In the context of religion and the church, many people find peace with prayer, service, or spirituality. For others mental health though, this has also been a place of painful and traumatic experience and memories. When you have endured hurt, rather than healing in this context, how do you begin to work through processing the difficulties that come with such experiences? For some, religion has led to extensive trauma that brought about a diagnosis for PTSD. In this post, we'l

You've heard the saying, "when it rains, it pours." How do you continue to embrace changes and push past the ongoing rainfall as you move forward in your journey through life? I want to touch on three distinct factors that may just be the difference between expecting ongoing downpours and sheltering yourself in the storm. These factors play an integral role in self-growth -- when you're able to find the resources and guidance you're looking for, you're able to make space and

Here, I want to share with you a few different benefits that can be cultivated if you choose to work through issues early on in your relationship with your partner. We've seen the Hollywood romance genre and how it conveys "love at first sight" and "soulmate" connection. When we watch films like The Notebook or Forrest Gump, we see how different relationships pan out when two lovers find each other in times of great distress or shortcomings. When we look at recent findings, m

We didn’t all have the shared experience of a secure attachment in our childhoods, or for a long enough period to build a safe haven with someone else. Sometimes we learned to feel guilty about expressing our struggles to anyone. Thinking for a moment about current or prior attachments, has there been a point in time where you’ve told yourself, “I don’t want to put more on their plate.” Oftentimes, this becomes a repetitive pattern for individuals in their relationships. Whet

Just as attachment theory was cultivated from studies around infant and parent attachment bonds, we have the sole responsibility of cultivating a safe haven for our clients. Starting from birth, we start to internalize and understand what's happening around us. In a similar sense, we begin to see just how our primary caregivers show up for us emotionally and physically from infanthood onward. As adults working through developing safety and security with a therapist, we notice

We can learn to reconnect with ourselves and our loved ones in a secure manner. When we learn to look outside-in, we start to piece together how our self-concept is not solely reliant on others. For ages, we’ve been hearing this myth around codependency – relying on someone else for emotional comfort is unhealthy and shouldn’t be tolerated in relationships. While research around secure attachment centers on cultivating a healthy “emotional dependency,” it also argues that the

Even being caught in a ‘Freeze and Flee’ Dance, couples who are dedicated to taking a step into the troubled waters together, and are choosing to build a closer emotional bond, can do so. Insecure cycles of connection, over long periods of time, can ultimately lead to physical and emotional disconnect, as well as complete isolation. When we addressed the various forms of ‘Demon Dialogues’ encapsulated on by Dr. Sue Johnson, we start to see that couples who have been stuck in

Being able to catch your cycle in the moment is the first step towards making space for what is pushing us and our loved ones away from one another. Oftentimes, we’re caught in cycles with our partners that lead to protests for attention and emotional care. In particular, Dr. Sue Johnson speaks to one ‘Demon Dialogue’ as the “Protest Polka”— In the polka, a partner pokes, pries or pecks at their partner when they’re unable to show up for them when needed. In this situation, a

We must learn to rise to the surface and help one another grasp what’s happening when we’re caught in disconnect. Blame can easily become the wedge that drives us apart. When partner’s get caught up in their reactions towards one another, it can become easy to get caught up in ‘Demon Dialogues’. Dr. Sue Johnson shares some beautiful findings in her book, “Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love.” In the text, she shares how one of the most repetitive dialogu

Like storms on the sea, when they lose sight of land, sailors are looking for a source of light to guide them back to shore. Watching couples transform their relationships in therapy is extraordinary. As therapists, we have the upmost privilege guiding couples into safer and richer conversations about vulnerability within their relationships. While we understand how attachments can pull us apart, they are also the glue to our very healing. Dr. Sue Johnson (2008) tells us, “Th

Empathy is a great source for building a safe attunement to our partners. It transcends insecure ways of connecting by delving into some of the scariest places — where we’ve learned to protect ourselves. Like every heartbeat that keeps us alive, we are given so many chances to bond and form connections with those around us. It can be difficult at times, but we are “bonding mammals,” as Dr. Sue Johnson tells us when she addresses the value of secure attachment in her research.

If we learn to confront others experiences with a guard, protecting ourselves from moving too deeply into the waters, we can likely perpetuate more insecurity for our client. Last week, I had just finished up a four-day externship for Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. One of the very important notes that really sat with me was, “you can’t take your clients where you haven’t gone before.” Because EFT is very centered on exploring underlying emotion and attachment needs, we

In 2013, Tronick told the Washington Post, ““we just didn’t have any idea how powerful the connection with other people was for infants, and how, when you disconnect, how powerfully negative the effect was on the infant” (Mock, 2020). In 1975, a researcher by the name of Edward Tronick presented the “Still Face Experiment” to the Society for Research in Child Development. Along with colleagues, Tronick conveyed the message that emotional disengagement with an infant lead to e

Despite our backgrounds or expectations for attachments, we may hit icebergs and endure the trembling waters of affairs. In various cultures or religions, there are different views on how couples are supposed to form their attachments with their partners. Considering research surrounding these findings, we really get to understand the emotional lens of how couples share their underlying feels and attachment needs with their loved ones. The biggest take away I’d like you to re

Our reactions, while valid, can also be a part of how we protect ourselves. In many insecure attachments, we find that there isn’t a space where it’s okay to simply share what’s going on underneath. Sometimes in our relationships, the hardest thing to do is approach our partner when we are upset with them. I sit with clients every day, and often I articulate that reactions can be so much easier than sharing our very vulnerable emotion. The way we actively handle our emotions

47,511 individuals completed suicide in 2019. Of these statistics, there is a great significance around the percentage of men who are completing suicide in the United States. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hits hard with the following findings regarding suicidality in the United States— In 2019, men died by suicide 3.63x more often than women. On average, there are 130 suicides per day. White males accounted for 69.38% of suicide deaths in 2019 47,511 i

At times, we might have the answer to our loved one’s pain, but making sure to check in and see that their need is being met can make even more of a difference in how we connect. If you’ve ever thought about life, maybe you’ve felt fear about death and what it means to you. Maybe you’ve asked yourself, “what will I leave behind?” Maybe you’ve actually experienced a passive thought around life or death from time to time – something like, “what’s the point?” or “maybe this woul

To those we love dearly, we can utilize our relationship, and that safety and security specifically, to provide a model for how we reach for comfort. This is an exact question I’ve asked in relationships in my life. It is a question I’ve searched on Google for, because I felt like something was wrong when I wasn’t able to share those emotions or deepest parts of myself with those in my life. I realize logic plays a key factor throughout our lives—as a student, I needed to abs

The obstacles I speak to here are centered on feeling disconnected, disengaged, or disregarded by our partners. You might’ve felt at times that you weren’t a “priority” to someone in your life, but eventually, you acknowledged that this was your new normal, and you had to accept that this way of connecting was your reality. When we’re reaching out to our partners, we might find that we have sudden moments that we’re jerked back from what we’re trying to communicate with them.

If we’re sure that we want to build that secure attachment with our loved one, and they’re dedicated to building that safety as well, we can face the roadblocks together. In therapy, we have a responsibility to help our clients process their emotional struggles. To move in the right direction towards secure attachment, we must cross roadblocks and intersections that can steer us away from our partners— these moments are vital, because they provide rest areas for us to lean in