Blog: Attachment

As a Denver therapist specializing in attachment theory, I often work with clients who are working through challenging dynamics within a relationship. The dance of connection is full of steps and moves that impact the overall harmony between partners. Learning to ask yourself “will this create distance or connection?” can be a helpful step in cultivating more satisfying relationships.

Everyone has a fundamental need for connection, understanding, and validation. When your needs go unmet, or you have past trauma you haven’t healed, you’ll often try to work out these past situations - seeking to repeat the dynamics until you work through it - through your current relationships, sometimes without even realizing it. This is often the case ...

At Center for Shared Insight in Denver, Colorado, we see clients who are experiencing the full spectrum of relationship challenges. Some clients are working to stay engaged in a long-term marriage, while others are struggling with online dating—and everything in between. A handful of clients we see have been struggling for a long time with finding the right ...

When I recently read this line on an Instagram post, I quickly jotted it down, eager to share it with my clients as a succinct way to explain something we often discuss in sessions at my practice Center for Shared Insight in Denver, Colorado. As a therapist, I regularly see how clients are reacting to old ...

Online dating. It seems like the perfect way to meet an ideal match while being efficient with your time, selective with your choices, and intentional with your approach. Especially if you live in the suburbs or don’t go out much, it appears that online dating would be an excellent way to meet someone you have a lot in common ...

Dr. Kristen Hick and Dave Glaser, host of the Believe Be Real Be Bold Podcast, talk about various topics, from ways to cultivate self-awareness to resolving conflicts with your partner in this podcast. Framed around understanding behavior through attachment styles, Dr. Hick and Dave remind listeners to be more compassionate for themselves and others as they ...

Dr. Brittany Woolford from Center for Shared Insight joined Dave Glaser on the “Believe Be Real Be Bold” podcast. This podcast helps modern singles and couples build authentic relationships, and in this episode, Dr. Woolford dives into how the quarantine can impact your attachment style and your relationship during the coronavirus pandemic.

Your attachment style will ...

Dr. Kristen Hick joined Dave Glaser from Believe Be Real Be Bold to record a Podcast about Attachment Theory. On the show, Dr. Hick reminds listeners that not intimately knowing oneself is what holds many individuals back in relationships. She dives into the types of attachment systems and the gravity and polarity those different ways of attaching ...

Center for Shared Insight therapist Dr. Brittany Woolford, Ph.D recently talked with Dave Glaser from Believe Be Real Be Bold. Their discussion explored the relationship between attachment systems and sex. Throughout the podcast, Dr. Woolford shares her insights as a therapist as it relates to the way healthy attachment correlates to healthy sex. 

In this podcast, ...

Difficult emotions are labeled that way because they are difficult to feel, difficult to experience, to name, to own, and to overcome. Some of the emotions that might come to mind as you think about the most difficult things you feel include shame, guilt, fear, rage, grief, regret, and unworthiness.

Since these emotions are so difficult to work ...

More and more types of relationships emerge as dating becomes increasingly fluid and exploratory. One of the latest examples of this is a “situationship”.

Different than a friendship or relationship, Urban Dictionary defines a situationship as “a relationship that has no label on it... like a friendship but more than a friendship but not quite a relationship.” While ...

Think back to your last break-up...Did you feel devastatingly empty, depressed, lost or wonder how you would move forward without this person in your life? If so, you might be prone to losing yourself in a relationship. If you tend to merge with your current partner, assume their likes and dislikes, and take on his or her interests, after ...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of The Bachelorette. This reality television dating show was originally a spin-off of The Bachelor and it features an eligible single woman (aka The Bachelorette) who chooses a husband among 25 bachelors. Throughout the season, dating and relationship dynamics, including drama, conflict, and hurt feelings, unfold - much to ...

As relationship therapists, one question we get often from clients is how long to wait to have sex with their new partner. Sometimes there is (real or perceived) external pressure from your new partner causing you to ask this question or you might feel that having sex is a way to solidify a new relationship. Other times, having sex ...

Most likely, you have experienced a partner acting distant or disengaged in a relationship. This might look like long response times between communication, not opening up about his/her experience, or at it’s extreme, the silent treatment. This can feel uncomfortable for almost any partner, but if this feels dysregulating to you, it’s most likely due to a tendency towards ...

Dating can be exhausting. It’s not only time-consuming and expensive, it can also be difficult to meet someone you really connect with and trust. And, when you do, you may struggle with truly accepting a potentially fulfilling relationship. Instead, you might find yourself, repeatedly, in partnerships that are unhealthy or even dramatic. This is a common behavior in ...

There are three primary attachment styles in dating – Secure, Avoidant, and Anxious. While people tend to display one predominant style, most people fall somewhere on a continuum from avoidant to secure to anxious, and it can look different when interacting with different people (e.g., dates, parents, or friends). We’ve written about this quite a bit and you can ...

If you are reading this article, you have probably experienced an emotionally disconnected partner who is unable to articulate feelings on a deeper level. This might feel like a lack of comprehensive connection, that something is missing, or that there is an intentional distance kept between you and your partner.

This dynamic can be both painful to manage in ...

In part one of this post, we discussed signs that you may be desperate for love and therefore, compromising what you look for in a partner. Here, in part two, we’ll examine strategies for overcoming this feeling of desperation and how to approach dating and relationships from a grounded, intentional, and healthy mindset.

Instead of grasping for relationships ...

Have you ever been in a relationship and always felt like you were doing something wrong or something bad was about to happen? Do you have the tendency to blame yourself when things weren’t going as smoothly as you had hoped? Did you find yourself making up stories to explain your partner’s behavior without confirmation from him or her ...

Living in a digital age with endless content can be overwhelming. In my work as a Denver therapist, I often hear from clients that they’ve researched a topic related to relationships on the internet, and haven’t always received the best advice from forums or unreliable sources.

Below you’ll find a collection of top relationship resources that provide solid insight ...

Do you ever feel like you are attracted to, date, or even marry the same type of people over and over again? Do all of your relationships fall into a similar pattern and end due to the same dynamics? Does it feel like you attract or invite this relational pattern into your life, perhaps without consciously being aware ...

We hear a lot of buzz about codependency as a common relationship dynamic. However, there are several other types of dependency in relationships, and determining yours can provide valuable insight into the health of your partnerships.

Both interdependency and independency are other forms of relationship interaction along the dependency continuum. When you can better understand how your relationship is ...

In my work as a relationship therapist in Denver, Colorado, clients often question whether their partner is the best possible match and try to determine whether to keep looking for a better fit. Often this consideration is coupled by a broader “fear of missing out” (FOMO) as clients wonder whether they are settling or if there might be ...

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of a new relationship. You easily get swept away in the fun of learning all about a new person and experiencing the “firsts” together – first time holding hands, first kiss, the first time he/she calls you “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”. During this thrilling time of infatuation, it’s easy to get ...

In the age of information overload, it’s common to want to evaluate a relationship with a long list of pros and cons, or do online research about “signs of the right relationship” instead of simply trusting your intuition, or inner compass when it comes to evaluating the health of your romantic partnerships.

Because you have so many ...

The Relationship Roller Coaster, as I like to call it, is filled with emotional, exciting, and at times, frustrating ups and downs, twists and turns, and thrills. The drama and unpredictability of roller coasters is what gives you the excitement and surge of neurochemicals in your brain, and the very thing that gets you hooked and getting back ...

Intimacy is a necessary part of any healthy relationship. While it’s most common to think of intimacy as physical closeness, intimacy takes many important forms in a healthy relationship such as emotional closeness, friendship, intellectual alignment, and attachment. A close cousin to intimacy is vulnerability, which is a willingness to put yourself at risk for heartache, rejection, or ...

The holidays are a powerful, reflective time of the year and the transition to a new year often necessitates a sense of introspection about our impact in the world. Many of you may look back on 2016 and remember fondly the good that came into your life. Whereas, others may feel a sense of loss, anger, tragedy, and/or heartache, and ...

Relationships with others are a complex, fascinating dynamic that most of us spend our entire life trying to understand, master, and continuously improve. The way we show up in a partnership today is a culmination of the experiences in relationships throughout our lives – those with parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, and other loved ones. This collective experience creates our ...

In part 1 of this series, we decoded the origin of attachment styles and in part 2, described common attachment patterns and what they mean. Here, we’ll dive deeper into the dance between attachment systems and the resulting relationship dynamics.

Noting the interplay of attachment styles provides fascinating insight into your possible relationship dynamics. While most people have a ...

The ideal way to determine your attachment style is to work with a psychologist who is well-versed in attachment theory as it relates to relationships. A professional can help you assess what your attachment style is, understand how it developed, and how it affects your current and future relationships.

In addition, there are questionnaires and books ...

While we often think of attachment as something a child develops with a parent or caregiver, understanding the way we meet or attach to others can provide powerful insight into our relationship dynamics as adults. A deeper understanding can also help us understand and prepare for challenges that will arise in dating and relationships, which we will dive ...