Join Dr. Diane Poole Heller for a live masterclass to explore how unresolved trauma leads to disorganized attachment patterns. Learn strategies to uncover these adaptive behaviors and support clients in building secure, healthy connections.
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
In a brief overview of the disorganized attachment adaptation, we’ll explore its defining characteristics and manifestations, clarifying why clinicians often encounter challenges when addressing certain behaviors or emotions.
Discover why profound trauma (such as neglect, abuse or loss) often remains unrecognized––yet continues to shape how we think, feel, communicate, and behave in unhealthy ways, affecting our ability to form meaningful connections in adult relationships.
Learn how to identify trauma symptoms held in the body and apply therapeutic interventions that address both trauma and disorganized attachment patterns simultaneously, helping clients move toward secure attachment.
Because we all react to trauma differently—and there is no single way to think, feel, or behave—this practical resource helps you identify common responses and symptoms of trauma.
It’s a valuable assessment you can use with clients, either in print or digitally, as a starting point for deeper exploration or to check progress periodically.
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
Helping clients heal from trauma is one of the most challenging aspects of our work. But it becomes even more intricate when your client has disorganized attachment that stems from early unresolved trauma.
This trauma is often deeply buried—hidden—within the individual’s psyche, making it challenging to access and address during therapy sessions.
And unlike other attachment styles, disorganized attachment doesn’t have clear-cut, defined patterns. Instead, it’s characterized by a mixture of contradictory behaviors, irregular or sudden shifts, and responses that can be hard to categorize or predict.
During therapy sessions, that can make it even more difficult for your client to tolerate strong emotions or develop a trusting bond. To conceal their vulnerability, people with disorganized attachment often mask their genuine emotions, fears or needs, making it harder for therapists to reach their authentic feelings or understand what they’re truly experiencing.
Living with disorganized attachment is not easy. And neither is working with it in the therapy room… there is a lot of cognitive and emotional confusion.
For those of us struggling with the disorganized adaptation, the most important corrective experiences are learning to self-regulate and to co-regulate, which helps us make sense of experiences, emotions and needs in a safe environment.
At the heart of this journey is the recognition of past traumatic experiences that have continue to shape our adult relationship patterns. When we can get to the root of—and identify—the unresolved trauma, we can then begin to process and address these hidden wounds with practical, powerful and proven attachment-based therapeutic interventions.
As we offer clients the secure base and emotional support they lacked in their early years we can guide them toward deeper healing and healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
“The disorganized attachment style is the most complex of all because this stye doesn’t present reliable behavioral or experiential patterns to track. It’s irregular and marked by sudden shifts—and that can make it tricky to understand and work with.”
Diane Poole Heller PhD, is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and teaching expert in the field of adult attachment theory and trauma resolution.
Her signature approach—DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience)—provides therapists and individuals with relevant skills and practical exercises that facilitate healing from attachment and trauma wounds.
Her work with adult attachment has forged a path for adults with childhood attachment injuries to develop Secure Attachment Skills (SAS) that lead to more connected and fulfilling adult relationships. Through various training programs, books, lectures and her own work as a clinical therapist, Dr. Heller has helped a countless number of people in their healing journey towards experiencing greater intimacy, wholeness and more fulfilling relationships.
She believes that when we heal ourselves first, we heal our families, our communities and the world as a whole.
