Trauma-Informed Couples Therapy
In our best attempts to protect ourselves emotionally, we sometimes unintentionally push our loved ones further away emotionally. A trauma-informed approach to couples therapy involves gaining awareness of how childhood or recent adversities influence conflictual patterns in your relationship. The more you identify and express your core attachment needs and practice vulnerability by taking healthy risks in your relationship, the easier it is to draw empathy and support from your partner rather than defensiveness.
Emotional Disconnect & Fear
A consequence of adverse childhood or recent experiences, whether it’s exposure to neglect, abuse, scarcity, family or economic instability, is feelings of being unsafe, loss of control, low self-worth, distrust, and fear of intimacy. These feelings are common reactions to trauma that can negatively affect how we navigate close relationships. As children, our primary caregivers are our first significant relationship. They set the stage, or serve as a template for how we experience moving forward. Romantic or close relationships later in adolescence and adulthood tend to evoke these internal conflicts from early childhood given the level of intimacy required. If we didn’t get our basic needs met growing up or felt unprotected or unsafe with our caregivers, it’s only natural for us to be reluctant to rely on a romantic partner for emotional support. These difficulties with trust, intimacy, or vulnerability due to prior adverse experiences is referred to as relational trauma. Anger, volatility, defensiveness, stonewalling, and criticism are ways that people who experience relational trauma push their loved ones away when they feel threatened emotionally; it’s a way to reclaim a sense of safety and protect oneself from being hurt again. Unfortunately, this pattern can have destructive consequences to any relationship.
Creating a Secure Attachment Bond
There is an emerging body of research indicating that emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) can be effective in not only improving outcomes for couples but also healing trauma among individuals within the couple. In the early stages of treatment, I gather a comprehensive history of both you and your loved one. All of us have a cycle or pattern we engage in with our loved ones. The goal is to help you and your partner identify your pattern and how it contributes to a pattern of conflict in your relationship. Once we’ve identified the pattern, I help you become more aware of your core attachment needs, which more often than not, include needing to feel understood, loved, and reassured by your significant other. It’s important to know by your partners actions that when you express your feelings, you’ll feel seen, heard, and supported. Then we work together to help you practice vulnerability by sincerely expressing your need from the heart. In addition, I provide coping skills to assist you both in regulating intense emotions when you are triggered. This will allow you the emotional bandwidth to be present, use active listening skills, and empathize with your partner, to fully see them when they express their fears and vulnerabilities in the relationship. As you develop a new way of relating to one another by supporting each other rather than falling back on old conflictual patterns, this naturally cultivates a sense of safety and trust in the relationship. This can be a powerful experience for many clients with a trauma history, as this may be the first time they felt a sense of closeness or connectedness with another human being.