Could attachment therapy help you heal? Here’s what to know

What Is Attachment Therapy?

Attachment therapy is a therapeutic approach that helps you understand how your early relationships with caregivers shape your relationships throughout life, then gives you the tools to build healthier connections now and in the future.

Often used to describe attachment-based therapy, this approach is rooted in attachment theory—the idea that our earliest bonds create a blueprint for all future relationships.

“Attachment theory says that from infancy, we develop core expectations about connection, like whether someone will show up when we need them, whether it’s safe to be vulnerable, or whether we have to perform to be loved,” says Cheryl Groskopf, LMFT, LPCC, a therapist based in Los Angeles who specializes in anxiety, trauma, and attachment. “Those expectations get wired into your nervous system, and they don’t disappear just because you grow up.”

If you had inconsistent, neglectful, or harmful relationships early in life, these experiences continue to shape how you connect with romantic partners, friends, and family members—sometimes decades later. Attachment therapy helps you identify these patterns and rewrite them.

“Attachment therapy is based on the idea that the way you learned to bond with people growing up still shows up in how you handle closeness, conflict, trust, and emotional needs today,” Groskopf explains. “This therapy helps you understand and shift the way you connect, especially when old patterns keep getting in the way of new relationships.”

How Does Attachment Therapy Work?

Attachment therapy is a vulnerable and collaborative process designed to help you identify attachment wounds, process trauma related to early relationships, and develop healthier ways of connecting. The ultimate goal is to help you “rebuild trust in relationships so you can give and receive love in a safe way,” McSparran says.

While every therapist’s approach varies, here’s what the attachment therapy process typically looks like:

Step 1: Explore Your Attachment Style

Your therapist will ask detailed questions about your childhood—particularly your relationship with primary caregivers—to identify your attachment style. The four main attachment styles are:

• Secure attachment (the healthiest pattern)
• Anxious attachment (fear of abandonment, need for constant reassurance)
• Avoidant attachment (discomfort with closeness, tendency to withdraw)
• Disorganized attachment (also called fearful-avoidant; conflicting desires for closeness and distance)

“Understanding your attachment style matters because it helps you see the pattern without blaming yourself for it,” Groskopf says. “Once you can name it, you can start shifting it, without forcing yourself to be different, and without abandoning the parts of you that were just trying to survive.”

Step 2: Work Through Early Relationship Patterns

You’ll unpack how your childhood experiences continue to influence your reactions and relationships today. Your therapist will guide you through processing memories that created your attachment wounds, helping you understand how your past shaped your emotional responses.

“Therapy gives you space to unpack the things that shaped your emotional reflexes, like always over-explaining to avoid conflict, or freezing when someone expresses anger,” Groskopf explains. “You don’t just revisit the past, you figure out what your system needed back then and how to give it that now.”

Step 3: Build Healthier Connections Now

Once you’ve identified your attachment style and processed relevant childhood experiences, you can use this insight to grow and move forward. You’ll bring present-day triggers and relationship challenges into therapy to understand how your brain and body are responding.

From there, Groskopf says, you can practice something new: developing healthier patterns rather than automatically falling into old habits that no longer serve you.

Step 4: Repair Trust With Your Nervous System

“A big part of attachment healing is learning to stay with yourself when things get hard,” Groskopf says. “That means noticing when your nervous system wants to people-please, perform, disappear, or spiral—and not judging it, but being with it differently.”

Over time, this helps you feel safer in your own skin and builds trust with your own emotions, she adds. You learn to regulate yourself before reacting, creating space for more conscious choices in your relationships.

Who Is Attachment Therapy Ideally For?

Attachment therapy is helpful for anyone noticing that old patterns are causing emotional distress and relationship difficulties. Here’s who might benefit most:

1. Adults With Insecure Attachment

If you have an insecure attachment style, you likely face specific challenges in relationships. For example:

• Anxious attachment: You might need constant reassurance, fear abandonment, or become preoccupied with your partner’s availability
• Avoidant attachment: You might shut down emotionally, pull away when someone gets too close, or struggle with vulnerability
• Disorganized attachment: You might experience conflicting desires—wanting closeness but fearing it, or feeling both clingy and distant

Attachment therapy helps you heal these attachment wounds and develop a more secure way of connecting with others.

2. Couples Facing Intimacy or Trust Issues

Many couples seeking relationship counseling have conflicting attachment styles, McSparran notes. “Attachment, at its core, is about safety. If you don’t have the expectation or experience of safety in relationships, it’s very hard to have an intimate and trusting relationship.”

Attachment-based couples therapy helps partners:

• Understand each other’s attachment styles and triggers
• Create a more secure foundation for their relationship
• Feel more emotionally regulated and comfortable with each other

3. Survivors of Early Childhood Trauma

People who experienced childhood trauma—particularly trauma related to their primary caregivers—can greatly benefit from attachment therapy, especially when working with a trauma-informed therapist.

This approach helps you safely revisit early memories, understand how they shaped your attachment style, and process their lasting effects in a supportive environment.

4. Adults With Symptoms of Childhood Attachment Disorders

While attachment disorders are officially diagnosed only in children, adults can experience lasting effects from these early patterns. You might recognize these symptoms in yourself:

• From reactive attachment disorder (RAD): Extreme difficulty trusting others, feeling emotionally numb in relationships, or consistently expecting people to hurt or abandon you
• From disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED): Oversharing with strangers, difficulty maintaining appropriate boundaries, or feeling more comfortable with new people than close relationships

Attachment-based therapy can be a crucial component of healing for those who recognize these patterns in their adult relationships. Learn how attachment disorders show up in adults here.

5. Parents and Blended Families

Attachment-based interventions help parents create safe, responsive environments for their children. This approach is especially valuable for:

• Adoptive families navigating new bonds
• Children in foster care and their caregivers
• Families healing from trauma

Additionally, parents can pursue attachment therapy individually to understand their own attachment style and how it affects their parenting. “Our attachment style is reflected in how we interact with our children,” McSparran explains. “The goal of most parents is to provide a secure attachment for their child by being the type of caregiver that is safe, consistent, and secure. This way, their children can grow up with secure attachments and go out into the world as happy, healthy adults.”

What Can Attachment Therapy Help With?

Attachment therapy can address numerous issues that impact your well-being and relationships:

1. Relationship Difficulties

Research shows that insecure attachment is linked to lower relationship satisfaction. If you experience repeated patterns of conflict, miscommunication, or emotional distance in your close relationships—romantic or otherwise—attachment therapy can help you identify your triggers and develop healthier coping strategies.

“When you understand your attachment style, you can catch yourself before falling into those old patterns,” McSparran explains. “Instead of automatically reacting from a place of fear or past hurt, you can respond from a place of awareness and choice.”

2. Trust and Abandonment Fears

If you experience intense worry that loved ones will leave or disappoint you—similar to how caregivers may have early in life—you might have an anxious attachment style. These fears can create self-fulfilling prophecies, pushing people away through clingy or controlling behaviors.

Attachment therapy helps you develop a more secure mindset, McSparran says: “I’m safe with you, you’re not going to leave me, you’re not going to hurt me—and even if you did, I would be OK.”

3. Intense Emotional Reactions

Research indicates that insecure attachment styles are associated with difficulty managing big emotions. You might find yourself having explosive arguments over small things, shutting down completely when criticized, or feeling anxious for days after a minor disagreement with someone you care about.

“Attachment-based therapy is about having a corrective emotional experience, learning how to have more secure attachments to people in our lives, and that security is the basis for self-regulation,” McSparran explains. As you develop more secure attachment patterns, you naturally become better at managing difficult emotions.

4. Low Self-Esteem

Studies suggest that low self-esteem is linked to insecure attachment styles. When you didn’t receive consistent love and validation early in life, you may develop a core belief that you’re not worthy of love, which then interferes with your ability to connect authentically with others.

Working toward a more secure attachment style helps repair your relationship with yourself, improving both self-esteem and your capacity for healthy relationships.

How Effective Is Attachment Therapy? What Studies Show

While attachment-based therapy doesn’t have as extensive a research base as more general approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the available evidence is promising.

Most robust research focuses on attachment-based family therapy with children and adolescents. A 2021 comprehensive review found that this approach can help young people:

• Reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviors
• Decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety
• Improve attachment security and reduce attachment-related avoidance
• Strengthen family relationships and communication

For adults, research on attachment-based compassion therapy shows positive results for reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorders. Additionally, studies on emotionally focused therapy (EFT)—which is grounded in attachment theory—demonstrate strong effectiveness for couples therapy, with success rates of 70 to 73 percent for creating lasting relationship improvement.

While more research is needed specifically on attachment therapy for individual adults, the theoretical foundation is solid, and clinical experience consistently shows positive outcomes for those struggling with relationship patterns rooted in early attachment experiences.

When Should I Choose Attachment Therapy Over Regular Therapy?

Many people struggling with mental health challenges opt for more general approaches like CBT. However, attachment therapy may be more suitable if you recognize that relationship patterns are at the heart of your difficulties.

“Attachment therapy should be considered over a general modality when relationships always seem to be the catalyst for unhelpful emotions or unhelpful behaviors,” McSparran says.

Consider attachment therapy if:

• Your childhood experiences still strongly influence how you feel about yourself and others
• You’re interested in understanding why you react the way you do in relationships, not just managing symptoms
• You notice the same relationship patterns repeating across different partnerships or friendships
• Trust, intimacy, or emotional regulation are consistent challenges for you
• You experienced early trauma or neglect that affects your current relationships
• Traditional therapy approaches haven’t addressed the root of your relationship difficulties

While other therapeutic approaches focus primarily on thoughts and behaviors, attachment therapy dives deeper into the emotional and neurological patterns formed in your earliest relationships. This makes it particularly effective for issues rooted in how you connect with others.

How to Get Started with Attachment Therapy

If you’re ready to explore attachment therapy, here’s how to find the right therapist:

Look for specific specializations when browsing therapist directories. Search for providers who list “attachment-based therapy,” “attachment therapy,” or “emotionally focused therapy” as specialties. Many directories allow you to filter by therapeutic approach.

Seek trauma-informed care. Since many attachment struggles stem from early difficult experiences, it’s valuable to find a therapist who specifically mentions trauma-informed practice or trauma specialization alongside attachment work.

Consider additional relevant specialties like couples therapy (if you’re in a relationship), family therapy (if you have children), or specific approaches like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) or Gottman Method couples counseling, which incorporate attachment principles.

Ask direct questions during initial consultations: How do you work with attachment issues? What’s your experience helping people change relationship patterns? What does your approach to attachment therapy typically involve?

Remember, we can’t change our past, but we absolutely can heal, grow, and move forward to create the healthy, secure relationships we deserve.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a typical attachment therapy session look like?

A typical attachment therapy session involves bringing in a recent relationship challenge to explore with your therapist. You’ll analyze your emotional and physical responses, identify old patterns, and practice safer ways to connect.

How do I know if my child needs attachment therapy?

Signs your child may need attachment therapy include getting anxious when you leave, pushing people away, or being extra sensitive to rejection. You might also notice intense emotional outbursts or difficulty trusting others. In these cases, attachment-based family therapy could be beneficial.

Is attachment therapy the same as attachment-based therapy?

Yes, attachment therapy and attachment-based therapy are typically used interchangeably in clinical settings to describe legitimate, evidence-based approaches grounded in attachment theory. However, be aware that “attachment therapy” can sometimes refer to discredited and harmful practices from the 1980s-90s involving physical restraint and coercive techniques. These dangerous approaches are more specifically called “coercive attachment therapy,” “holding therapy,” or “rebirthing therapy.”

When mental health professionals use “attachment therapy” today, they’re referring to safe, evidence-based therapeutic approaches that help clients understand how early relationships affect current functioning.