Have you ever wondered why you struggle to trust others, fear abandonment, or feel overwhelmed by intimacy? Or why certain patterns keep showing up in your relationships, no matter how much you try to change them?
Much of this can be traced back to something fundamental: your attachment style.
What Are Attachment Styles?
Attachment styles are the emotional and behavioral patterns we develop in early childhood to connect with our caregivers. They shape how we view ourselves, others, and relationships throughout our lives. The four main types are:
- Secure Attachment – Developed when caregivers are consistently responsive and attuned.
- Anxious Attachment – Formed when care is inconsistent or intrusive.
- Avoidant Attachment – Develops when caregivers are emotionally unavailable or rejecting.
- Disorganized Attachment – Often the result of early trauma, abuse, or neglect.
While attachment patterns form early, they’re not fixed. With awareness, support, and the right kind of healing, they can change. This is where EMDR therapy—particularly when focused on early childhood memories—can be transformational.
Why Focus on Childhood?
Our earliest attachment experiences are stored in the nervous system and often held in implicit memory—outside of our conscious awareness. Even if you don’t have clear memories of early events, your body and nervous system remember.
How EMDR Helps Heal Attachment Wounds
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful, evidence-based therapy. Here’s how EMDR works for early childhood wounds:
1. Accesses Core Memories
2. Desensitizes Emotional Triggers
3. Rebuilds a Sense of Safety
4. Helps Develop a 'New Inner Parent'
EMDR Is Not Just for Trauma—It’s for Attachment
Many people don’t consider themselves traumatized but still carry deep wounds. EMDR offers a pathway to untangle these early blueprints.
Final Thoughts
Your attachment style is not your fault—but healing it is your opportunity. With trauma-informed support like EMDR, you can begin to rewrite those early stories—so they no longer define your present or your future.
Healing Attachment Wounds: A Message for Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma
If you're an adult survivor of childhood trauma, you might carry wounds that are hard to name but impossible to ignore. Maybe you struggle to trust others, to feel worthy in relationships, or to believe that real emotional safety exists.
These early attachment wounds run deep. And while they can shape the way you see yourself and the world, they don't have to define you forever.
Understanding Attachment Through a Trauma Lens
Attachment trauma isn’t always about what did happen. It’s also about what didn’t—the love that wasn’t safe, the comfort that wasn’t offered. These unmet needs become internalized beliefs like 'I’m too much' or 'I can’t trust anyone.'
EMDR therapy helps uncover and heal the origin of these beliefs by processing unresolved memories at the root level—often going back to the earliest moments of emotional pain or neglect.
How EMDR Supports Adult Survivors
You don’t need to remember every detail. EMDR uses your current symptoms to find the starting point for healing. With guided processing, you can begin to let go of old survival strategies and feel what it’s like to be truly safe, seen, and supported.
This process can be life-changing for adult survivors who have spent years in talk therapy but still feel stuck in their bodies or their relationships.
My Approach
In my trauma-informed practice, I offer virtual EMDR therapy for adults in Florida and Colorado. I specialize in helping adult survivors, people-pleasers, and those struggling with high-functioning anxiety.
You deserve healing—not just insight, but transformation. EMDR can help you reconnect with your core self—the one who has always deserved love, safety, and belonging.
The Trauma We Didn’t Know Was Trauma: Understanding and Healing Early Attachment Wounds
Not all trauma is loud. Sometimes, it’s the quiet absence of warmth. The unmet gaze. The comfort that never came. The emotional connection we longed for but didn’t receive.
This is early attachment trauma—and it’s one of the most overlooked yet impactful kinds of wounding we can carry into adulthood.
What Is Early Attachment Trauma?
Attachment trauma isn’t always caused by dramatic events. It often comes from subtle, chronic misattunements in early childhood—when a parent was emotionally distant, critical, or preoccupied.
Examples include:
- Being comforted for physical pain, but not for emotional hurt
- Being shamed for crying or needing reassurance
- Being praised for being 'independent' when you really felt alone
These experiences can lead to beliefs like:
- 'My needs don’t matter'
- 'I have to earn love'
- 'If I’m vulnerable, I’ll be rejected'
Why It Still Hurts (Even Decades Later)
Early trauma is stored in the nervous system and can lead to:
- Chronic anxiety
- People-pleasing
- Difficulty trusting others
- Feeling 'too much' or 'not enough'
How EMDR Helps Heal Early Attachment Trauma
EMDR can reach even preverbal memories through bilateral stimulation. It gently accesses emotional responses stored in the body and shifts deep-seated beliefs.
You Deserve More Than Insight—You Deserve Healing
Insight helps us understand. EMDR helps us feel differently—safe, connected, and worthy. Healing is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone.