Family Patterns
How early emotional experiences can shape adult patterns, even when nothing dramatic happened.
The phrase childhood emotional wounds refers to the lasting effects of early experiences in which a child's emotional needs for comfort, attention, safety, or acceptance were not fully met. These experiences do not need to involve dramatic events, and they often occur in homes where people cared a great deal and were also stretched, stressed, or unsure how to respond to emotion. Understanding them is a way of making sense of your own patterns, and it does not require placing blame on anyone.
Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) is a non-pathologizing approach. It assumes that all emotion regulation strategies and ways of relating are adaptive in some way and can be understood by looking at a person's life experiences. This can bring a great deal of relief to anyone who has felt that something is wrong with them, because it shows how their responses make sense.
Many injuries to attachment happen in relationships, and EFIT uses relationship to provide new experiences of security and safety. As you gradually feel vulnerable emotions with support, these feelings can become less frightening, and the beliefs about yourself that formed around them can begin to soften.
Exploring early experiences can be emotionally intense. I place a strong emphasis on pacing and on your sense of safety, and we move toward difficult material only as you feel ready. If you have experienced trauma that feels overwhelming, it may help to have additional support alongside therapy, and I am glad to talk through that during a consultation call. Related reading includes emotionally immature family dynamics.
A free 15-minute consultation call is a low-pressure way to start and to see whether we are a good fit.
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