Understanding Attachment Trauma & The Healing Process
How Attachment Therapy Can Help healing in Tampa & St. Petersburg
Author: Annie Mowbray
Reviewer: Kaitlyn Shelp, MA, LMHC ✓
Published June 3, 2025
Have you ever wondered why relationships feel harder than they should? Or why you push people away even when you crave connection? These emotional patterns may not be random, they could stem from early attachment trauma. At It Begins Within our Tampa and St. Petersburg-based therapists help clients uncover the roots of their struggles and begin the process of healing through trauma-informed, attachment-based therapy.
What Is Attachment Trauma?
Attachment trauma occurs when a child’s early emotional or physical needs are not consistently met by caregivers. Due to a lack of consistency and connection, it disrupts the essential bond between caregivers and children. These early relationships are the foundation for how we as individuals connect, trust, and regulate emotions throughout our lives. When that foundation is unstable, the effects can cause us challenges throughout our lives until it is addressed.
If you’re struggling with attachment trauma in Florida, get the help that you deserve.
Attachment trauma can be extensive, and can begin before we even have words to express it (for instance months 0-12 of an infants life is a critical window for forming secure attachments). It can show up in many areas of our lives and shape our core beliefs about ourselves, others, and our relationships.
Some of the ways attachment trauma may show up in our adult life are:
A fear of abandonment
Difficulty trusting others
A tendency to withdraw, especially during conflict
These are only a few ways attachment trauma can show up in someone's life, but these early attachments can lead to long-term patterns within relationships. At its core, this type of trauma reflects a deep-rooted disruption in our earliest experiences of safety, comfort, and connection.
While attachment trauma’s impact on relationships and self-worth can be significant, there is certainly hope for healing. Healing becomes possible with awareness, understanding, and the right therapeutic support.
What Is Attachment-based Therapy?
Attachment-based therapy is a trauma-informed therapeutic approach that focuses on the relational wounds formed in childhood. These emotional wounds are formed in early childhood and are caused by neglect, emotional unavailability, abuse, or inconsistent caregiving. This type of therapy works to support individuals in building a secure relationship with their therapist so that they can then explore relationship patterns and behaviors throughout their lives. This therapeutic dynamic is built upon trust and security to begin processing and healing from past traumas.
Attachment-based Therapy utilizes the framework of attachment styles
The four primary types of attachment styles
Secure attachment
Anxious attachment
Avoidant attachment
Disorganized attachment
understanding the 4 attachment styles
Secure attachment develops from consistent, responsive caregiving and leads to healthy, trusting relationships.
Anxious attachment stems from inconsistent care, creating a strong need for closeness and fear of abandonment.
Avoidant attachment arises when caregivers are emotionally distant, leading individuals to suppress emotions and avoid intimacy or connection.
Disorganized attachment, often linked to early trauma or abuse, combines fear and longing for connection.
Clients engaged in attachment-based therapy can gently begin to unravel past relational trauma and begin forming new, healthier patterns of trust, connection, and emotional regulation. Whether you're working through childhood abandonment, struggling with intimacy, or coping with the lasting effects of early emotional wounds, attachment-based therapy offers a powerful path toward healing and self-discovery. If you're looking for a trauma-informed therapist in St. Petersburg or Tampa, we offer experienced support at each step of the journey.
what does attachment therapy help with?
If you have experienced attachment trauma, and it hasn’t been resolved there is a strong likelihood you are currently experiencing one or several of the following:
Low self-worth and chronic shame
Difficulties with emotional regulation
Avoidance and difficulty with vulnerability
Common Signs of Attachment Trauma
Recognizing the Signs of Attachment Trauma
Attachment trauma can often go unrecognized due to being developed during formative years. Often we see individuals across Tampa which come to our practice with a belief that their behaviors which are causing them pain are just “How I’m wired” - and this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Attachment trauma often does not come from a single event, but rather is built from subtle, ongoing disturbances or disconnection in early relationships. Rather than feeling consistently safe, seen, or soothed by caregivers, a child may grow up navigating inconsistency, neglect, or confusion. These fundamental experiences leave deep impacts on an individual, shaping how one connects and protects oneself later in life. As adults, the effects continue to show up in ways that feel confusing, painful, or even destructive, especially in close relationships.
Some common signs can include:
Difficulty trusting others, even when there is no clear reason for distrust
Persistent fear of abandonment or rejection, especially in close or romantic relationships
Feeling of being unworthy, often rooted in early messages regarding self-worth.
Emotional triggers, such as fight, flight, or fawn responses during conflict or vulnerability
Emotional flooding, where intense feelings become overwhelming and hard to regulate
These reactions are not signs of weakness or dysfunction, they are protective adaptations formed in response to unmet needs early in life. At one time, these responses allowed for survival and served us, but as we mature they may grow to become unproductive and even destructive impacts later in life. Understanding them through the lens of attachment trauma helps us replace self-criticism and shame with compassion and appreciation for how one’s brain protects them. This mindset shift is the beginning of the work required for healing old wounds and building safer, more secure relationships.
if your seeking support in tampa or st. petersburg call today to learn more & schedule a free consultation with our COMPASSIONATE & SPECIALIZED TRAUMA THERAPIST
Why Am I So Reactive in Relationships?
At times, people can find themselves asking themselves this question. If you've ever thought, “I don’t know why I get so upset,” or “Why do I push people away, even when I don’t want to?”, you’re not alone. These questions and concerns are common experiences for individuals carrying attachment trauma. Emotional reactivity in relationships can stem from early wounds that have not yet had the chance to heal. The nervous system may still be wired for protection, perceiving even small relationship challenges as threats.
Being able to understand and begin healing these patterns can take time, compassion, and support. This process can be fostered and encouraged through a strong therapeutic relationship. Whether through individual therapy, couples counseling, or trauma-informed practices, it is possible to uncover the roots of these reactions and begin to rebuild a sense of safety, trust, and connection.
Understanding Trauma Responses | Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn
As individuals, our nervous systems are wired to keep us safe. In childhood, especially when relationships feel unpredictable, unsafe, or emotionally neglectful, one will develop protective responses or trauma responses to perceived threats. A trauma response is not a conscious choice, but deeply ingrained survival strategies shaped by our earliest environments. Types of trauma responses are;
Fight - Anger, control, or criticism used to defend against vulnerability or regain a sense of power over a situation or environment
Flight - Avoidance, perfectionism, or overworking as a way to escape discomfort or perceived failure
Freeze - Emotional numbness, dissociation, or shutting down when situations feel overwhelming or unsafe to show up fully
Fawn - People-pleasing, over-accommodating, or self-abandoning to avoid conflict or rejection.
These responses follow up beyond childhood and often show up in adult relationships. Some examples of ways these trauma responses can show up are someone with a fawn response might say “yes” to everything their partner wants, despite their own needs, even when they feel overwhelmed, unheard, or invisible. A fight response may look like anger or criticism in moments of vulnerability with a partner, while flight can drive a need to stay busy or emotionally distant in a relationship or a lack of relationships altogether. Freezing may lead to zoning out or feeling unable to act or speak when conflict arises. These responses can lead to a plethora of emotions and responses such as guilt, confusion, frustration, and more.
Understanding that these responses are adaptive (and not broken) can be profoundly validating. You're not “too sensitive,” “dramatic,” or “difficult.” Your body developed a process and response for survival that kept you safe, and it is not a flaw. Although this response served you at one point, it may no longer be serving you or your needs most effectively. You are responding and doing what your nervous system learned to do - protect you. With awareness and support, these protective strategies can be softened, reshaped, and healed to lead to responses that you feel in control of and serve you better now with the resources you have.
Flashbacks, Triggers, and “Stuck Memories”
Trauma flashbacks can vary for an individual and are not always visual. Many people experience emotional or sensory flashbacks that are characterized by a sudden wave of fear, shame, or helplessness triggered by everyday interactions. These flashbacks are often initiated by a trigger. A trigger is anything that activates a strong emotional or physical reaction due to it unconsciously reminding your body or mind of past trauma. Things such as a partner’s tone of voice, a disapproving look, body language, being ignored, or even less specific, such as the color of a shirt or a new hairstyle. These experiences can all bring up intense reactions that seem out of proportion to the moment. These responses are because the body is reacting to unresolved trauma and even attachment wounds, such as early experiences where safety, connection, or boundaries were violated or unmet.
A question that can come up is, “Why am I having these memories now?” It is highly common for these emotional memories to surface only when your system feels safe enough to process them. This experience is called a delayed recall. Delayed recall is a normal and protective response, not a sign that the memory is false or unreliable. It's the brain’s way of managing overwhelming experiences until you're more equipped to process them. These “stuck” memories can deeply affect an individual in relationships and self-worth. One may respond by shutting down, lashing out, or feeling overwhelmed without understanding why. These memories or responses do not have to be stuck, and working with a trauma-informed therapist can help you identify triggers, regulate your nervous system, and begin to heal these old patterns.
How Attachment Therapy Helps You Heal
Attachment-based therapy is a relational, trauma-informed approach designed to address the emotional wounds that often begin in childhood. This therapy focuses on healing through connection, safety, and understanding.
Some ways in which attachment therapy can support your healing journey are:
Creating a safe, consistent therapeutic relationship
Rebuilding trust in others and yourself
Reframing childhood beliefs and internalized messages
Supporting emotional regulation & nervous system calming
Encouraging long-term change through secure, relational repair
Helping to identify and manage trauma triggers
Developing adaptive skills for healthier boundaries and communication patterns
Increasing self-compassion and self-awareness
Fostering more comfort with intimacy and vulnerability
Healing attachment trauma is more than “fixing” or changing patterns in behavior, but getting to the root of your experience and healing from there. The patterns that lead to emotional distress today began as survival strategies in an environment where your emotional needs were not fully met. Therapy offers a chance to understand those patterns from a compassionate lens.
If you recognize yourself in any of these signs or responses, you are not alone. Many people are carrying silent wounds from the past, unsure why relationships feel so hard or why emotions seem so overwhelming. At IBW, there is a team of therapists ready to support your journey to healing and growth with a trauma-informed lens. You are worthy of safety, connection, and support. Healing takes time and courage, but it is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone.
