Attachment Trauma: How Early Relationships Shape Your Adult Connections

I remember the first time I met Lisa. She sat in my office, perfectly put together on the outside, but her eyes held a familiar pain I’d seen countless times before. “I don’t understand why I keep choosing the wrong people,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want love so badly, but every time someone gets close, I either push them away or they end up hurting me.”

Lisa’s story isn’t unique. In my practice, I see this pattern over and over again—people who desperately want connection but find themselves trapped in cycles of relationship pain that seem to repeat no matter how hard they try to change them.

As we talked, Lisa told me about her childhood. Her mother struggled with severe anxiety and would alternate between being overly clingy and completely withdrawing when she felt overwhelmed. Her father worked constantly and, when he was home, seemed more interested in his phone than in connecting with his family. Lisa learned early that love was unpredictable, that the people she needed most could disappear without warning, and that her job was to be whatever version of herself might keep them around.

These early experiences with her caregivers created what we call attachment trauma—wounds that form in your earliest relationships and continue to shape how you connect with others throughout your life.

Here’s what I want you to understand: the way you learned to love and be loved in your earliest relationships becomes the blueprint for all your future relationships. If those early relationships were safe, consistent, and nurturing, you likely developed what we call secure attachment—the ability to trust others, communicate your needs, and maintain healthy boundaries while staying connected.

But if those early relationships were inconsistent, frightening, or emotionally unavailable, you likely developed strategies to protect yourself that made sense then but might be creating problems in your adult relationships now.

Understanding early relational trauma and how it damages the foundation of our house can help you recognize how your earliest experiences continue to influence your relationships today.

If you’ve ever wondered was my childhood really that bad or found yourself asking what even is trauma and how do I know if mine counts, you’re not alone. Attachment trauma is often invisible, especially to the people who experienced it, because it becomes your normal way of being in relationships.

What I’ve Learned About Attachment Trauma in My Practice

Through my work with clients from all backgrounds, I’ve come to understand that attachment trauma is one of the most common yet least recognized forms of trauma. Unlike dramatic incidents that we typically think of as traumatic, attachment trauma happens in the quiet moments—in the absence of attunement, in the inconsistency of care, in the emotional unavailability of the people we needed most.

Here’s what makes attachment trauma so complex: it’s not usually about what happened to you, but about what didn’t happen. It’s about the comfort that wasn’t offered when you were scared, the emotional attunement that wasn’t provided when you were overwhelmed, the consistent presence that wasn’t there when you needed it most.

Your attachment system is one of your most fundamental survival systems. As a baby and young child, your survival literally depended on maintaining connection with your caregivers. Your brain was constantly asking: “Am I safe? Can I count on these people? What do I need to do to keep them close?”

The answers to these questions, based on your actual experiences, became wired into your developing brain and nervous system. They formed what psychologists call “internal working models”—unconscious beliefs about yourself, others, and relationships that continue to guide your behavior in relationships throughout your life.

I remember working with James, who came to therapy because his wife said he was “emotionally unavailable.” James grew up with parents who were loving but extremely busy. His father was a surgeon who worked long hours, and his mother managed the household and three children while dealing with her own chronic illness.

James learned early that his needs were less important than everyone else’s problems. That asking for attention or comfort would add to his parents’ stress. That the safest thing to do was to be independent and handle everything on his own.

As an adult, James was incredibly successful and self-sufficient. But in his marriage, these same qualities created distance. His wife felt like she was married to a roommate rather than a partner, and James felt confused because he was doing what he’d always done to be loved—being easy, independent, and not needing anything from anyone.

This is the paradox of attachment trauma: the strategies that helped you survive your early relationships often become the very things that limit your adult relationships.

Understanding professional strengths that become relationship blindspots can help you recognize how survival strategies that serve you well in some areas might be creating challenges in your personal relationships.

Understanding Attachment Theory: The Science of Human Connection

Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, revolutionized our understanding of human relationships by showing us that our capacity for connection is shaped by our earliest experiences with caregivers.

The Attachment System: Your Built-In Connection Blueprint

Your attachment system is an innate biological system designed to keep you close to your caregivers for protection and survival. This system is activated when you feel threatened, stressed, or in need of comfort, and it’s deactivated when you feel safe and secure.

Think of your attachment system like an internal alarm system. When you’re a baby and you feel hungry, scared, or uncomfortable, this system activates and motivates you to seek comfort from your caregivers through crying, reaching, or other attachment behaviors. When your caregivers respond consistently and appropriately, the system calms down and you can return to exploring and learning.

But here’s the crucial part: your attachment system doesn’t just disappear when you grow up. It remains active throughout your life, influencing how you seek comfort, handle stress, and navigate relationships. The patterns you learned in your earliest relationships become the template for all your future relationships.

The Strange Situation: How We Learned About Attachment Styles

Mary Ainsworth‘s famous “Strange Situation” experiment in the 1970s revealed that children develop different strategies for maintaining connection with their caregivers based on how consistently and appropriately their caregivers respond to their needs.

In this experiment, researchers observed how young children (around 12-18 months old) behaved when their mothers left them briefly with a stranger and then returned. What they found was that children fell into distinct patterns of behavior that reflected their expectations about relationships based on their experiences with their caregivers.

These patterns, which we now call attachment styles, represent different strategies children develop to maximize their chances of getting their needs met and maintaining connection with their caregivers, even when those caregivers are inconsistent, rejecting, or frightening.

The Four Attachment Styles

Secure Attachment (about 60% of the population): Children with secure attachment had caregivers who were consistently responsive, sensitive, and emotionally available. These children learned that relationships are generally safe, that their needs matter, and that they can depend on others while also being independent.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment (about 20% of the population): Children with this style had caregivers who were inconsistent—sometimes responsive and loving, sometimes unavailable or rejecting. These children learned that love is unpredictable and they need to work hard to maintain connection.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment (about 15% of the population): Children with this style had caregivers who were consistently emotionally unavailable, rejecting, or dismissive of their emotional needs. These children learned that depending on others leads to disappointment and they need to be self-sufficient.

Disorganized/Fearful-Avoidant Attachment (about 5% of the population): Children with this style had caregivers who were the source of both comfort and fear. These children developed contradictory strategies because they needed their caregivers for survival but also feared them.

Understanding 5 familiar experiences when you come from a relational trauma background can help you recognize how these early attachment patterns continue to show up in your adult relationships.

How Attachment Styles Develop

Your attachment style develops through thousands of small interactions with your primary caregivers during the first few years of life. Your developing brain is constantly asking questions: “When I’m distressed, do my caregivers notice? Do they respond? Do they help me feel better? Can I count on them to be there when I need them?”

Secure Attachment develops when caregivers are consistently attuned to their child’s needs. They notice when their child is distressed, they respond promptly and appropriately, and they help their child return to a calm state. Through these repeated experiences, children learn that relationships are safe, that their emotions are acceptable, and that they can depend on others while also being independent.

Insecure Attachment develops when caregivers are inconsistent, rejecting, or frightening. Children adapt by developing strategies to maximize their chances of getting their needs met, even when their caregivers are not reliably available or responsive.

It’s important to understand that insecure attachment styles are not pathological—they’re adaptive responses to less-than-optimal caregiving. Children who develop insecure attachment are doing the best they can to maintain connection with their caregivers and get their needs met in whatever environment they find themselves in.

The Neurobiology of Attachment

Attachment experiences literally shape your developing brain. Dr. Allan Schore‘s research in interpersonal neurobiology shows us that the right brain, which governs emotional regulation, attachment, and stress response, develops primarily through relational experiences in the first two years of life.

When caregivers are consistently attuned and responsive, children’s brains develop healthy patterns of emotional regulation and stress response. When caregivers are inconsistent, rejecting, or frightening, children’s brains adapt by developing patterns that prioritize survival over connection and growth.

These early brain patterns become the foundation for how you handle emotions, stress, and relationships throughout your life. But here’s the hopeful part: your brain maintains neuroplasticity throughout your life, which means these patterns can be changed through healing relationships and therapeutic work.

Understanding the definition of relational trauma with examples can help you see how attachment trauma fits into the broader category of relational trauma.

The Four Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships

Your childhood attachment style doesn’t disappear when you grow up—it becomes the blueprint for how you approach adult relationships. Understanding these patterns can help you recognize your own attachment style and begin to understand why certain relationship dynamics feel familiar or challenging.

Secure Attachment: The Gold Standard

Adults with secure attachment make up about 60% of the population and tend to have the healthiest, most satisfying relationships. If you have secure attachment, you likely:

In Relationships: Feel comfortable with intimacy and independence; communicate your needs directly and honestly; trust that your partner cares about you even during conflicts; can give your partner space without feeling threatened; handle relationship stress without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down; and believe that problems can be worked through together.

Internal Experience: Have a generally positive view of yourself and others; feel worthy of love and care; trust that relationships can be safe and satisfying; can regulate your emotions effectively, especially during relationship stress; and have realistic expectations about relationships—you know they require work but believe they’re worth it.

How It Developed: You likely had caregivers who were consistently responsive, emotionally available, and attuned to your needs. They helped you learn that relationships are generally safe, that your emotions are acceptable, and that you can depend on others while also being independent.

I worked with a couple, Maria and David, where Maria had secure attachment. Even when they were going through a difficult period in their marriage, Maria was able to express her concerns without attacking David’s character, listen to his perspective even when she disagreed, and maintain hope that they could work through their problems together. Her secure attachment provided stability for both of them during a challenging time.

Understanding attachment styles and leadership can help you see how secure attachment benefits not just personal relationships but professional ones as well.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: The Relationship Worrier

Adults with anxious-preoccupied attachment make up about 20% of the population and tend to be highly focused on relationships but often struggle with relationship anxiety. If you have anxious attachment, you might:

In Relationships: Worry constantly about your partner’s feelings for you; need frequent reassurance that you’re loved and valued; become overwhelmed when your partner is unavailable or distant; interpret neutral behaviors as signs of rejection; feel like you love more than you’re loved; have difficulty giving your partner space without feeling abandoned; and become preoccupied with relationship problems to the extent that it’s hard to focus on other areas of life.

Internal Experience: Have a generally negative view of yourself but a positive view of others; feel like you need to work hard to earn and keep love; believe that others are capable of love but worry that you’re not worthy of it; struggle with emotional regulation, especially around relationship issues; and have a strong fear of abandonment that influences many of your relationship decisions.

How It Developed: You likely had caregivers who were inconsistent—sometimes loving and responsive, sometimes unavailable or rejecting. You learned that love is unpredictable and that you need to work hard to maintain connection. You might have had a parent who was dealing with their own emotional issues and was sometimes emotionally available and sometimes completely overwhelmed.

I remember working with Sarah, who would spend hours analyzing text messages from her boyfriend, looking for signs that he was losing interest. When he didn’t respond immediately, she would spiral into anxiety, imagining that he was planning to break up with her. Her anxious attachment made it difficult for her to trust that love could be stable and secure.

Understanding why you feel guilty complaining about your mother can help you recognize how anxious attachment often develops in relationships with caregivers who were loving but inconsistent.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment: The Independent One

Adults with dismissive-avoidant attachment make up about 15% of the population and tend to value independence and self-sufficiency over emotional connection. If you have avoidant attachment, you might:

In Relationships: Feel uncomfortable with too much closeness or intimacy; prefer to handle problems on your own rather than seeking support; have difficulty expressing emotions or needs; feel suffocated by your partner’s emotional needs; maintain emotional distance even in committed relationships; minimize the importance of relationships while focusing on achievement or other goals; and struggle to provide emotional support to others.

Internal Experience: Have a generally positive view of yourself but a negative view of others; believe that you’re better off relying on yourself; see emotional needs as weakness or inconvenience; struggle to identify and express emotions; and have learned to find safety in independence rather than connection.

How It Developed: You likely had caregivers who were consistently emotionally unavailable, rejecting, or dismissive of your emotional needs. You learned that depending on others leads to disappointment and that the safest strategy is to be self-sufficient. You might have had parents who valued achievement over emotional connection or who were uncomfortable with emotions themselves.

I worked with Michael, a successful attorney who came to therapy because his wife threatened to leave him. Michael was incredibly competent and self-sufficient, but his wife felt like she was married to a stranger. When she tried to talk about her feelings or their relationship, Michael would either try to “fix” the problem logically or withdraw completely. His avoidant attachment made emotional intimacy feel dangerous and overwhelming.

Understanding the strong one and its emotional cost can help you recognize how avoidant attachment often develops when children learn that their emotional needs are burdens.

Disorganized/Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: The Push-Pull Pattern

Adults with disorganized attachment make up about 5% of the population and tend to have the most chaotic and painful relationship patterns. If you have disorganized attachment, you might:

In Relationships: Want close relationships but fear being hurt; have relationships that feel chaotic or unstable; alternate between being clingy and distant; struggle with trust and often test relationships; have difficulty regulating emotions during relationship stress; feel confused about your own needs and feelings; and find yourself in relationships that recreate familiar patterns of chaos or trauma.

Internal Experience: Have negative views of both yourself and others; feel like relationships are both necessary and dangerous; struggle with emotional regulation and often feel overwhelmed; have difficulty with identity and knowing what you want; and carry deep wounds from early relationships that feel both terrifying and necessary.

How It Developed: You likely had caregivers who were the source of both comfort and fear. This might have involved abuse, severe neglect, or caregivers who were so overwhelmed by their own trauma that they were sometimes loving and sometimes frightening. You learned that the people you need most are also the people who can hurt you most.

I remember working with Jessica, who described her relationships as “emotional roller coasters.” She would fall in love quickly and intensely, then become terrified that her partner would leave her. She would alternate between being incredibly loving and pushing her partner away, testing whether they would stay even when she was difficult. Her disorganized attachment made it almost impossible to feel safe in relationships, even when her partners were consistently loving.

Understanding childhood trauma adaptations and how they show up as both superpowers and kryptonite can help you recognize how disorganized attachment often involves developing contradictory survival strategies.

How Attachment Trauma Shows Up in Adult Life

Attachment trauma affects every aspect of your adult functioning, often in ways that seem unrelated to your early relationships. Understanding these patterns can help you recognize attachment trauma in yourself and begin to make sense of relationship struggles that might have felt confusing or shameful.

Relationship Patterns and Dynamics

Fear of Abandonment: You might find yourself constantly worried that people will leave you, becoming anxious when partners are unavailable, or ending relationships before the other person can leave you. This fear often leads to behaviors that actually push people away, creating the very abandonment you’re trying to avoid.

Fear of Intimacy: On the flip side, you might feel uncomfortable when people get too close, sabotaging relationships when they become serious, or maintaining emotional walls that keep people at a safe distance. Intimacy feels dangerous because it makes you vulnerable to being hurt.

People-Pleasing: You might lose yourself in relationships, constantly trying to anticipate what others need, or feeling like you have to earn love through performance rather than just being yourself. This often leads to resentment and burnout.

Boundary Issues: You might have either no boundaries (letting people walk all over you) or such rigid boundaries that no one can get close to you. Healthy boundaries—being able to say no while staying connected—feel impossible.

Caretaking: You might feel responsible for everyone else’s emotions and needs, be drawn to people who need rescuing, or feel guilty when you focus on your own needs. This pattern often recreates the parentified role you might have had in childhood.

Emotional Dysregulation in Relationships: You might find that relationship stress sends you into emotional overwhelm or complete shutdown. Small conflicts feel like threats to the relationship’s survival, making it difficult to work through normal relationship challenges.

I worked with a client, Rachel, who had a pattern of intense, short-lived relationships. She would meet someone and feel an immediate, overwhelming connection. Within weeks, she would be planning their future together. But as soon as her partner showed any sign of having their own needs or boundaries, Rachel would feel rejected and either become clingy and demanding or abruptly end the relationship.

This pattern made sense when we understood Rachel’s attachment history. Her mother had been loving but extremely inconsistent due to untreated bipolar disorder. Rachel learned that love was intense but unpredictable, and that she needed to hold on tight when it was available because it could disappear at any moment.

Understanding 5 signs your childhood may have negatively impacted you can help you recognize how attachment trauma might be affecting your adult relationships.

Internal Working Models: The Stories You Tell Yourself

Attachment trauma creates internal working models—unconscious beliefs about yourself, others, and relationships that guide your behavior. These might include:

About Yourself: “I’m not worthy of love,” “I’m too much for people,” “I have to be perfect to be loved,” “My needs don’t matter,” “I’m fundamentally flawed,” or “I can’t trust my own feelings.”

About Others: “People always leave,” “No one can be trusted,” “Everyone will hurt me eventually,” “People only love me when I’m useful,” “Others are more important than me,” or “People can’t handle my real self.”

About Relationships: “Love is conditional,” “Relationships are dangerous,” “I have to choose between being close and being safe,” “Conflict means the relationship is over,” “I have to earn love through performance,” or “Good things don’t last.”

These beliefs operate largely outside of your conscious awareness, but they powerfully influence your relationship choices and behaviors. You might find yourself attracted to people who confirm these beliefs or behaving in ways that create the very outcomes you fear.

Emotional Regulation Challenges

Attachment trauma significantly affects your ability to regulate emotions, especially in relational contexts:

Emotional Overwhelm: Relationship stress might send you into emotional overwhelm where you can’t think clearly or respond rationally. Small conflicts feel like threats to your survival.

Emotional Shutdown: Alternatively, you might shut down emotionally when relationships become stressful, becoming numb or disconnected as a way to protect yourself from overwhelming feelings.

Difficulty Identifying Emotions: You might struggle to know what you’re feeling, especially in relationships. Emotions might feel confusing, overwhelming, or dangerous.

Projection: You might project your own feelings onto others, assuming they feel the same way you do or interpreting their behavior through the lens of your own emotional state.

Emotional Contagion: You might absorb other people’s emotions so completely that you lose track of your own feelings, becoming anxious when others are anxious or depressed when others are sad.

Understanding I’m so dysregulated, what can I do can provide strategies for managing emotional dysregulation while you work on healing attachment wounds.

Physical and Somatic Symptoms

Attachment trauma is stored in your body and nervous system, not just in your mind. You might experience:

Chronic Anxiety: A constant sense of unease or danger, especially in relationships. Your nervous system might be chronically activated, always scanning for threats to connection.

Depression: Feelings of hopelessness about relationships or your worthiness of love. This might feel like a deep sadness or emptiness that’s hard to shake.

Hypervigilance: Constantly monitoring other people’s moods and behaviors, looking for signs of rejection or abandonment. This can be exhausting and make it difficult to relax in relationships.

Somatic Symptoms: Physical symptoms like headaches, digestive issues, chronic pain, or fatigue that might be related to the chronic stress of insecure attachment.

Sleep Issues: Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, especially during relationship stress. Your nervous system might be too activated to allow for deep rest.

Understanding when stillness feels like falling and the neurobiology of rest resistance can help you understand why relaxation might feel dangerous when you have attachment trauma.

Impact on Self-Worth and Identity

Attachment trauma profoundly affects your sense of self and self-worth:

Conditional Self-Worth: Feeling like your worth depends on other people’s approval or on your performance in relationships. You might feel good about yourself only when relationships are going well.

Identity Confusion: Not knowing who you are outside of relationships, or feeling like you become a different person in each relationship depending on what you think the other person wants.

Chronic Shame: Feeling like there’s something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you unworthy of love. This shame often feels like a core part of your identity rather than a feeling that comes and goes.

External Validation Seeking: Needing constant reassurance from others to feel okay about yourself. Your sense of self might fluctuate dramatically based on how others treat you.

Difficulty with Authenticity: Struggling to be your real self in relationships because you learned early that your authentic self wasn’t acceptable or safe to show.

Attachment Trauma Across Different Relationships

Attachment trauma doesn’t just affect romantic relationships—it influences all your relationships throughout life. Understanding how attachment patterns show up in different contexts can help you recognize the pervasive impact of early attachment experiences.

Romantic Relationships: Where Attachment Patterns Are Most Visible

Romantic relationships tend to activate your attachment system more intensely than other relationships because they involve the highest levels of intimacy, vulnerability, and interdependence. This is where attachment patterns are often most visible:

Anxious Attachment in Romance: You might become preoccupied with your partner’s feelings for you, need constant reassurance, become jealous easily, or have difficulty giving your partner space. You might interpret normal relationship challenges as signs that your partner is losing interest.

Avoidant Attachment in Romance: You might feel uncomfortable with emotional intimacy, prefer to maintain independence even in committed relationships, have difficulty expressing feelings or needs, or feel suffocated by your partner’s emotional needs.

Disorganized Attachment in Romance: You might have chaotic relationship patterns, alternating between being clingy and distant, struggling with trust, or finding yourself in relationships that recreate familiar patterns of drama or instability.

I remember working with a couple, Tom and Lisa, where Tom had avoidant attachment and Lisa had anxious attachment. The more Lisa pursued emotional connection, the more Tom withdrew. The more Tom withdrew, the more anxious Lisa became. They were stuck in what we call the “pursuer-distancer” dynamic, where each person’s attachment strategy triggered the other’s fears.

Understanding professional strengths that become relationship blindspots can help you recognize how attachment patterns that serve you well in some contexts might create challenges in intimate relationships.

Friendships: The Testing Ground for Trust

Friendships often serve as a testing ground for your capacity to trust and connect with others. Attachment trauma might show up in friendships as:

Difficulty Making Friends: You might struggle to initiate friendships or feel like you don’t know how to connect with people on a deeper level.

Intense Friendships: You might form very intense friendships quickly, sharing too much too soon or expecting more from friends than they’re able to give.

Fear of Rejection: You might be constantly worried that friends don’t really like you or that they’ll abandon you if they get to know the “real” you.

Boundary Issues: You might have difficulty saying no to friends, become overly involved in their problems, or feel responsible for their emotions.

Friendship Patterns: You might notice patterns in your friendships—always being the caretaker, attracting friends who need rescuing, or having friendships that end dramatically.

Parent-Child Relationships: Breaking Intergenerational Cycles

If you have children, your attachment style significantly influences your parenting and your relationship with your children. This can be both challenging and healing:

Anxious Attachment and Parenting: You might be overly involved in your children’s lives, have difficulty allowing them age-appropriate independence, or become anxious when they’re upset or struggling.

Avoidant Attachment and Parenting: You might have difficulty connecting emotionally with your children, feel uncomfortable with their emotional needs, or focus more on practical care than emotional attunement.

Disorganized Attachment and Parenting: You might feel overwhelmed by parenting, struggle with consistency, or find that your children’s needs trigger your own trauma responses.

The hopeful news is that becoming a parent often motivates people to work on their own attachment issues because they want to provide their children with what they didn’t receive. Many people develop “earned security” through the process of learning to be the parent they wish they’d had.

Understanding intergenerational trauma can help you understand how attachment patterns are passed down through families and how you can work to break these cycles.

Professional Relationships: Attachment in the Workplace

Your attachment style also affects your professional relationships and workplace dynamics:

Anxious Attachment at Work: You might need frequent feedback and reassurance from supervisors, become anxious about performance reviews, or take workplace conflicts very personally.

Avoidant Attachment at Work: You might prefer to work independently, have difficulty with collaborative projects, or struggle with workplace relationships that require emotional intelligence.

Disorganized Attachment at Work: You might have chaotic workplace relationships, struggle with authority figures, or find that workplace stress triggers intense emotional responses.

Understanding attachment styles and leadership can help you recognize how your attachment style affects your professional relationships and leadership capacity.

Family of Origin: Where It All Began

Your relationships with your family of origin—parents, siblings, and extended family—are often where attachment patterns are most entrenched and where healing can be most challenging:

Returning to Old Patterns: You might find that you revert to childhood roles and patterns when you’re with your family, even if you’ve developed healthier patterns in other relationships.

Ongoing Triggers: Family interactions might trigger your attachment wounds in ways that other relationships don’t, bringing up old feelings of rejection, abandonment, or inadequacy.

Desire for Repair: You might have a strong desire for your family relationships to be different, hoping that your parents or siblings will finally provide the validation or connection you’ve always wanted.

Grief and Acceptance: Healing often involves grieving the family relationships you wish you’d had and accepting the limitations of what your family can provide.

Understanding six reasons why you might struggle with the term childhood trauma can help you navigate the complex feelings that often arise when examining your family of origin relationships.

The Neurobiology of Attachment Trauma

Understanding how attachment trauma affects your brain and nervous system can help you make sense of your symptoms and choose effective healing approaches. The effects of early attachment experiences on the developing brain are profound and lasting, but they can also be healed through appropriate interventions.

How Attachment Experiences Shape the Developing Brain

Your brain develops through relationships. Dr. Allan Schore‘s groundbreaking research in interpersonal neurobiology shows us that the right brain, which governs emotional regulation, attachment, and stress response, develops primarily through relational experiences in the first two years of life.

Secure Attachment and Brain Development: When caregivers are consistently attuned and responsive, children’s brains develop healthy patterns of emotional regulation and stress response. The neural pathways that support emotional regulation, empathy, and secure relationships are strengthened through repeated experiences of attunement and co-regulation.

Insecure Attachment and Brain Development: When caregivers are inconsistent, rejecting, or frightening, children’s brains adapt by developing patterns that prioritize survival over connection and growth. The neural pathways that support threat detection and self-protection are strengthened, while those that support emotional regulation and secure relationships may be underdeveloped.

The Attachment System and Your Nervous System

Your attachment system is intimately connected to your autonomic nervous system, which controls automatic functions like heart rate, breathing, and stress response. Dr. Stephen Porges‘ Polyvagal Theory helps us understand how attachment experiences affect your nervous system’s ability to feel safe and connect with others.

The Social Engagement System (Ventral Vagal): When you feel safe and securely attached, this system allows you to connect with others, think clearly, and feel calm and present. People with secure attachment have good access to this state.

The Sympathetic System (Fight-or-Flight): When your attachment system is activated due to perceived threats to connection, this system can become activated, flooding your body with stress hormones and preparing you for action. People with anxious attachment often live in chronic sympathetic activation.

The Dorsal Vagal System (Freeze/Shutdown): When attachment threats feel overwhelming or when connection feels dangerous, this system can activate, leading to shutdown, dissociation, or emotional numbing. People with avoidant attachment often use this system to protect themselves from overwhelming attachment needs.

Stress Response Systems and Attachment

Attachment trauma significantly affects your stress response systems:

HPA Axis Dysregulation: Your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis governs your stress response. Chronic attachment stress can lead to dysregulation of this system, resulting in either overproduction or underproduction of stress hormones like cortisol.

Chronic Inflammation: Insecure attachment is associated with higher levels of chronic inflammation, which can contribute to various health problems including autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular disease, and depression.

Immune System Function: Secure attachment is associated with better immune function, while insecure attachment can compromise your immune system’s ability to fight off illness and infection.

Understanding 4 helpful tools when fear triggers your trauma can provide strategies for working with your nervous system when attachment fears are activated.

Mirror Neurons and Emotional Contagion

Mirror neurons are brain cells that fire both when you perform an action and when you observe someone else performing the same action. These neurons play a crucial role in empathy, emotional regulation, and social connection.

In secure attachment relationships, mirror neurons help children learn emotional regulation by “mirroring” their caregivers’ calm, regulated states. When caregivers are consistently regulated and attuned, children’s mirror neurons help them internalize these patterns of regulation.

In insecure attachment relationships, children’s mirror neurons may pick up on their caregivers’ dysregulation, anxiety, or emotional unavailability. This can lead to chronic patterns of emotional dysregulation or emotional shutdown.

Memory Systems and Attachment

Attachment experiences are stored in different memory systems:

Implicit Memory: Your body and nervous system remember attachment experiences even when your conscious mind doesn’t. These implicit memories influence your automatic responses to relationships and intimacy.

Explicit Memory: Conscious memories of attachment experiences, though these may be limited, especially for very early experiences.

Procedural Memory: Your body remembers how to “do” relationships based on your early attachment experiences. These procedural memories operate automatically and influence your relationship behaviors.

This is why you might find yourself reacting to relationship situations in ways that don’t make logical sense—your body is responding based on implicit and procedural memories from early attachment experiences.

Neuroplasticity and Attachment Healing

The hopeful news is that your brain maintains neuroplasticity throughout your life, which means that attachment patterns can be changed through healing relationships and therapeutic work.

Experience-Dependent Plasticity: Your brain continues to change based on your experiences throughout your life. Positive, healing relationships can literally rewire your brain and create new patterns of attachment and emotional regulation.

Therapeutic Neuroplasticity: Effective therapy can promote neuroplasticity by providing new relational experiences and helping you develop new neural pathways for emotional regulation, trust, and secure connection.

Earned Security: Through healing work, you can develop “earned security”—the ability to form secure relationships as an adult, even if you didn’t have secure attachment in childhood.

Understanding emotional regulation tools in our self-care tool chest can provide practical strategies for supporting your nervous system while you work on healing attachment wounds.

Healing Attachment Trauma: A Comprehensive Approach

Healing from attachment trauma is possible, but it often requires a different approach than healing from single-incident trauma. Because attachment trauma affects your fundamental capacity for relationships, healing typically happens through relationships—both therapeutic relationships and other healing connections in your life.

The Therapeutic Relationship as a Healing Laboratory

For people with attachment trauma, the therapeutic relationship itself is often the most important healing factor. Because attachment trauma occurs within relationships, healing often requires experiencing a different kind of relationship—one characterized by safety, consistency, attunement, and unconditional positive regard.

Corrective Relational Experience: A skilled attachment-informed therapist understands that they’re not just providing techniques—they’re offering a corrective relational experience. Through the therapeutic relationship, you can begin to internalize new beliefs about relationships and develop new capacities for trust, vulnerability, and connection.

Secure Base: Your therapist can serve as a “secure base”—a safe haven you can return to when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and a secure base from which you can explore new ways of being in relationships.

Attunement and Co-Regulation: Through consistent attunement and co-regulation, your therapist can help you develop new patterns of emotional regulation and learn that relationships can be sources of comfort rather than threat.

Rupture and Repair: Inevitably, there will be moments of disconnection or misunderstanding in the therapeutic relationship. These “ruptures” provide opportunities to practice repair—learning that relationships can survive conflict and that disconnection doesn’t mean abandonment.

This process takes time and patience. Your nervous system needs repeated experiences of relational safety to begin to trust that relationships can be different. This is why healing from attachment trauma often takes longer than traditional therapy—you’re not just processing specific memories, you’re literally rewiring your brain and nervous system.

Understanding 10 important things to know when considering therapy can help you prepare for the therapeutic process and find the right support for attachment healing.

Evidence-Based Therapies for Attachment Trauma

Several therapeutic approaches have shown particular effectiveness for attachment trauma:

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): Developed by Dr. Sue Johnson, EFT is specifically designed to help couples and individuals develop more secure attachment patterns. It focuses on identifying and changing negative cycles of interaction and helping people access and express their attachment needs.

Internal Family Systems (IFS): Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS helps you understand and heal the different “parts” of yourself that developed in response to attachment trauma. This approach is particularly effective because it addresses the internal fragmentation that often occurs with attachment trauma.

Somatic Approaches: Therapies like Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and other body-based approaches recognize that attachment trauma is stored in the nervous system and work directly with your body’s responses.

Attachment-Based Therapy: These approaches focus specifically on healing attachment wounds through the therapeutic relationship and helping you develop earned security.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): While originally developed for PTSD, EMDR can be helpful for attachment trauma when used within an attachment-informed framework.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): DBT teaches specific skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness—all crucial skills for people with attachment trauma.

Developing Emotional Regulation Skills

One of the most important aspects of healing from attachment trauma is developing emotional regulation skills that support secure relationships:

Emotional Awareness: Learning to identify and name your emotions, understanding the difference between thoughts and feelings, and developing emotional vocabulary.

Distress Tolerance: Learning to be with difficult emotions without being overwhelmed by them or trying to escape them through unhealthy behaviors.

Self-Soothing: Developing healthy ways to comfort yourself when you’re distressed, including both cognitive and somatic strategies.

Co-Regulation: Learning to seek and receive comfort from others, and to provide comfort to others in healthy ways.

Window of Tolerance Expansion: Gradually increasing your capacity to handle relationship stress and strong emotions without becoming dysregulated.

Understanding why you are so dysregulated can provide immediate strategies for managing emotional dysregulation while you work on developing longer-term regulation skills.

Building Secure Relationships

Healing from attachment trauma involves learning new relationship skills and practicing them in safe contexts:

Boundary Setting: Learning to identify your limits and communicate them clearly, saying no when you need to, and protecting yourself from harmful people or situations while staying open to connection.

Communication Skills: Learning to express your needs, feelings, and thoughts directly and honestly, and to listen to others with empathy and understanding.

Conflict Resolution: Learning to navigate disagreements and conflicts in healthy ways that strengthen rather than damage relationships.

Vulnerability and Intimacy: Gradually learning to share your authentic self with others and to receive their authentic selves in return.

Trust Building: Learning to assess trustworthiness in others and to gradually build trust in safe relationships.

Working with Internal Working Models

Healing from attachment trauma involves identifying and changing the unconscious beliefs about yourself, others, and relationships that were formed in your early attachment experiences:

Awareness: Becoming aware of your internal working models and how they influence your relationship choices and behaviors.

Challenge: Learning to question these beliefs and consider alternative perspectives.

Evidence Gathering: Looking for evidence that contradicts your negative beliefs about yourself, others, and relationships.

New Experiences: Seeking out relationships and experiences that provide evidence for more positive beliefs.

Integration: Gradually integrating new, more positive beliefs about yourself and relationships.

Addressing Trauma Responses

Attachment trauma often involves trauma responses that need to be addressed directly:

Hypervigilance: Learning to calm your nervous system and develop a more realistic sense of safety in relationships.

Emotional Flashbacks: Learning to recognize when you’re having an emotional flashback to early attachment experiences and developing strategies for grounding yourself in the present.

Dissociation: Learning to stay present in your body and in relationships, even when things feel overwhelming.

Projection: Learning to distinguish between your own feelings and experiences and those of others.

Understanding coping tools in our self-care tool chest can provide practical strategies for managing trauma responses while you work on deeper healing.

Building a Support Network

Healing from attachment trauma requires more than just individual therapy—it requires building a network of supportive relationships:

Chosen Family: Building relationships with people who can provide the consistent, attuned care that you may not have received in your family of origin.

Support Groups: Connecting with others who understand attachment trauma and can provide mutual support and understanding.

Mentors: Finding people who can model secure attachment and healthy relationships.

Community: Building connections with communities that share your values and can provide a sense of belonging.

Professional Support: Working with therapists, coaches, or other professionals who understand attachment trauma and can support your healing journey.

Attachment Trauma and Parenting: Breaking Intergenerational Cycles

One of the most powerful motivations for healing from attachment trauma is the desire to provide your children with the secure attachment that you may not have received. Understanding how attachment trauma affects parenting—and how you can work to break intergenerational cycles—is crucial for creating healthier family patterns.

How Attachment Trauma Affects Parenting

Your own attachment style significantly influences how you parent and relate to your children:

Anxious Attachment and Parenting: If you have anxious attachment, you might struggle with being overly involved in your children’s lives, having difficulty allowing them age-appropriate independence, becoming anxious when they’re upset or struggling, or projecting your own fears of abandonment onto your relationship with your children.

Avoidant Attachment and Parenting: If you have avoidant attachment, you might have difficulty connecting emotionally with your children, feel uncomfortable with their emotional needs, focus more on practical care than emotional attunement, or struggle to provide the emotional responsiveness that children need for secure attachment.

Disorganized Attachment and Parenting: If you have disorganized attachment, you might feel overwhelmed by parenting, struggle with consistency in your responses to your children, find that your children’s needs trigger your own trauma responses, or alternate between being overly involved and emotionally unavailable.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Attachment

Research shows that attachment patterns tend to be passed down through generations. Parents with secure attachment are more likely to raise securely attached children, while parents with insecure attachment are more likely to raise children with similar attachment patterns.

This happens through several mechanisms:

Modeling: Children learn about relationships by watching how their parents relate to them and to others.

Emotional Regulation: Parents’ capacity for emotional regulation directly affects their ability to help their children develop emotional regulation skills.

Attunement: Parents’ ability to tune into their children’s emotional needs and respond appropriately is influenced by their own attachment experiences.

Stress Response: Parents’ stress response patterns affect the emotional climate of the home and influence children’s developing stress response systems.

However, this transmission is not inevitable. With awareness and intentional work, you can break intergenerational cycles and provide your children with more secure attachment experiences than you received.

Understanding intergenerational trauma can help you understand how trauma patterns are passed down through families and how you can work to interrupt these cycles.

Developing Earned Security as a Parent

“Earned security” refers to developing secure attachment patterns as an adult, even if you didn’t have them in childhood. Many parents develop earned security through the process of learning to be the parent they wish they’d had.

This process involves:

Self-Awareness: Becoming aware of your own attachment patterns and how they might affect your parenting.

Healing Work: Engaging in your own therapy and healing process to address your attachment trauma.

Parenting Education: Learning about child development and secure attachment to supplement what you might not have learned from your own parents.

Mindful Parenting: Being intentional and present in your interactions with your children rather than simply reacting from your own attachment patterns.

Repair: Learning to repair with your children when you make mistakes, modeling healthy conflict resolution and emotional regulation.

Providing Secure Attachment for Your Children

Creating secure attachment with your children involves several key elements:

Emotional Attunement: Tuning into your children’s emotional states and responding with empathy and understanding. This means noticing when your child is distressed and responding in ways that help them feel seen and understood.

Consistency: Being reliable and predictable in your responses to your children. This doesn’t mean being perfect, but it means being consistently present and responsive to their needs.

Co-Regulation: Using your own regulated nervous system to help your children regulate their emotions. When your child is upset, staying calm and present can help them learn to calm down.

Emotional Validation: Accepting and validating your children’s emotions, even when their behavior needs limits. This means helping them understand that all feelings are acceptable, even if all behaviors aren’t.

Repair: When you do react from your own attachment trauma or make mistakes, taking responsibility and reconnecting with your child. This teaches them that relationships can survive conflict and that people can change and grow.

When Parenting Triggers Your Attachment Trauma

It’s common for parenting to activate your own attachment wounds. Your children’s needs, emotions, or behaviors might trigger memories or feelings from your own childhood. When this happens:

Recognize the Trigger: Notice when you’re being triggered and try to identify what specifically is activating your attachment trauma.

Take a Break: If possible, take a moment to regulate yourself before responding to your child. This might mean taking deep breaths, stepping away briefly, or asking for help.

Seek Support: Reach out to your support network, whether that’s a partner, friend, therapist, or parenting group.

Practice Self-Compassion: Remember that being triggered doesn’t make you a bad parent—it makes you human. Use these moments as opportunities for healing and growth.

Repair with Your Child: If you reacted from your trauma in a way that affected your child, take responsibility and repair the relationship.

Creating Secure Attachment Across Different Ages

The way you provide secure attachment changes as your children grow:

Infants and Toddlers (0-3 years): Focus on consistent responsiveness to their basic needs, emotional attunement, and co-regulation. This is when the foundation of attachment is formed.

Preschoolers (3-5 years): Continue providing emotional attunement while helping them develop language for emotions and beginning to set appropriate boundaries.

School Age (6-12 years): Support their growing independence while remaining emotionally available. Help them develop emotional regulation skills and navigate social relationships.

Adolescents (13-18 years): Maintain connection while respecting their need for independence. Be available for support while allowing them to develop their own identity.

Young Adults (18+ years): Transition to a more peer-like relationship while maintaining the secure base you’ve provided throughout their development.

Resources for Parents with Attachment Trauma

Attachment-Informed Parenting Classes: Look for parenting classes that specifically address attachment and are informed by trauma research.

Parent Support Groups: Connect with other parents who understand the challenges of parenting with an attachment trauma history.

Individual Therapy: Continue your own healing work with a therapist who understands both attachment trauma and parenting issues.

Family Therapy: Consider family therapy if your attachment trauma is significantly affecting your family relationships.

Books and Resources: Educate yourself about attachment-informed parenting through books, articles, and other resources.

Understanding how to find a therapist who gets it can help you find professional support that understands both attachment trauma and parenting challenges.

Building Secure Relationships: Practical Strategies for Healing

Healing from attachment trauma ultimately happens through relationships—both the therapeutic relationship and other healing connections in your life. Here are practical strategies for building more secure relationships and developing earned security.

Developing Self-Awareness

The first step in healing attachment trauma is developing awareness of your attachment patterns and how they affect your relationships:

Identify Your Attachment Style: Take time to understand your primary attachment style and how it shows up in your relationships. Remember that most people have elements of different styles, and your style might vary depending on the relationship or situation.

Notice Your Triggers: Pay attention to what situations, behaviors, or emotions in relationships tend to trigger your attachment fears. Common triggers include conflict, your partner being unavailable, criticism, or intimacy.

Observe Your Patterns: Look for patterns in your relationships. Do you tend to choose similar types of partners? Do your relationships tend to end in similar ways? Do you find yourself playing similar roles in different relationships?

Understand Your Internal Working Models: Become aware of the unconscious beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and relationships. What stories do you tell yourself about why relationships don’t work out?

Developing Emotional Regulation Skills

Secure relationships require the ability to regulate your emotions, especially during times of stress or conflict:

Learn to Pause: When you notice yourself becoming triggered in a relationship, practice pausing before reacting. Take a few deep breaths, notice what you’re feeling, and choose your response rather than reacting automatically.

Develop Self-Soothing Skills: Learn healthy ways to comfort yourself when you’re feeling distressed. This might include breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, physical movement, or other strategies that help you calm your nervous system.

Practice Emotional Awareness: Develop the ability to identify and name your emotions. The more aware you are of what you’re feeling, the better you can communicate your needs and respond appropriately to situations.

Learn to Communicate Emotions: Practice expressing your feelings directly and honestly rather than expecting others to read your mind or expressing emotions indirectly through behavior.

Understanding emotional regulation tools in our self-care tool chest can provide specific strategies for developing these skills.

Building Communication Skills

Secure relationships require clear, honest communication:

Use “I” Statements: Express your feelings and needs using “I” statements rather than “you” statements that might sound blaming. For example, “I feel hurt when…” rather than “You always…”

Ask for What You Need: Practice directly asking for what you need rather than hoping others will figure it out. This might feel vulnerable at first, but it’s essential for secure relationships.

Listen with Empathy: Practice listening to others without immediately defending yourself or trying to fix their problems. Sometimes people just need to be heard and understood.

Address Conflicts Directly: Rather than avoiding conflict or letting resentment build up, practice addressing issues directly and respectfully when they arise.

Practice Repair: When conflicts or misunderstandings occur, practice taking responsibility for your part and working to repair the relationship.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

Boundaries are essential for secure relationships—they help you maintain your sense of self while staying connected to others:

Identify Your Limits: Take time to understand what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not. This includes emotional, physical, and time boundaries.

Communicate Boundaries Clearly: Once you know your boundaries, practice communicating them clearly and kindly. Remember that setting boundaries is not about controlling others—it’s about taking care of yourself.

Maintain Boundaries Consistently: It’s important to maintain your boundaries consistently, even when it’s difficult or when others push back.

Respect Others’ Boundaries: Just as you have the right to set boundaries, others have the right to set boundaries with you. Practice respecting others’ limits even when you don’t like them.

Choosing Secure Partners and Friends

As you heal from attachment trauma, you may find that you’re attracted to different types of people or that you want different things from relationships:

Look for Emotional Availability: Choose partners and friends who are emotionally available and capable of intimacy. This means people who can express their feelings, listen to yours, and work through conflicts together.

Notice Consistency: Pay attention to whether people’s words match their actions and whether they’re consistent in their behavior over time.

Assess Communication Skills: Look for people who can communicate directly and honestly, who can listen without becoming defensive, and who are willing to work through problems together.

Trust Your Instincts: As you heal, you may develop better instincts about who is safe and trustworthy. Pay attention to how you feel in your body when you’re with different people.

Take Things Slowly: Allow relationships to develop gradually rather than rushing into intense intimacy. This gives you time to assess whether someone is truly safe and compatible.

Practicing Vulnerability Gradually

Secure relationships require vulnerability, but for people with attachment trauma, vulnerability can feel terrifying. Practice building your capacity for vulnerability gradually:

Start Small: Begin by sharing small, less threatening things about yourself and see how the other person responds.

Notice Responses: Pay attention to how people respond when you’re vulnerable. Do they listen with empathy? Do they respect your sharing? Do they reciprocate with their own vulnerability?

Build Trust Slowly: Allow trust to build gradually through repeated positive experiences rather than expecting to trust completely right away.

Honor Your Pace: Go at your own pace rather than forcing yourself to be more vulnerable than feels safe. Healing happens gradually, not all at once.

Working with Relationship Triggers

When your attachment trauma gets triggered in relationships, it’s important to have strategies for managing these moments:

Recognize Triggers Early: Learn to recognize the early signs that you’re becoming triggered—changes in your body, emotions, or thoughts that signal your attachment system is activated.

Communicate About Triggers: When appropriate, let safe people in your life know about your triggers so they can be supportive and understanding.

Use Grounding Techniques: When you’re triggered, use grounding techniques to help you stay present rather than getting lost in past experiences.

Take Breaks When Needed: It’s okay to take breaks from difficult conversations or situations when you’re feeling overwhelmed. You can return to the conversation when you’re more regulated.

Seek Support: Don’t try to handle triggers alone. Reach out to your therapist, support network, or other resources when you need help.

Understanding 4 helpful tools when fear triggers your trauma can provide specific strategies for managing attachment triggers.

Building a Support Network

Healing from attachment trauma requires more than just one-on-one relationships—it requires building a network of supportive connections:

Diversify Your Support: Build relationships with different types of people who can meet different needs—friends, family members, mentors, therapists, support group members.

Join Communities: Look for communities that share your interests, values, or experiences. This might include hobby groups, spiritual communities, support groups, or professional organizations.

Practice Reciprocity: Healthy relationships involve give and take. Practice both receiving support from others and offering support when you’re able.

Maintain Connections: Secure relationships require ongoing investment. Make time for the people who are important to you and work to maintain connections over time.

References and External Resources

Professional Research and Organizations

1. Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Basic Books. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Secure-Base-Parent-Child-Attachment-Development/dp/0465075975

2. Ainsworth, M. (2015). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Psychology Press. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Attachment-Psychological-Strange-Situation/dp/0805804617

3. Schore, A. N. (2019). The Development of the Unconscious Mind. W. W. Norton & Company. Research available at: https://www.allanschore.com/

4. Siegel, D. J. (2020). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press. Available at: https://www.drdansiegel.com/

5. Porges, S. W. (2022). Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety. Available at: https://www.stephenporges.com/

6. Johnson, S. International Centre for Excellence in EFT. https://www.iceeft.com/

7. Schwartz, R. The Center for Self Leadership – Internal Family Systems. https://www.selfleadership.org/

8. Levine, P. A. Somatic Experiencing International. https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/

9. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0670785938

Government and Health Organizations

10. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

11. National Institute of Mental Health. Child and Adolescent Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/child-and-adolescent-mental-health

12. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). Trauma-Informed Care Resources. https://www.samhsa.gov/trauma-informed-care
    
13. Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. https://www.zerotothree.org/

Academic and Research Institutions

15. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. https://www.nctsn.org/

16. International Attachment Network. https://www.ian-attachment.org.uk/

17. Harvard Center on the Developing Child. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/

18. Circle of Security International. https://www.circleofsecurityinternational.com/

Recommended Books for Further Reading

19. Main, M. (2018). Adult Attachment Scoring and Classification System. Available through attachment research organizations.

20. Tatkin, S. (2012). Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict. https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Love-Understanding-Partners-Attachment/dp/1608820580

21. Levine, A. & Heller, R. (2010). Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment. https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139

22. Cozolino, L. (2014). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain. https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Human-Relationships-Attachment-Developing/dp/0393709043

23. Hughes, D. A. (2017). Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Bonds-Attachment-Awakening-Troubled/dp/0765704048

24. Neufeld, G. (2014). Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. https://www.amazon.com/Hold-Your-Kids-Parents-Matter/dp/0375760288

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