Strengthen your relationship through understanding attachment patterns, healing past wounds, and building secure connection together.
Couples Therapy: Attachment-Informed, Trauma-Aware
Attachment-Based Couples Therapy
Do you find yourselves having the same arguments, feeling disconnected despite living together, or struggling to understand why your partner responds the way they do? You’re not alone and these patterns often stem from deeper attachment dynamics shaped by both partners’ histories.
Couples therapy grounded in attachment theory helps you understand why conflicts happen, not just what you’re arguing about. By exploring how early relationships and past experiences, including trauma, shape your relational patterns, we create pathways for lasting change, not just temporary fixes.
I work with couples navigating:
- Communication breakdowns – Feeling unheard, misunderstood, or stuck in repetitive conflicts
- Attachment mismatches – One partner anxious, the other avoidant; differing needs for closeness and space
- Trust issues – Rebuilding after infidelity, betrayal, or attachment injuries
- Intimacy challenges – Emotional or physical disconnection, difficulty with vulnerability
- Life transitions – Adjusting to parenthood, career changes, or major life decisions
- Premarital preparation – Building strong foundations before marriage
- Relationship patterns – Repeating dynamics from past relationships or family of origin
Whether you’re in crisis or simply want to deepen your connection, attachment-informed couples therapy provides a safe space to explore patterns, heal wounds, and build the relationship you both desire.
How Attachment Patterns Affect Relationships
Attachment theory explains how early relationships with caregivers create internal working models that influence how you relate in adult romantic relationships. These patterns aren’t destiny – but understanding them is essential for creating secure connection.
Common Attachment Patterns in Couples
Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic (“Pursuer-Distancer”)
One partner (anxious attachment) seeks closeness, reassurance, and frequent contact. The other partner (avoidant attachment) needs space, independence, and emotional distance. This creates a painful cycle: the more one pursues, the more the other withdraws – increasing anxiety and avoidance on both sides.
Secure-Insecure Pairing
One partner has secure attachment (comfortable with intimacy and independence). The other struggles with anxious or avoidant patterns. The secure partner may feel frustrated by repeated conflicts, while the insecure partner feels misunderstood or criticized.
Disorganized Attachment (Both Partners)
Both partners experienced trauma or inconsistent caregiving, creating conflicting desires for connection and safety. Relationships feel simultaneously necessary and dangerous, leading to intense conflict, unpredictable emotional responses, and difficulty establishing trust.
Secure-Secure Connection
When both partners have secure attachment (or work toward it), relationships feel safe, communicative, and resilient. Conflicts are navigable, intimacy feels nourishing, and both partners trust the relationship can withstand challenges.
How Couples Therapy Helps
Understanding your attachment patterns provides clarity on why you react the way you do – and creates compassion for both partners’ struggles. Rather than blaming each other, you learn to recognize attachment dynamics driving conflict and develop skills for secure connection.
Integrating Trauma-Informed Care
Past trauma – whether relational (abuse, neglect, attachment injuries) or situational (accidents, loss, medical trauma) – affects how you show up in relationships. Trauma survivors often experience hypervigilance, difficulty trusting, emotional dysregulation, and protective patterns that create relational challenges.
Trauma-informed couples therapy recognizes that behaviors often labeled “difficult” or “irrational” are adaptive responses to past experiences. By understanding how trauma shapes each partner’s nervous system, emotional responses, and relational patterns, we create safety and healing together.
- Nervous system dysregulation – One or both partners live in fight/flight/freeze, making calm communication difficult
- Trust challenges – Past betrayals or attachment injuries create protective walls blocking intimacy
- Emotional flooding – Intense emotional responses triggered by past trauma, overwhelming present-moment interactions
- Avoidance of vulnerability – Trauma teaches that vulnerability is dangerous, creating emotional distance
- Body-based responses – Physical tension, shutdown, or activation during conflict reflecting trauma held in the nervous system
- Creating safety – Establishing ground rules for respectful, boundaried communication
- Slowing down – Pausing when dysregulated, building nervous system awareness
- Understanding triggers – Identifying what activates trauma responses and developing co-regulation strategies
- Healing attachment injuries – Addressing specific moments of betrayal, hurt, or disconnection with compassion
- Building new patterns – Practicing secure connection skills together
This approach doesn’t require diagnosing trauma or reliving painful experiences. It simply recognizes that past experiences shape present relationships – and healing happens through safe, attuned connection.
My Approach to Couples Therapy
I integrate attachment theory, trauma-informed frameworks, and evidence-based couples therapy methods to help you understand patterns and build secure connection.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Principles
I draw from EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), an evidence-based couples therapy approach grounded in attachment theory. EFT helps couples:
- Identify negative interaction patterns (“the cycle”) driving conflict
- Understand underlying attachment needs fueling emotions
- Create corrective emotional experiences – moments of safe, attuned connection
- Build secure emotional bonds that withstand challenges
Research shows EFT is highly effective for improving relationship satisfaction, reducing conflict, and increasing emotional intimacy.
Somatic Integration (When Appropriate)
Many couples experience conflict not just cognitively, but somatically – tension in the body, nervous system activation, shutdown responses. When clinically appropriate, I integrate body-based techniques:
- Nervous system co-regulation between partners
- Grounding techniques during conflict
- Breath work for calming emotional intensity
- Building awareness of body signals indicating safety or threat
Somatic techniques deepen healing by addressing patterns held below conscious awareness.
Attachment-Based Assessment
For couples seeking deeper understanding, I offer DMM Adult Attachment Interviews for each partner ($500 per individual assessment). These comprehensive interviews provide clarity on each partner’s attachment style, defensive strategies, and relational patterns – creating a roadmap for targeted healing.
What to Expect in Couples Therapy
Initial Session – Assessment & Goals
The first session (60-75 minutes) focuses on understanding your relationship history, current challenges, attachment patterns, and therapy goals. We explore:
- What brings you to therapy right now?
- What patterns keep repeating?
- What does each partner need from the relationship?
- What attachment dynamics might be influencing conflict?
- What trauma or past experiences affect current connection?
Together, we create a treatment plan tailored to your relationship’s unique needs. Sessions are active and collaborative – not passive listening. You’ll practice new ways of relating in session, building skills that transfer to daily life.
Ongoing Sessions – Pattern Exploration & Skill Building
Each couples therapy session typically includes:
- Check-in – What’s happening between you right now?
- Pattern recognition – Identifying cycles driving conflict
- Emotional exploration – Understanding attachment needs beneath behaviors
- Communication skills – Practicing secure, attuned ways of connecting
- Conflict de-escalation – Tools for navigating disagreements constructively
- Attachment healing – Addressing specific injuries or betrayals with compassion
Session Frequency & Duration
Most couples benefit from weekly sessions initially (60-75 minutes), gradually spacing to biweekly as patterns stabilize. Couples therapy is often medium-term work (3-9 months), though length varies based on relationship challenges and goals.
Some couples see meaningful improvement within 10-15 sessions. Others benefit from longer-term work, especially when addressing complex trauma, attachment injuries, or long-standing patterns.
Individual Sessions (When Needed)
Occasionally, individual sessions for one or both partners support couples therapy goals – addressing personal trauma, attachment wounds, or individual patterns affecting the relationship. These sessions are optional and discussed collaboratively.
Who Couples Therapy Serves
I work with couples across diverse relationship structures and life stages:
- Married couples – Strengthening long-term relationships, navigating challenges, rebuilding trust
- Dating couples – Building strong foundations, exploring compatibility, addressing early patterns
- Engaged couples – Premarital preparation, attachment awareness, conflict resolution skills
- LGBTQ+ couples – Affirming, inclusive therapy honoring your relationship
- Intercultural/interfaith couples – Navigating cultural differences with respect and understanding
- Couples navigating life transitions – Parenthood, career changes, relocation, loss
- Couples healing from infidelity or betrayal – Rebuilding trust, processing attachment injuries
- Couples with anxious-avoidant dynamics – Understanding pursuer-distancer patterns
Couples therapy is for relationships experiencing challenges and those seeking to deepen connection before problems arise. Seeking support early often prevents entrenched patterns from solidifying.
When Couples Therapy Isn’t Recommended
Couples therapy isn’t appropriate in all situations. I do not provide couples therapy when:
- Active domestic violence is occurring – Safety takes precedence; individual therapy and safety planning are essential first
- One partner is coercing the other into therapy – Therapy requires voluntary participation from both partners
- Substance abuse is untreated and active – Active addiction requires individual treatment before couples work
- One partner has already decided to leave – Therapy works best when both partners are committed to the relationship
If any of these situations apply, I’ll help you identify appropriate resources, including individual therapy, safety planning, or substance abuse treatment. Your safety and well-being are paramount.
Pricing & Logistics
Session Fees
- Couples Therapy: $200 per session (60-75 minutes)
- DMM Attachment Assessment (individual): $500 per partner (includes interview, scoring, feedback session)
- Sliding Scale: Limited availability ($175-$200/session) for couples experiencing financial hardship. Please inquire during consultation.
Payment
Payment is due at the time of service via credit card, debit card, or HSA/FSA card through the secure client portal.
Insurance
I am an out-of-network provider and do not bill insurance directly. However, I provide superbills (detailed receipts) you can submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement.
Many insurance plans reimburse 50-80% of out-of-network couples therapy costs. I recommend contacting your insurance to verify your out-of-network mental health benefits before beginning therapy.
Location & Service Area
I provide couples therapy via secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth to Colorado residents statewide. Serving Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, and all Colorado communities.Important: Both partners must be physically located in Colorado during all therapy sessions to comply with licensure requirements.
Ready to Strengthen Your Relationship?
I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation for couples to discuss your situation, answer questions, and see if attachment-based couples therapy is right for you. There’s no pressure or obligation, just an opportunity to explore whether we’re a good fit.
Taking the first step toward couples therapy takes courage. I’m here to support your relationship with compassion, expertise, and respect for your unique journey together.