Develop secure attachment

Heal your attachment. Whether you have an anxious, avoidant, or disorganised attachment style, you have the potential to become securely attached.

Together we will identify your specific attachment style and behaviours, then use Integrative Attachment Therapy to foster secure attachment.

A path to develop secure attachment

  • Assess

    First we’ll assess your attachment together to determine your attachment style, identify attachment wounds, and see where you need help to grow.

  • Plan

    Together we’ll develop a treatment plan based on Integrative Attachment Therapy, the only comprehensive therapy created to develop secure attachment.

  • Re-learn

    We’ll work to meet your attachment needs, creating the experiences you need to heal from old wounds and change beliefs that negatively contribute to your relationships.

  • Check in

    We’ll regularly review your progress, ensuring that our work is helping to make you feel more secure and relate more healthily.

  • Re-assess

    Once we both think you’re ready we’ll re-assess your attachment, confirming whether you now have a secure attachment style.

  • Conclusion

    If you still feel uncertain about your relationships, we’ll work on any other issues that might need to be addressed. If not, then our work is complete!

Integrative Attachment Therapy

Ideal parents

Pillar 1: The Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

We’ll work to create and utilise ideal parent figures, who demonstrate the attitudes and behaviours that create secure attachment. As I guide you through this process, interacting with these ideal parents will facilitate the development of a positive, stable inner working model of attachment relationships.

Pillar 2: Fostering collaboration

We’ll work together to develop a common understanding of your specific attachment behaviours and beliefs, then come up with a personalised treatment plan for your needs. We’ll foster verbal and nonverbal collaborative behaviours that support secure attachment.

Pillar 3: Increasing meta-cognition

Meta-cognition is “thinking about thinking” (and feeling). Substantial research exists that shows that metacognitive development greatly benefits people with attachment issues. We’ll develop your meta-cognition in the areas that will most help to increase the security of your attachment.

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • Yes, Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) is based on decades of attachment and developmental science, as well as other leading research on the importance of developing meta-cognition and collaboration in therapy. A pilot study on IAT found that 12 out of 12 previously insecurely attached clients were able to develop secure attachment and experienced significant other benefits from engaging in the approach. Further study of this therapy is currently in development.

  • Integrative Attachment Therapy was primarily developed by Dr Dan P. Brown, an Associate Clinical Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and Dr David Elliott, a clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard. Both are internationally recognised experts in the areas of attachment and childhood development.

  • The time it takes to develop secure attachment is highly dependent on each person's individual situation. Life circumstances during therapy, unresolved trauma, personal resources, and other factors will all influence how long such a change might take. Anyone intending to change their attachment style should be prepared to commit to therapy for at least several months.

  • No therapist can ever guarantee that therapy will work, but Integrative Attachment Therapy is the most well-researched and developed method for helping someone to develop a secure attachment. Get in touch and we can discuss whether this approach is right for you.

  • Yes. Integrative Attachment Therapy has been designed to work with anxious-preoccupied, avoidant-dismissive, and disorganised attachment types.

  • Apart from being linked to greater satisfaction in relationships, people with secure attachment are also found to have higher levels of:

    • Self-worth

    • Emotional well-being

    • Social skills

    • Emotional regulation

    • Reduced stress and anxiety

    • Immune function and overall physical health

    Insecure attachment is associated with a higher risk of developing mental illness. Conversely, developing secure attachment can contribute to resolving many psychological issues.

  • The most accurate method for determining your attachment style is the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). However, the AAI is a time-consuming, expensive process. When we begin working together we will discuss whether it is necessary to use the AAI to determine your attachment style. More basic tools are available to use which are, when combined with therapeutic assessment, often sufficient for most people. If you'd like to get an initial impression of what attachment style you might have, you can do so at The Attachment Project.

  • Research has found a strong link between a person's attachment style and their psychological wellbeing, and the importance of attachment theory is widely acknowledged within psychotherapy. However, until Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) was developed, no therapy existed to directly work on helping insecurely attached people to become securely attached. While other therapies may indirectly help with attachment issues, for now IAT is the only comprehensive therapy developed specifically for this issue.

Book a free 15 minute initial call to discuss how we can work together. To learn more about my approach, read the FAQs below or send me a message.

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