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"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind"
William James
Techniques Used in Attachment-Based Therapy
Attachment-Based Therapy (ABT) is a powerful approach that helps individuals explore how their early relationships have shaped the way they connect with others. At its core, ABT aims to create a safe, supportive space where clients can understand and transform old patterns into healthier, more secure ones.
Here are some of the main techniques we use in Attachment-Based Therapy:
Reflective Work
We guide clients to explore how their current feelings and behaviors often stem from deeper emotional needs. For example, we might help someone understand why they withdraw when relationships start to feel close, or why they feel anxious when a partner pulls away.
Mentalization
This technique helps clients develop the ability to see themselves and others as complex human beings with thoughts, feelings, and needs. It builds empathy and reduces misunderstandings, making relationships feel safer and more manageable.
Corrective Relationship Experience
In therapy, we create a consistent and non-judgmental relationship where clients can experience trust and acceptance. This “corrective experience” allows clients to learn that closeness can be safe and that their needs and feelings matter.
Exploring Early Relationships
We help clients examine their earliest bonds — often with parents or caregivers — and how these experiences may have shaped their expectations and fears in current relationships. Understanding these patterns is a key step toward change.
Validation and Empathy
We actively acknowledge and accept clients’ feelings and experiences, no matter how painful or confusing. Feeling truly seen and heard in therapy helps build confidence and fosters secure attachment.
Role-Playing and Practice
Sometimes, we practice new ways of relating in a safe and supportive space — like setting healthy boundaries, expressing needs, or asking for help. These rehearsals help clients feel more confident applying these skills in their everyday lives.
What to Expect in Attachment-Based Therapy
Attachment-Based Therapy is a powerful and compassionate approach that helps you heal from old relationship wounds and build more secure, fulfilling connections. Whether you struggle with trust, closeness, or setting boundaries, this therapy can support you in understanding and transforming your attachment patterns.
How Does It Work?
In therapy, you’ll explore how your earliest relationships shaped the way you connect with others today. Together, we’ll look at the beliefs and expectations you developed — like whether closeness feels safe, or whether you expect to be let down — and how these influence your current relationships.
What Happens in Sessions?
We start by getting to know your story: your relationships, challenges, and hopes for change. We work to build a safe, supportive space where you can be honest and open without fear of judgment.
As we continue, you’ll learn to recognize the patterns that hold you back — for example, pulling away when things get close, or feeling overly anxious when someone seems distant. We’ll help you practice new ways of relating, like expressing your needs clearly or trusting that others will be there for you.
How Does It Heal Attachment?
The therapy relationship itself becomes a secure base — a place where you can experience acceptance, empathy, and consistency. This corrective experience helps your nervous system learn that closeness can be safe. Over time, you’ll build confidence in setting healthy boundaries, trusting others, and staying present in relationships — all key parts of developing a secure attachment style.
Healing attachment wounds isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about building trust, deepening self-awareness, and practicing new relational skills. With time and support, you can move from patterns of fear and avoidance to more secure, meaningful connections — both with others and with yourself.
What Are Attachment Styles?
Attachment styles are patterns of how we connect with others, shaped by our early relationships — especially with parents or caregivers. These patterns influence how we trust, seek closeness, and respond to intimacy and conflict in relationships throughout our lives.
Understanding your attachment style can help you build healthier, more secure connections with those around you.
The Four Main Attachment Styles
1. Secure Attachment
People with a secure attachment style generally feel comfortable with closeness and independence. They trust others, find it easy to communicate their needs, and can handle conflict in healthy ways. Securely attached individuals usually had consistent and supportive caregivers growing up.
2. Anxious (Preoccupied) Attachment
Those with an anxious attachment style often crave closeness and reassurance but may worry about being abandoned or rejected. They might become overly dependent on partners, seeking constant validation. This style usually develops when caregivers were inconsistent — sometimes nurturing, sometimes unavailable.
3. Avoidant (Dismissive) Attachment
Individuals with an avoidant attachment style value independence and may feel uncomfortable with too much closeness. They often suppress their needs and emotions and may withdraw from intimacy to protect themselves. This style often stems from caregivers who were emotionally distant or unresponsive.
4. Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment
This style is marked by a deep desire for closeness, combined with a fear of getting hurt. People with this attachment style may feel stuck between wanting intimacy and fearing it, leading to push-pull dynamics in relationships. It’s often linked to unpredictable or frightening caregiving experiences in childhood.
How Attachment Styles Affect Relationships
Your attachment style shapes how you:
- Connect with partners: Whether you find closeness comforting or overwhelming.
- Communicate needs and feelings: Whether you’re open and direct or tend to withdraw.
- Handle conflict: Whether you seek resolution or avoid difficult conversations.
- Respond to intimacy: Whether you feel safe being vulnerable or worry about getting hurt.
Understanding your attachment style — and your partner’s — can help you navigate challenges and build more secure, fulfilling relationships. Therapy can also support you in shifting old patterns and creating healthier ways of connecting.
How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Work and Success
Your attachment style doesn’t just shape your relationships — it also influences how you show up at work, pursue goals, and handle challenges.
People with a secure attachment style often feel confident in their abilities, can collaborate effectively, and handle feedback well. They’re comfortable both working independently and as part of a team, which sets them up for success in many career paths.
Those with an anxious attachment style might seek constant reassurance from colleagues or supervisors and feel overly stressed by criticism or uncertainty. They may second-guess themselves and struggle with setting boundaries, which can lead to burnout.
Individuals with an avoidant attachment style may be highly independent and self-reliant but can find teamwork and open communication challenging. They might struggle to ask for help or share ideas, which can limit growth opportunities.
A fearful-avoidant (disorganized) attachment style often shows up as a push-pull dynamic — wanting to succeed and connect but fearing closeness or failure. This can lead to self-sabotage, inconsistency, or difficulty trusting others, affecting both performance and job satisfaction.
Understanding your attachment style can help you identify strengths and areas for growth. By working on these patterns — often with the support of therapy — you can build confidence, improve collaboration, and achieve greater success in your career and beyond.
How Jungian Therapy Can Help Heal Attachment Styles
Your attachment style shapes how you connect with others — but often, the roots run deeper than early relationships alone. Jungian therapy offers powerful tools for understanding and transforming these patterns by working with your shadow — the hidden parts of yourself that you might deny, fear, or reject.
The shadow includes all the emotions, desires, and beliefs you’ve learned to push away, often to fit in or feel safe. For example, if you learned in childhood that needing others was weak, you might hide that neediness in your shadow — but it still drives your relationships from behind the scenes.
In therapy, exploring your shadow means facing these hidden feelings and needs with compassion, rather than judgment. By bringing them into the light, you can begin to understand why you react the way you do in relationships — and start to make different choices.
For example, you might discover that your avoidant tendencies are rooted in a fear of vulnerability, or that your anxious patterns stem from feeling unworthy of love. By integrating these shadow parts, you can gradually move toward a secure attachment style — one where you trust yourself and others, set healthy boundaries, and feel safe being authentic.
Jungian therapy helps you build a relationship with all parts of yourself, fostering wholeness and deep healing. With this foundation, you can create more secure, fulfilling connections — both at work and in your personal life.
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Taking the step to seek therapy is an act of courage and self-care.
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