Counseling for Attachment Styles in Uptown Dallas
Move from insight to action and experience peace in your relationships
Dallas Attachment Style Counseling
You've heard all your life that relationships are hard and lots of work, but you find yourself wondering lately if they should feel this hard. Peace with your partner feels too temporary to trust, having needs and a voice feels scary, and your anger is driving a deep wedge between you. Your level of reactivity or shut down doesn’t match how you actually feel towards them but you can't seem to do anything different. You hear a lot about attachment styles on TikTok and ChatGPT will happily give you breakdown of each and how you fit but you struggle to understand how to DO anything different. You may have survived a lot in past relationships or childhood and have every intention to keep those old hurts from impacting your new connection, but they rearing their ugly head in every fight. You're insightful enough to see the pattern and motivated enough to read into it, but you want a safe space to actually heal so the damage can stop.
Relational anxiety and avoidance aren’t character flaws, they’re learned responses. Which means security can be learned too.
Do I have an Insecure Attachment Style? Signs and Symptoms in Relationships:
-Conflict is terrifying to the degree that you’ll put up with just about anything to not have it and please your partner
-You struggle to empathize with or understand your partner’s emotions and often feel overwhelmed by their level of “neediness” or desire for closeness, intimacy, or conversation
-You are constantly on alert for your partner leaving you/getting disappointed by you and you’re hyper aware of any fluctuations in their mood, voice tone, or body language
-You have a high need for closeness and will do just about anything to get it, including overcommunicating and taking on all the emotional labor which leaves you exhausted and resentful
-Being close to your partner feels like the best thing ever AND the most dangerous to place to be all at once
-One day you completely trust your partner and want to be with them forever but after conflict or they let you down, you go straight to planning your exit strategy and threaten to leave
How Dallas Attachment Counseling Can Move you Towards Security
What if you aren't crazy and all the relational patterns that you hate started for a reason and can be unlearned? What if taking responsibility for how you show up with your person came from a place of curiosity instead of shame and there was a way to heal the "why" behind the "what" that you’re both so exhausted by?
Attachment Lab's mission is to help you trace your current relational cycle back to its root and heal it at the core so that your current relationships stand a fighting chance to be different than what hurt you in the past. Healing can look like noticing how your body and nervous system experience conflict and learning to regulate those responses on a biological level (Somatic Therapy) as well as building language around your emotions, needs, and wants and how to express those in a way that get you closer to connection instead of burning a bridge with the ones you love the most (Emotionally Focused Therapy). In this relational work, every part of you is honored for the job is does to keep you safe (Internal Family Systems Therapy) and your values get to take the place of shame, fear, and avoidance as you learn to process and tolerate the discomfort that can come with change (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
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The short answer is no, not at all. I tell my clients that “we don’t have to go hunting for trauma” to explore and heal relational patterns. We will talk about what was impactful to you about the way you grew up, and, if we find something that you hadn’t recognized as unhealthy before, we have the tools to treat that appropriately. Life experiences do not have to be obviously traumatic to affect you, and I am much more interested in your goals and wellbeing than putting you in a labeled category.
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Any approach that allows you to have a secure relationship with the therapist is the best start! Some of the ones I have found most useful for my insecurely attached clients are Emotionally Focused Therapy to give them language for the relational need they have underneath their insecurity, Internal Family Systems to help them understand the different parts of their personality that function in insecurity as a protective defense, and Somatic Therapy to help them understand their nervous system responses in relationships and regulate them effectively.
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Yes! No one is born with an insecure attachment style; you are actually born wired for secure attachment with your caregivers. Anxiety, avoidance, and disorganized relationship styles are learned adaptations to your early environment and therefore are patterns of behavior that can UNLEARNED. There’s a phrase in the attachment field called “earned security,” which essentially means that you can learn secure ways of showing up for yourself and others by practicing new ways of regulating your thoughts and emotions. As human beings our brains are capable of creating new neural pathways and our bodies are innately designed to connect with safe others, they often just have to be shown how.
Dallas Attachment Style Counseling FAQ
Attachment Style Counseling in Dallas and TX Online
Practical, Supportive Help in Central Dallas
EFT, IFS, Somatic Trauma Therapy, and EMDR to heal insecure attachment patterns
Accessible for those commuting from University Park, McKinney Avenue, and Knox/Henderson
Cozy, private office space with access to coffee/tea service, a friendly receptionist, and free parking
Ready to Experience Security with Yourself and Your Person?
You’ve noticed for a while that relationships feel harder than they should be and you can only feel connected for so long until anxiety, avoidance, or confusion takes over. There is hope and peace is possible. Reaching out to Attachment Lab puts you in touch with options for care that are gentle, concrete, and professional. My calendar is directly accessible via the "Book Now" button or you can get in touch with me by texting 214-247-6085 or emailing abigail@attachmentlabcounseling.com. I look forward to connecting with you!