Attachment Based Relationship Tips
Looking to strengthen your relationship? Our blog offers expert relationship tips rooted in attachment theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy. Learn how to identify your attachment style, communicate more effectively, and foster emotional safety with your partner. From overcoming conflict to building deeper trust, our practical advice and tools, created by couples therapist Julie Menanno, are designed to help you move toward a secure and fulfilling connection. Dive in and start transforming your relationships today!
Anxious Attachment, Codependency, and the Work of Healing
Anxious attachment and codependency are not flaws or weaknesses. They are nervous system strategies developed to manage pain and feel safe. Healing begins when feelings are allowed instead of acted out.
The Core Difference Between Anxious and Avoidant Attachment (Copy)
Anxious attachment is often misunderstood as neediness. In reality, it reflects unmet attachment needs for clarity, emotional responsiveness, and connection. Understanding this difference is key to building secure relationships.
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VIDEOS
VIDEOS
Integration is the ability to hold multiple truths at once, like feeling angry and still caring, without flipping into black-and-white thinking. This preview shares key insights from Julie’s group on how splitting shows up in relationships and how to practice “both/and” responses that create emotional safety.
In this week’s group, Julie dives into integration: the ability to hold multiple experiences at once instead of flipping into splitting (black-and-white thinking, all anger or all empathy, all “they’re bad” or all “they’re good”). She explains how splitting often happens outside of conscious awareness as a nervous system safety strategy, especially when you feel threatened, overwhelmed, blamed, or emotionally flooded.
Julie breaks down what integration looks like in real life: feeling mad at someone and still caring about them, noticing red flags and acknowledging someone’s pain, or seeing several perspectives while still making a grounded decision. She also connects integration to attachment patterns and negative cycles, showing how a lack of integration can create rigidity punctuated by blowups, or chaotic swings in mood and meaning.
If you’ve ever felt emotional whiplash, gotten stuck in “I’m right, you’re wrong,” or struggled to validate someone without losing yourself, this session will help you slow down, regulate, and find the “both/and” that creates more stability and connection.