Discover how early attachment experiences influence our adult relationships and emotional health.
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
Discover how early attachment experiences influence our adult relationships and emotional health.
In a brief overview of attachment theory, learn how early attachment experiences and adaptations (or styles) become the blueprint for how we perceive and interact in our adult relationships—shaping emotional responses and influencing our ability to form secure connections as adults.
Traumatic events and experiences can deeply affect our core relational blueprint and disrupt our nervous system. Discover why this disruption makes it hard to regulate emotional distress, and learn the value of emotional safety in handling challenges and restoring balance.
Creating a safe therapeutic space for others often means strengthening your secure attachment skills first. Learn how to identify your own patterns and navigate emotional responses to build trust, instill confidence, and work more effectively with clients.
We’ll share a few simple strategies and experiential exercises to try—or share with clients. Learn how to promote secure attachment, support emotional regulation and safety, and strengthen intimacy, fulfillment, and resilience.
Attachment styles (or adaptations) form from our earliest relationship and deeply influence how we connect and feel in our adult life.
This short questionnaire is an easy tool to quickly understand your unique attachment patterns in the context of relationships. It’s great for sparking personal growth or offering insights during client sessions.
Tune in and learn directly from Dr. Diane Poole Heller!
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
Can’t join live? Sign up now and we’ll send you a free replay the next day.
For better or worse, the attachment style we developed in childhood continues to shape our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, physical health, and relationship dynamics into adulthood.
These ingrained patterns—typically stemming from unresolved trauma linked to our attachment experiences and adaptations—can activate emotional responses in subtle, unrecognized ways.
When we feel anxious, fearful, overwhelmed, angry, or stressed, those early patterns can serve as a “default mode of operation” in adult relationships.
That often means we filter our current relationships through the lens of past experiences, particularly those where we didn’t feel safe, which then limits our ability to connect and express emotions effectively or understand the needs of others.
And because certain dynamics feel so familiar to us, we may even act out in ways that unconsciously recreate the environment in which we grew up.
While you may not have had control over the experiences that formed your attachment patterns, recognizing and understanding your own attachment patterns holds the key to addressing unresolved trauma, establishing emotional safety and trust, and improving connection in any type of relationship.
No one has a 100% secure attachment style all the time. What’s more, it’s common for many of us to exhibit traits and emotions from multiple attachment styles––and the specific relationship we’re in can often determine which of these styles comes to the forefront.
The truth is, attachment styles aren’t fixed.
And when we recognize that many of our current relationship patterns stem from our early upbringing rather than our own (or our partner’s) shortcomings, we can approach these situations with more compassion and empathy, which is vital for healing.
Understanding more about why you think and feel the way you do, especially in the context of your attachment experiences, holds the key to overcoming patterns of wounded, insecure attachment.
By exploring what environments and interactions feel safe to us––and learning how to work with (and heal) our wounded attachment systems, we can begin to expand our ability to understand and effectively manage our emotions, leading to more fulfilling and resilient relationships.
Whether you’re looking to heal old wounds or build stronger connections, understanding attachment is an important step in any healing journey.
Tune in and learn directly from Dr. Diane Poole Heller!
1 pm ET / 11 am MT / 10 am PT
Find the time in your area
Can’t join live? Sign up now and we’ll send you a free replay the next day.
When we learn more about attachment dynamics—those of ourself and others—and we apply that knowledge compassionately, we are able to foster secure attachment in relationships that may have been previously fraught with anxiety, insecurity, or habitual disengagement.
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.
