Do your relationships feel stuck in the same painful cycles?
Attachment wounds from the past often shape our present, but healing is possible. Learn how EMDR, dreamwork, mindfulness, and couples therapy can help you shift these patterns and build secure, connected relationships. In addition to discussing how I work to heal attachment patterns with people in individual therapy, this post discusses the writing of Jackie Ourman, LMHC who writes about the use of attachment stories in couples therapy.
What Are Attachment Styles and How Do They Impact Relationships?
Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, explains how early caregiving relationships shape how we connect with others later in life. These patterns, called attachment styles, often form before we can speak, and become embedded in our nervous system.
There are four primary attachment styles:
Secure Attachment: Develops when caregivers are attuned and consistently responsive. These individuals tend to feel safe with closeness, trust others, and manage emotional ups and downs with relative ease.
Anxious Attachment: Arises from inconsistent caregiving—sometimes available, sometimes not. Adults with this style may worry about abandonment, seek reassurance, and feel heightened emotional sensitivity in relationships.
Avoidant Attachment: Often develops when caregivers are emotionally distant or dismissive. These individuals tend to suppress emotional needs, rely on themselves, and may appear highly independent—even while craving connection.
Disorganized Attachment: Emerges when caregivers are a source of both comfort and fear, such as in chaotic, neglectful, or abusive environments. This leads to internal conflict: a desire for closeness paired with fear or mistrust.
It’s important to remember: attachment styles are not personality traits or flaws. They’re protective strategies shaped by early environments, and they can change.
EMDR for Attachment Trauma: Healing Through the Nervous System
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful trauma therapy that helps people reprocess painful experiences—not just cognitively, but in the body and nervous system where these wounds live.
Attachment trauma often leaves behind core beliefs like:
“I’m not lovable.”
“I have to earn love.“
“People always leave.”
These beliefs can operate below the surface, coloring how we experience relationships. EMDR helps clients revisit those formative experiences and process them safely. The brain and body begin to release old fear responses, and new beliefs take shape—like:
“I am worthy of love.“
“It’s safe to be seen.”
“Connection is possible.”
This deeper nervous system-level healing makes EMDR a foundational tool for transforming attachment wounds.
Using Mindfulness and Talk Therapy to Heal Attachment Wounds
Talk therapy provides a space to explore your story—how your early experiences shaped the way you relate to others. Together, we look at family dynamics, past relationships, and emotional responses that still echo today.
Mindfulness adds another layer by helping you track these patterns in real time. For example:
You might notice that conflict with a partner triggers a sense of panic, a racing heart, or an urge to text repeatedly.
Or, you might feel yourself go numb and withdraw—shutting down emotionally when someone gets too close.
These are often signs that an old attachment story is being activated.
With mindful awareness, you learn to pause, observe, and gently intervene. Over time, this builds the ability to respond with intention rather than react from fear or habit.
Dreamwork in Therapy: Accessing the Unconscious
Dreams can be a powerful way to access the emotional undercurrents of attachment wounds. They often reveal themes, feelings, and patterns that your conscious mind isn’t yet ready to articulate.
In therapy, we explore dreams not to “decode” them in a rigid way but to listen to what your psyche may be expressing.
Examples include:
A dream about chasing someone who keeps slipping away might reflect anxious attachment, highlighting a fear of abandonment.
A dream of being alone in a vast, quiet landscape may point to avoidant tendencies, expressing emotional self-reliance or isolation.
By engaging dream imagery with curiosity and compassion, clients often gain insight into what their inner world is trying to resolve or integrate.
Couples Therapy & Attachment Stories: Jackie Ourman’s Approach
I recently learned about the work of Jackie Ourman, LMHC. She writes about using attachment stories in couples therapy. While individual therapy helps people heal attachment wounds from the inside, couples therapy offers a chance to heal through the relationship itself.
Jackie Ourman, LMHC at Values Aligned Therapy focuses on uncovering each partner’s attachment story, the emotional blueprint we carry from childhood into adult partnerships.
For instance:
One partner’s tendency to withdraw during conflict may stem from avoidant attachment, shaped in a family where emotions were minimized or dismissed.
The other partner’s strong need to connect or seek reassurance may reflect anxious attachment, formed in a household where emotional availability was unpredictable.
Rather than focusing solely on communication techniques, Jackie’s approach encourages couples to name the deeper stories behind their reactions. When each person begins to understand the other’s attachment narrative, something shifts. Conflict gives way to empathy. Distance becomes an opportunity for repair.
You can explore her full blog post here:
👉 Attachment Stories: The Hidden Beliefs Shaping Your Relationships
Can You Change Your Attachment Style?
The short answer: yes.
Your attachment style isn’t fixed. With awareness, support, and consistent therapeutic work, it’s absolutely possible to move toward earned secure attachment—a style developed through healing relationships, even if it wasn’t present in childhood.
In therapy, that transformation often looks like:
Greater emotional regulation during conflict
Feeling safer with closeness and vulnerability
Trusting that your needs matter—and can be met.
Moving from fear-based reactivity to confident self-expression
Healing happens gradually, but it’s real and deeply life-changing.
Ready to Begin Your Healing Journey?
If you’re feeling stuck in the same relationship patterns, or if early wounds still feel alive in your body or behavior, therapy offers a path forward.
You don’t have to walk this path alone. I offer an integrative approach for individuals interested in changing their attachment patterns so that they may have more fulfillment in their lives and in their relationships. You can email me at awakepresence@gmail.com or call to schedule your free 15 minute phone consultation.
And if you’re interested in learning about how attachment stories are used in couples therapy, check out the writing of Jackie Ourman, LMHC.