“My work is primarily about creating a secure sense of connection with self and with others.” - Sue Johnson
What makes relationships so complicated?
Relationships ask us to be known, to need other people, to trust that they’ll stay, and to tolerate the fact that sometimes they won’t respond exactly the way we hoped they would. All of that can touch very old places in us.
We bring our histories of closeness, distance, belonging, rejection, comfort, conflict, and repair into the relationships we have now, often without realizing how much those earlier experiences are shaping what we expect from other people. We may become especially sensitive to distance, conflict, disappointment, or changes in tone because some part of us has learned to pay close attention to those things.
At the same time, relationships ask us to stay connected to ourselves while being deeply connected to someone else. To know what we need, communicate it, hear what another person needs, tolerate difference, repair after hurt, and decide what belongs to us and what belongs to them. That is a lot of complexity inside one relationship.
Sometimes the hardest part is that the more important a relationship becomes, the more vulnerable we become inside it. The people we care about most often have the greatest ability to touch our fears, hopes, insecurities, and old expectations. Which is part of what can make relationships so meaningful and also so difficult.
What happens when connection itself begins to feel risky?
Sometimes what looks like anger, withdrawal, people-pleasing, control, jealousy, or shutting down is organized around something much more vulnerable underneath: the fear or pain of being left alone, unseen, unwanted, or without the connection we need.
Attachment theory gives us one way to understand this. Our earliest and most important relationships help shape what we come to expect from closeness: whether other people will be available, whether our needs will be welcomed, whether conflict can be repaired, and whether it feels safe to depend on someone without losing ourselves in the process. Those expectations can continue showing up in adult relationships, especially when a relationship matters deeply to us.
Frank Corrigan, the developer of Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), uses the term core aloneness pain to describe a deep attachment-related pain that can sit underneath protective responses and become linked with fear, grief, shame, or anger. When something in a present relationship touches that older pain, our reactions can become much bigger, faster, or more automatic than the current moment seems to call for.
What strain in relationships with others can look like →
Relationship strain can show up in one important connection or across many relationships. Sometimes it looks like conflict; other times it shows up as distance, insecurity, difficulty trusting, overfunctioning, or a sense that closeness never quite feels easy. Often, the patterns that create the most frustration are also attempts to protect something vulnerable underneath.
Repeating the same conflicts
Having versions of the same argument again and again without feeling as though anything truly gets resolved or repaired.
Fear of rejection or abandonment
Becoming highly sensitive to distance, changes in tone, delayed responses, or signs that someone may be pulling away.
People-pleasing or losing yourself
Prioritizing another person’s comfort, needs, or approval so consistently that it becomes difficult to know what you want or need.
Pulling away when people get close
Feeling exposed, overwhelmed, trapped, or uncomfortable when a relationship becomes more intimate, leading you to create distance even when part of you still wants connection.
Resentment and emotional distance
Feeling increasingly unseen, unsupported, exhausted, or disconnected after important needs, hurts, or conflicts have gone unresolved.
Difficulty sustaining closeness
Wanting connection but finding that relationships become harder to maintain over time, especially as vulnerability, dependence, or conflict increases.
Is repair always possible?
When you begin changing the way you relate to yourself and to other people, you also begin behaving differently inside your relationships. Maybe you communicate more directly, tolerate less resentment, stop overfunctioning, become more vulnerable, set clearer boundaries, or stay present in conversations you once avoided. When one person in a relationship changes, the relationship itself has to respond to that change.
Sometimes the system begins to reorganize in a really beautiful way. The person across from you responds differently too. Old patterns loosen, conversations become more honest, repair happens more quickly, and the relationship becomes capable of holding more of who both people actually are.
And sometimes your growth creates more tension before it creates anything else. A relationship that functioned partly because you stayed quiet, accommodated, pursued, withdrew, rescued, or carried more than your share may feel less stable when you stop participating in that pattern. What happens next depends, in part, on the person sitting across from you and their willingness and ability to grow with you.
I’m deeply interested in repair when repair is possible. Therapy can help you understand your part in the pattern, practice showing up differently, and give the relationship an opportunity to respond to something new.
What we can work toward →
The goal isn’t to eliminate conflict or make every relationship feel easy. I’m more interested in helping you become more able to stay connected to yourself while staying connected to other people, recognize what is happening underneath familiar patterns, and respond in ways that create more honesty, repair, and choice.
More secure connection
Feeling more able to depend on others, receive care, and stay emotionally present without closeness feeling immediately threatening or unstable.
More honest communication
Becoming clearer and more direct about what you feel, need, want, and hope for without relying as heavily on shutting down, overexplaining, people-pleasing, or escalating.
More trust and vulnerability
Feeling increasingly able to let yourself be known, tolerate uncertainty, and take relational risks without assuming that openness will automatically lead to rejection or loss.
More choice in your relationships
Recognizing familiar patterns earlier and feeling more able to decide how you want to respond rather than being pulled automatically into pursuit, withdrawal, accommodation, control, or avoidance.
More repair after conflict
Learning how to return to connection after hurt, misunderstanding, or disagreement rather than allowing conflict to become distance, resentment, or proof that the relationship is unsafe.
More differentiation
Staying connected to your own values, needs, and perspective while remaining emotionally engaged with someone else’s experience too.
How I approach this work
Relationship patterns usually make more sense when we understand what they are protecting. We may look at attachment history, the roles you learned to take on in relationships, the places where closeness or conflict become especially activating, and the responses that show up automatically when connection feels uncertain.
My relational work is influenced by attachment theory and by the work of Sue Johnson, John and Julie Gottman, and Terry Real, particularly around secure connection, conflict, repair, differentiation, and accountability. I also draw from EMDR, DBR, ACT, and Positive Psychology when old relational experiences, body-based responses, or deeply learned patterns are still shaping how you show up with the people who matter to you.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT is one tool we may use to clarify how you want to show up in relationships and practice responding in ways that are more consistent with your values, even when difficult thoughts or emotions show up.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
We may use EMDR when a current relationship pattern seems connected to earlier experiences your mind and body learned from in a powerful way. We can revisit and reprocess those experiences so they hold less influence over how you respond in relationships today.
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)
We can utilize DBR when a present-day relational impact brings up a familiar shift, reaction, or response you didn’t want. We can use that moment to work with the body-based processes underneath the pattern.
Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology gives us another way to work with relationship patterns by strengthening what supports connection, belonging, reciprocity, meaning, shared experiences, and relationships that feel more life-giving.
Your relationships can grow with you.
If you’re noticing patterns in your relationships that you want to understand or change, we can start there. We’ll look at what keeps getting activated, what you’re trying to protect, and how you want to show up differently with the people who matter to you.