Why Attachment-Informed Therapy?
I have a confession: it may look like I specialize in helping people who struggle in relationships—and in many ways, I do. But in reality, I work with anyone who may be suffering from anxiety, depression, or many other mental health concerns. This is because attachment-informed therapy isn’t just about romantic relationships, or any other type of relationship for that matter. It’s about how we come to understand ourselves through the lens of connection—or disconnection—with others.
In a nutshell, attachment theory helps provide a neurobiological map of how we become who we are.
Our brains are fundamentally wired for connection. From birth, we seek proximity and communication with our caregivers—not just for survival, but to help us make meaning of our world. The right hemisphere of the brain, dominant in the first two years of life, is responsible for processing nonverbal cues like eye contact, tone of voice, touch, and even scent. These early relational experiences are received and interpreted by the brain’s limbic structures (the emotional part of the brain), which begin to assemble our deepest, often unconscious, expectations about the world.
Let me introduce you to someone—let’s call her Anna.
Anna was a sensitive baby. She startled easily at loud sounds, cried when her environment felt chaotic, and reached instinctively for closeness. Her mother, though loving, had grown up in a household where emotions were rarely acknowledged. She had learned to cope by minimizing her own emotional life, and without realizing it, she responded to Anna’s distress with subtle withdrawal—a furrowed brow, a head shake, offering distractions, or encouraging her to “be strong.”
Anna’s brain, still forming its internal blueprint for safety and belonging, began to encode these patterns. She learned, not through words but through experience, that emotional expression might lead to disconnection. Her nervous system adapted: she became hyper-attuned to others’ moods, scanning for signs of rejection, and gradually learned to suppress her own feelings to preserve closeness.
This is the emotional legacy passed from one generation to the next—not through overt messages, but through body, tone, and gaze. Anna didn’t just learn how to behave in relationships; she learned how to feel about herself. Without someone to help reflect back and normalize her internal experience, she is much more likely to experience shame about it. This may show up as feelings of being “too much”, misunderstood, not normal, or fear of rejection from others. Or, this could be so deeply internalized that Anna as an adult is not consciously aware of any issues at all—though there may be signs that show up in her relationships with others.
These early regulatory patterns, some formed before language and conscious memory, become etched into the architecture of the brain. They shape not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our own internal world. Are emotions dangerous? Shameful? Overwhelming? Do we feel alone in them, or do we trust that someone will meet us there?
At the heart of secure attachment is attuned responsiveness: the felt experience of our internal world being seen, understood, and responded to in a way that lets us feel securely felt by another. If you are a parent yourself reading this—don’t panic. Research shows that accurate attunement is only needed roughly 30% of the time across your child’s upbringing. With this we can see that ruptures are built into the system. In fact, repair after misattunement provides important opportunities for building trust with your child.
When secure attunement is not available enough, our wise bodies adapt. But the tradeoff may result in low self-worth, high reactivity, difficulty regulating emotions, and feelings of disconnection—even in the presence of others. And if this is the case, it’s understandable that anxiety and depression may be more likely to show up in your life.
Attachment-informed therapy is not about blaming parents or dissecting every relationship. It’s about understanding the unconscious patterns that live in the body and nervous system, and gently bringing them into awareness. It’s about creating a space where early relational wounds can be met with attunement, curiosity, and care—so that with your therapist, you might build a stronger, more compassionate relationship with yourself, your emotions, and others you care about.
This approach isn’t just for people struggling in relationships. It’s for anyone who has ever felt like their emotions are too much, or not enough. For anyone who has learned to hide parts of themselves to feel safe. For anyone who wants to understand why they react the way they do—and begin to rewrite the story.
