears of abandonment or rejection. The therapist should emphasize their commitment to maintaining a supportive and reliable therapeutic relationship. 
  • Offer more detail: Anxiously attached individuals tend to like more details. This allows them to not have to guess, which they normally put negative thoughts in and it represents you care about them enough to explain yourself or check-in. 
  • Encourage Emotional Expression: Create a safe space for the client to express their emotions openly and without judgment, using active listening, validating their experiences, and helping them explore underlying anxieties and insecurities.
  • Establish Predictability: Maintain consistent session scheduling and structure to reduce uncertainty and anxiety, offering predictability and reliability within the therapeutic relationship. This can look like locking them in to a certain time or day, starting the session with the same question, not moving your office around, or closing the session similarly each time. 
• Avoidant Attachment:
  • Respect Boundaries: Respect the client’s need for autonomy and independence by allowing them to set the pace and level of disclosure in therapy, while gently encouraging exploration of emotions and relational patterns.
  • Provide Space for Reflection: Offer opportunities for the client to reflect on their experiences and emotions independently, respecting their preference for introspection and self-reliance.
  • Foster Trust Gradually: Build trust gradually over time by demonstrating reliability, consistency, and respect for the client’s boundaries, allowing them to gradually open up and engage more fully in therapy.
  • Acknowledge their work: point out times where you know they would have wanted to withdrawal or avoid but they didn’t, building them up and showing that you do notice them.
• Disorganized Attachment:
  • Offer Stability and Structure: Provide a stable and structured therapeutic environment characterized by clear boundaries, consistent scheduling, and predictable routines, helping to create a sense of safety and containment for the client.
  • Address Ambivalence and Confusion: Point out and validate the client’s conflicting emotions and experiences, offering support and guidance to help them navigate the complexities of their attachment patterns and relational dynamics.
  • Foster Integration and Healing: Facilitate the integration of fragmented parts of the self through techniques such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, process-oriented therapy, or trauma-focused interventions, helping the client develop a coherent sense of self and relational stability.

Building Secure Attachment Bonds for Healing and Resilience

Through a combination of therapeutic techniques, trauma survivors can learn to develop secure attachment bonds with themselves and others. This process of healing and resilience is essential for long-term recovery from trauma.

Trauma and Emotional Distance: Breaking the Cycle

Strategies for Reconnecting with Self and Others in Trauma Therapy

In trauma therapy, individuals learn strategies for reconnecting with themselves and others, including mindfulness practices, emotion regulation techniques, and communication skills. These strategies help trauma survivors rebuild trust and intimacy in relationships.

Healing Attachment Wounds: Navigating Distress and Disconnection

Recognizing and Healing Attachment Wounds From Traumatic Experiences

Healing attachment wounds requires acknowledging and processing the pain and distress associated with traumatic experiences, along with the thoughts and behaviors that ensued beyond the trauma as a response. Through therapy, individuals learn to recognize and validate their emotions, fostering greater self-compassion and acceptance. By doing so, individuals can begin to have different thoughts and actions that are more conducive to a happy life with healthy, secure attachments. 

The Role of Therapeutic Alliance in Trauma and Attachment Healing

Fostering a Secure Therapeutic Alliance for Trauma and Attachment Recovery

The therapeutic alliance plays a crucial role in trauma and attachment healing. Through a trusting and supportive therapeutic relationship, individuals feel safe to explore and process their experiences, leading to greater insight and healing. Additionally, the therapeutic relationship can serve as a model for other relationships in the person’s life, Through building a therapeutic alliance, one can explore taking what seems like big risks to them based on their attachment style in the safety of the therapeutic relationship, giving them a sense for what it feels like to interact in a new, secure way. 

Enhancing Trust and Connection in the Therapeutic Relationship

Therapists work collaboratively with trauma survivors to build trust and connection in the therapeutic relationship. Through empathy, validation, and nonjudgmental support, therapists create a safe space for healing and growth. The therapist’s participation in the above behaviors also fosters safety within the therapeutic process. 

Attachment and Trauma Recovery: Integrating Mind, Body, and Spirit

Addressing the Impact of Trauma on Mind, Body, and Spirit in Attachment-Oriented Therapy

Trauma recovery involves addressing the impact of trauma on all levels – mind, body, and spirit. Through holistic approaches such as mindfulness, somatic therapy, and expressive arts, individuals can integrate their experiences and foster greater resilience.

In attachment-oriented therapy, addressing the impact of trauma on mind, body, and spirit is essential for promoting holistic healing and facilitating the development of secure attachment bonds. By recognizing and addressing trauma’s multifaceted effects, therapists can support individuals in their journey toward recovery, resilience, and well-being.

Mind:

• Cognitive Distortions: Trauma can lead to distorted beliefs about oneself, others, and the world, influencing thoughts and perceptions in negative ways.
• Intrusive Thoughts: Individuals who are trauma survivors may experience intrusive thoughts or memories (flashbacks) related to the traumatic event, leading to rumination and cognitive distress.
• Difficulty Concentrating: Trauma can impair cognitive functioning, making it challenging for individuals to concentrate, focus, and engage in everyday tasks.
• Hypervigilance: Constantly scanning their environment for potential threats or danger, leading to heightened anxiety and stress.
• Emotional Dysregulation: Disruption in emotional regulation can lead to intense and unpredictable mood swings, difficulty managing emotions, and heightened sensitivity to triggers.

Body:

• Physical Symptoms: Trauma can manifest in physical symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal issues, muscle tension, and chronic pain, reflecting the interconnectedness of mind and body.
• Hyperarousal: Characterized by increased heart rate, sweating, and rapid breathing, as the body remains in a state of heightened alertness.
• Hypoarousal: Alternatively, trauma can lead to hypoarousal, where individuals feel numb, disconnected, and detached from their physical sensations and surroundings.
• Somatic Experiencing: Attachment-oriented therapy may incorporate somatic experiencing techniques to help individuals reconnect with their bodies, release tension, and process trauma stored in bodily sensations.
• Trauma Responses: The body may exhibit trauma responses such as fight, flight, freeze, or collapse, reflecting adaptive survival mechanisms developed in response to threat.

Spirit:

• Loss of Meaning and Purpose: Trauma can challenge individuals’ sense of meaning and purpose in life, leading to existential questioning, loss of faith, or feelings of hopelessness and despair.
• Spiritual Wounding: Impacting individuals’ beliefs about themselves, others, and the divine, leading to feelings of alienation, disconnection, or distrust.
• Existential Crisis: Trauma survivors may grapple with existential questions about the nature of suffering, the search for meaning or purpose, and the possibility of healing and transcendence.
• Spiritual Healing: Attachment-oriented therapy may integrate spiritual and existential themes to support individuals in finding meaning, purpose, and connection amidst their trauma experiences.
• Reconnection with Self: Through therapeutic interventions focused on spirituality and existential exploration, trauma survivors can reconnect with their inner selves, rediscover their values and beliefs, and reclaim a sense of spiritual wholeness and integration.

Promoting Holistic Healing for Trauma Survivors

Holistic healing approaches recognize the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit in trauma recovery. By addressing all aspects of the self, trauma survivors can achieve greater balance, well-being, and integration.

Navigating Trauma and Attachment for Healing and Growth

Empowering Trauma Survivors to Reclaim Their Voice and Their Lives

Trauma recovery is a journey of empowerment and self-discovery. Through therapy, trauma survivors learn to reclaim their voice, rewrite their narratives, and create a brighter future for themselves.

Promoting Attachment Security for Optimal Trauma Recovery and Well-being

By fostering secure attachment bonds and promoting emotional resilience, trauma survivors can achieve greater well-being and fulfillment in their lives. With the right support and resources, healing from trauma is possible, and a brighter future awaits.

Therapy Models for Healing Attachment Wounds in Trauma Therapy

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy: This therapeutic approach helps individuals identify and work with different parts of themselves, including wounded inner child parts. By fostering self-compassion and understanding, individuals can heal attachment wounds and integrate fragmented parts of the self.
• Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT): EFT focuses on helping individuals recognize and regulate their emotions in the context of their relationships. Through experiential techniques and guided interventions, individuals learn to express and process difficult emotions, fostering greater emotional intimacy and connection.
• Somatic Experiencing (SE): SE explores the connection between the body and the mind in trauma healing. Through gentle body-based interventions, individuals learn to release stored tension and trauma, fostering greater relaxation, resilience, and well-being.
• Narrative Therapy: Narrative therapy offers a collaborative and empowering approach to attachment healing by exploring clients’ personal narratives and re-authoring their life stories. Through respectful curiosity and inquiry, therapists help clients externalize their problems, separating them from their identities and fostering a sense of agency. By uncovering alternative narratives and strengths, clients gain new perspectives on their experiences, allowing them to challenge negative self-perceptions and oppressive cultural discourses. Therapists assist clients in identifying preferred narratives that align with their values, beliefs, and aspirations, promoting resilience and empowerment. Through this process, clients are empowered to rewrite their life stories in ways that affirm their agency, strengths, and capacity for growth, ultimately fostering healing and the development of secure attachment relationships.

Exercises you can do based on your attachment style to heal your trauma: 

Secure Attachment:

• Journaling Prompt: Reflect on Secure Moments
  • Journal about times when you felt safe, loved, and supported in their lives.
  • Describe these moments in detail, including how you felt emotionally and physically.
  • Explore how you can draw upon these experiences to cultivate a sense of security and comfort in challenging situations.
• Visualization Exercise: Creating a Safe Inner Space
  • Practice a relaxation exercise, such as imagining a safe and comforting place in your mind.
  • Use all your senses to vividly picture this space, incorporating elements that evoke feelings of security and peace.
  • Access this inner sanctuary whenever you feel overwhelmed or anxious, using it as a refuge to soothe your emotions.
• Attachment Affirmations
  • Create a list of affirmations related to security and worthiness.
  • Choose affirmations that resonate with you and repeat them daily, especially during times of stress or self-doubt.
  • Integrate these affirmations into your self-talk, reinforcing your sense of security and confidence in your relationships.

Anxious Attachment:

• Mindfulness of Breath
  • Practice a mindfulness exercise focused on your breath.
  • Notice any anxious thoughts or sensations that arise and gently return your focus to your breath.
  • Use this practice to ground yourself in the present moment and soothe your anxious attachment responses.
• Attachment Exploration Worksheet
  • Explore your attachment triggers and patterns.
  • Identify situations or interactions that evoke anxiety or insecurity in your relationships.
  • Reflect on the underlying beliefs and fears driving these responses, fostering awareness and understanding of your anxious attachment style.
• Emotion Regulation Techniques
  • Practice techniques for managing anxiety and regulating your emotions.
  • This may include deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, or guided imagery.
  • Practice these techniques regularly to build resilience and cope more effectively with attachment-related distress.

Avoidant Attachment:

• Attachment Timeline Exercise
  • Create a timeline of your significant attachment experiences from childhood to the present.
  • Reflect on how you have coped with attachment-related challenges and losses over time.
  • Explore patterns of emotional distancing and avoidance, fostering insight into your avoidant attachment style.
• Emotion Regulation Journal
  • Keep a journal to track your emotional experiences and patterns.
  • Notice moments when you withdraw or detach from your emotions or relationships.
  • Explore the underlying fears and needs driving these avoidance strategies, promoting self-awareness and acceptance.
• Safe Vulnerability Practice
  • Practice sharing your thoughts and feelings in a safe and supportive environment.
  • Start with small, low-risk disclosures and gradually increase the level of vulnerability over time.
  • Explore the discomfort that arises and identify ways to gradually tolerate and embrace intimacy in your relationships.

These exercises aim to help individuals with different attachment styles process their trauma in ways that honor their unique emotional needs and coping strategies. As therapists, it’s essential to provide clients with tools and techniques that resonate with their attachment patterns, fostering healing and growth in their therapeutic journey.

In conclusion, the journey of healing from trauma and attachment wounds is complex and multifaceted. By understanding the intersection of trauma and attachment, individuals can embark on a path of healing and growth, reclaiming their voice and their lives in the process. Through therapy and support, trauma survivors can cultivate greater attachment security, resilience, and well-being, paving the way. 

If you would like more support in understanding your attachment style, or help processing and healing attachment breaks or other relational traumas, please reach out to our trained therapists at The Better You Institute. Call us at 267-495-4951.