Expertise

Attachment

Do you often find yourself in romantic relationships where there’s a lot of push and pull? Do you sometimes doubt your own worth or struggle to trust others? You might be dealing with underlying attachment issues. If this resonates with you, keep reading!

In your childhood, the interactions with your parents and primary caregivers lay the foundation for how you connect with others later in life. Generally, there are two types of attachment: secure and insecure attachment.

Were your parents able to give you the emotional care you needed as a child, while also respecting your autonomy? If so, you likely developed a secure attachment style. About 60% of people have a secure attachment. When you're securely attached, you have a basic trust in both yourself and others. This allows you to feel free to be yourself and form intimate relationships with others.

With an insecure attachment, there is a lack of basic trust in yourself and/or others. This is often rooted in a sense of loss, an unfulfilled emotional need from your childhood. This 'old childhood pain' can be triggered in your later relationships, causing you to fall back into survival mechanisms you developed as a child to cope with the loss. This can make it much harder to have healthy relationships with others.

Children with addicted parents, parents with mental health issues, or those who have experienced divorce or loss often develop an insecure attachment. But sometimes, there’s nothing obvious at the root. Even children with loving parents have, at times, lacked the emotional care they needed. This might include feeling 'invisible,' 'not allowed to be yourself,' having to suppress emotions, not feeling comforted or supported, or feeling pressured.

Even later in life, you can develop an insecure attachment, especially by entering a relationship with an insecurely attached partner. This can lead to increased uncertainty, loss of trust, and sometimes even adopting the other person’s behavioral patterns.

Luckily, there’s hope! Your attachment style continues to develop throughout your life. By investing in your own mental growth and gaining positive experiences, you can change your attachment style for the better. I have all the tools and experience to guide you through this process. Keep in mind that there’s no 'quick fix.' It’s a journey that takes time and insight, but it’s one where you’ll definitely experience the reward!

Trauma

Have you ever experienced a traumatic event that still lingers in your mind? Or are you wondering if you might be carrying unresolved trauma? Tension, anxiety, mood swings, and sleep issues can all be signs of a deeper, unresolved wound.

To avoid overusing the word 'trauma,' I’d like to add that not all trauma needs to be extreme. I sometimes refer to it as your mental 'bruises.' It’s important to understand that we don’t need to compare different kinds of trauma or make them seem more or less severe than how you experience them. What you feel matters and deserves to be taken seriously, fully acknowledged. By doing so, it becomes more manageable and, over time, easier to carry.

It’s important to understand that trauma isn’t the event itself, but how you experienced it. When the experience feels too overwhelming to process, your primary stress response (fight, flight, or freeze) may not be enough, or it may linger for too long. As a result, part of your personality might disconnect or fragment—this is the trauma part. We tend to protect this part because confronting it brings us face-to-face with the underlying fear and pain. That’s why we unconsciously develop survival mechanisms to avoid it. You may not even remember the event. Still, trauma is stored in your body, and your body will react when triggered.

In attachment trauma, the process is often longer and starts in childhood. It is often reinforced in adulthood through relationships with others, which can deepen its effect.

When your healthy part, your 'adult autonomous self,' is strong enough, the time may be right to begin facing your trauma step by step. This process happens under my guidance in a trusted and safe environment, at a pace that feels right for you. Although it may seem frightening, it's important to know that it is not dangerous. The situation from the past will not return. 

The goal of trauma treatment is to integrate the trauma part into your personality so that you begin to feel whole again. Constantly protecting and avoiding this part drains a lot of energy. You will literally go from surviving to living!

Emotion regulation

One of the key aspects of trauma and attachment issues is underdeveloped emotional regulation. This means you might struggle with recognizing, acknowledging, and expressing your emotions in an emotionally mature way. You may not have learned how to feel and interpret what’s happening in your body, or perhaps you grew up with the message that feelings didn’t matter or were something to avoid.

When something happens in the present that unconsciously reminds you of a painful experience from the past, you can get triggered. Because you're also subconsciously reacting to that 'old pain,' your emotions may overwhelm you with an intensity that doesn't match the current situation. That intensity might be directed at yourself, manifesting as anxiety or tension, which can get in the way of your own well-being. It can also be directed at someone else. Since others usually don’t know your past, it’s very possible they won’t understand your reaction. Unintentionally, this can put a strain on your relationships with those around you.

Working on your emotional regulation can be an important first step in your healing process. With my guidance, you'll learn to better identify your body's signals, so your emotions won’t overwhelm you as much. You’ll start to experience what it’s like to fully allow and feel your emotions. You’ll also practice slowing down during trigger moments in order to gain perspective. Together, we’ll explore how to take care of your emotions in a healthy way—both preventively and during those trigger moments. And, as with everything: practice makes perfect. Over time, you’ll find yourself reacting in ways that best serve you, becoming a more balanced person.

Survival

As a child, and sometimes even later in life, you subconsciously develop ways to deal with trauma. These are known as coping or survival mechanisms. At their core, these behaviors always have a positive intention. They kept you safe during times when your system was overwhelmed by physical or emotional danger. As you move through life, you often subconsciously continue to apply the same behaviors in new situations.

Survival mechanisms can take many forms. They can generally be categorized into four main types:

• Fight: struggling to let go, manipulating, exercising control, persuading, resisting, overthinking, feeling easily attacked, anger, inflating your image, putting yourself down.
• Flight: being in your head, not feeling, rationalizing, disconnecting, physically leaving, superficiality, addictive behavior, avoiding, denying, victim mentality.
• Fawning: self-neglect, dependency, over-helping, rescuing others, perfectionism, adapting, not setting boundaries, suppressing personal needs, false hope, heightened alertness.
• Freeze: dissociation, memory loss

You’ll likely recognize some of these in yourself, and perhaps you can think of many more. The first three categories share the common trait that you subconsciously try to influence a situation to gain control over it. Freezing is the only option left when you realize you're powerless.

Why do we all develop different survival mechanisms? First, there is a genetic component at play. Second, we have the ability to learn, and we train ourselves to use certain mechanisms if they have worked for us in the past. The good news is that you can also teach yourself new behaviors!

Survival mechanisms aren't inherently negative. Often, your best qualities have stemmed from them. It's about the "too much"! Doing great work is helpful, but perfectionism can get in your way. And perseverance is a wonderful trait until it prevents you from letting go.

The art is to address the 'too much.' Keep your beautiful qualities, but take a close look at what’s holding you back. In my practice, we'll explore your survival mechanisms together and find ways to transform them.

Relationship fear

The pain of lacking emotional care in childhood often repeats itself in our adult romantic relationships. What I mean is that, as children, we didn’t receive the attention, appreciation, recognition, and validation we were entitled to and needed. Without realizing it, we begin seeking compensation for that void. We unconsciously choose a partner who emotionally resembles one of our parents. This can manifest in different ways over time.

On one hand, it may be a partner who is physically unavailable, such as someone who is already in a relationship, lives far away, doesn’t know you well, or doesn’t feel romantically attracted to you. On the other hand, it might be an emotionally unavailable partner: someone who cannot commit, has difficulty empathizing with you due to traits like autism or narcissism, struggles with mental health issues, or exhibits addictive behaviors.

It could also be that we unconsciously choose a partner who is always available and willing to do anything to gain our attention and approval. This can lead to a dynamic of dependence and overcompensation, where the partner is more focused on caring for us than on their own boundaries. Even though it doesn’t make you happy, it’s familiar, and that’s why it feels comfortable.

Vervolgens raak je, hoe kan het ook anders, getriggerd in je ‘oude pijn’ en ga je je overlevingsmechanismen inzetten om de pijn van vroeger in je huidige relatie te voorkomen. Dit is een strijd die je gemakkelijk kunt verliezen, want al snel ga je merken dat je samen in een destructieve dynamiek terechtkomt: de dans van aantrekken en afstoten.

Binnen het fenomeen onveilige hechting kunnen we onderscheid maken tussen een angstige hechtingsstijl (verlatingsangst) en een vermijdende hechtingsstijl (bindingsangst). In feite gaat het over hetzelfde: een groot verlangen naar liefde in combinatie met een diepgewortelde angst voor emotionele intimiteit. Er wordt echter een tegengesteld overlevingsmechanisme ingezet. De verlatingsangstige reikt uit om de liefde en veiligheid veilig te stellen. De bindingsangstige daarentegen verlangt wel naar liefde, maar zoekt zijn veiligheid in het nemen van afstand.

De verlatingsangstige voelt enorm veel angst als de bindingsangstige niet in zijn/haar intimiteitsbehoeften kan voorzien en afstand neemt, maar kan zich niet van de relatie losmaken. Als de bindingsangstige wat afstand heeft, zakt de angst en zal het verlangen naar liefde weer naar de voorgrond komen. Als de bindingsangstige terugkeert, zal de angst bij de verlatingsangstige weer wegzakken om plaats te maken voor opluchting of zelfs euforie. Zo ontstaat er een knipperlichtrelatie. Bij de bindingsangstige speelt er onderliggend altijd verlatingsangst en bij de verlatingsangstige altijd bindingsangst. Per situatie of per partner kan de rol die je kiest dus ook verschillen. Er zijn vele variaties op deze dynamiek mogelijk. Het kan bijvoorbeeld ook zijn dat je het helemaal niet meer aandurft om een relatie te hebben.

We noemen de liefdesbange dans ook wel relatieverslaving. De heftigheid van deze dynamiek wordt al snel verward met echt liefde. Maar niets is minder waar: het is een ‘shotje’ liefde dat je nodig hebt om je ‘oude pijn’ te dempen. Je gaat een afhankelijkheidsrelatie aan om een intern gemis bij elkaar op te vullen.

Wat is er dan nodig om deze dynamiek een halt toe te roepen? Je hebt het vast al vaker gehoord, maar het is essentieel om zelf zorg te gaan dragen voor het gemis en verlangen binnen jezelf. Dan wordt de relatie met een ander niet meer een noodzaak, maar een mooie aanvulling. Ook hiervoor geldt dat er geen quick fix bestaat. Je moet het zelf doen, maar je hoeft het gelukkig niet alleen te doen. Met mijn hulp kun je de juiste stappen gaan zetten naar heling, zelfliefde en autonomie.