Attachment-Focused Therapy in Los Angeles & Pasadena, CA
Build Healthier Relationships with the Support
of an Attachment-Based Therapist
Your earliest relationships created a blueprint — a set of assumptions about closeness, safety, conflict, and worth — that still runs quietly in the background of every connection you have today. When those early relationships were attuned and consistent, that blueprint tends to be forgiving. When they weren’t, it can keep you repeating patterns you can see clearly but can’t quite change.
Attachment-focused therapy brings that blueprint into focus, so you can understand it, work with it, and begin to rewrite the parts that have outlived their usefulness.
WHAT SHOWS UP IN ATTACHMENT WORK
Fear of abandonment, or the opposite — fear of being consumed by closeness
Patterns of pulling in and pulling away that keep relationships from ever quite landing
Difficulty trusting, even with people who have earned it
The sense that you’re replaying the same relationship over and over with different people
Anxiety that shows up specifically inside intimate relationships
Chronic self-blame or hypervigilance toward a partner’s mood
Parts of you that learned early to hide, perform, or go silent to stay safe
HOW I WORK
Attachment-focused therapy isn’t just insight work. It’s relational — which means the therapy relationship itself becomes one of the places where the repair happens. Part of what we’re doing is building, inside this room, an experience of being met consistently and without conditions, because for many clients that experience is the missing data.
When trauma is part of the picture — and it often is — I integrate Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR), which layers in imagined safety and an internal support system before and during reprocessing. It’s the version of EMDR I most often use with clients whose wounds were shaped by the people who were supposed to protect them.
For clients whose attachment patterns have also shaped their parts — the protectors, the performers, the hiders — I weave in IFS so we can work with those parts directly instead of only talking about them.
WHO THIS WORK IS FOR
If you’ve done insight-heavy therapy before and keep hitting the same wall in your relationships, attachment-focused work is often what’s missing. It’s slower. It’s more relational. And it tends to produce changes that actually hold.
Start Healing with Attachment-Focused in Los Angeles & Pasadena, CA
Taking the first step can feel intimidating, but I’m here to help you embark on this journey of self-discovery, resilience, and renewed hope.
Attachment-Focused Therapy FAQs
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Attachment theory identifies four main attachment styles, which describe how individuals form emotional connections based on early childhood relationships with primary caregivers and how they approach relationships in adulthood.
Three of these styles are considered insecure, often involving difficulties with trust and closeness.
The four attachment styles are:
Secure: Generally comfortable with intimacy and trusting relationships
Anxious (or Preoccupied): Often fear abandonment or rejection
Avoidant (or Dismissive): Tend to place too high a value on independence and distance themselves emotionally
Disorganized (or Fearful-Avoidant): Exhibit confusing “push-pull” behaviors, often stemming from trauma
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Attachment-based therapy applies attachment theory to the therapeutic process, addressing emotions, behaviors, thoughts, communication patterns, and interpersonal dynamics rooted in early attachment experiences.
Clients may have developed unhelpful ways of responding to these experiences—either by suppressing and avoiding them or by amplifying and overemphasizing them. This therapy specifically targets those patterns to promote healthier relationships.
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Attachment trauma often stems from negative childhood experiences with parents or caregivers. To begin healing, therapy is the most effective starting point, helping you develop self-awareness, build secure connections, practice self-compassion, and learn emotional regulation.
In addition to attachment-based therapy, Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) can be a valuable alternative to traditional talk therapy, depending on your individual needs.
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The goal of attachment-based therapy is to help individuals develop healthier relationship patterns and cultivate a more secure attachment style. By addressing the impact of early attachment experiences, this therapy supports clients in building trust, improving emotional regulation, and fostering stronger connections with others.
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A toxic attachment style refers to an unhealthy way of connecting with others, often rooted in fear and characterized by clinginess, anxiety, insecurity, emotional dependency, or extreme avoidance.
These unhealthy attachment patterns can lead to jealousy, poor boundaries, self-abandonment, and chaotic relationship dynamics, ultimately affecting self-worth and daily functioning.