Your first 30-minute session is FREE.
25 years of clinical experience.
Longer session time.
Unlimited text communication.
512-649-0302
25 years of clinical experience.
Longer session time.
Unlimited text communication.
512-649-0302
What is Attachment?
Children don’t stop needing love when love becomes unavailable. They become more inventive about getting it.
Anxious Attachment
Folks who developed an anxious attachment style fear abandonment.
Even as tiny children, they develop highly advanced skills to try to get the attention and love they needed without risking withdrawal from others.
They learn to read the room, anticipate moods, hide their disappointment, become indispensable, or explain themselves until someone finally understands. Those with anxious attachment work harder and harder to keep the people they love happy, so they'll never have a reason to leave.
One of the damaging consequences of anxious attachment is that you learn to put everyone's else's feelings ahead of your own. Since you make your needs matter less than other's needs, they begin to treat you as if you matter less, too. It's a vicious cycle.
Even as tiny children, they develop highly advanced skills to try to get the attention and love they needed without risking withdrawal from others.
They learn to read the room, anticipate moods, hide their disappointment, become indispensable, or explain themselves until someone finally understands. Those with anxious attachment work harder and harder to keep the people they love happy, so they'll never have a reason to leave.
One of the damaging consequences of anxious attachment is that you learn to put everyone's else's feelings ahead of your own. Since you make your needs matter less than other's needs, they begin to treat you as if you matter less, too. It's a vicious cycle.
Avoidant Attachment
Kids who developed an avoidant attachment style fear losing their independence or sense of self in a close relationship.
Even as little people, they developed highly advanced skills to try to get the attention and love they needed without exposing themselves to the intense pain of disappointment.
They learned to hide their hurt, handle things alone, minimize their needs, and retreat into themselves when relationships became emotionally overwhelming.
Love is a basic human need. That's what makes avoidant attachment so complicated. You need connection to feel safe, but the closer someone gets... the less safe you may feel. Another viscous cycle.
Even as little people, they developed highly advanced skills to try to get the attention and love they needed without exposing themselves to the intense pain of disappointment.
They learned to hide their hurt, handle things alone, minimize their needs, and retreat into themselves when relationships became emotionally overwhelming.
Love is a basic human need. That's what makes avoidant attachment so complicated. You need connection to feel safe, but the closer someone gets... the less safe you may feel. Another viscous cycle.
How Therapy Heals the Wounds That Make Relationships So Painful
You can’t learn to trust love while you’re terrified of losing it.
In therapy, we slow those triggered moments down. We create a super safe place to bring the things you’ve never dared to say. With a therapist who genuinely cares about you, you discover that being fully yourself doesn’t have to cost you someone’s love. Practicing it with your therapist isn't just skill-building. It goes much deeper: it subconsciously teaches your nervous system that it can trust. Once you're stronger, you can take that trust out into your relationships.
But there’s another kind of healing, too.
Together, we use exercises to find and deeply care for the terrified parts inside you. For the anxious person - it's the part of you that learned to chase love. For the avoidant person, it's the part of you that runs from the attention you actually need.
We help those parts learn that YOU aren't shameful or wrong. When our deepest self begins to feel safe enough to lay down the exhausting attachment behaviors, little by little you discover that you can love someone with your whole heart without losing yourself.
In therapy, we slow those triggered moments down. We create a super safe place to bring the things you’ve never dared to say. With a therapist who genuinely cares about you, you discover that being fully yourself doesn’t have to cost you someone’s love. Practicing it with your therapist isn't just skill-building. It goes much deeper: it subconsciously teaches your nervous system that it can trust. Once you're stronger, you can take that trust out into your relationships.
But there’s another kind of healing, too.
Together, we use exercises to find and deeply care for the terrified parts inside you. For the anxious person - it's the part of you that learned to chase love. For the avoidant person, it's the part of you that runs from the attention you actually need.
We help those parts learn that YOU aren't shameful or wrong. When our deepest self begins to feel safe enough to lay down the exhausting attachment behaviors, little by little you discover that you can love someone with your whole heart without losing yourself.