Early life experiences with your parents or caregivers can powerfully shape your template for all relationships in your life. This idea comes from what is known as Attachment Theory, that categorizes relationship templates into two general buckets – Secure and Insecure Templates (or styles). If you had early life experiences that led to an insecure relationship template, it’s important to know this because it can help you understand current and past relationships through a new lens that is less shaming, stigmatizing, and hurtful. And the good news is that you don’t need to live with an insecure template but can change it to a secure template with some work. How do you know what attachment template or style you have? Take this brief quiz:

Experiences of Close Relationships

If your results show you have an insecure attachment style or template, then it’s time to learn more about attachment.

When untreated trauma emerges in relationships, it can unleash powerful emotions that lead to incredible suffering. The reason is that you can feel like you are reliving past experiences over and over again. While conflict is part of healthy relationships, when untreated trauma shows up, your responses (and often those of the other person) will usually be in the form of explosive fighting, fleeing the conflict, or completely shutting down (e.g., dissociation). These trauma responses – fight, flight, freeze – can be lifesaving in moments of real trauma, but when they remain in your body and nervous system, they can powerfully shape all relationships in your life in a negative way. It’s also the case for many people, that trauma from past generations may be responsible for trauma responses today, what we call historical trauma. So, it’s critical to know whether trauma is a factor in your relationship challenges.

The brief Assessment of Symptoms found on the dashboard included questions on trauma. If you have not completed it we encourage you to do so, because it will help you know whether this is an area to focus on in this program. If the results from the assessment suggest trauma is not an issue for you, but you still believe it might be, then learn more about trauma and tools for further assessing in your life.

Sometimes relationships that begin well can become abusive. In the beginning a partner can appear to be your soulmate, but later become physically, mentally, and/or emotionally abusive, leaving you feeling shame, confused, and controlled.

One clear sign found in most abusive relationships is that your partner tries to establish or gain power and control over you using various methods at different times. If you believe you are in an abusive relationship, or unsure and want to learn more, we encourage you to find a safe place and contact one of our trained clinicians .

Relationships can become challenged when you, or someone you care about, struggles with untreated mental, emotional, or physical health issues. It’s why we encourage you to start this program by assessing your symptoms first, because if you struggle with depression, anxiety, or addiction in some form, leaving these issues untreated will likely perpetuate your relationship challenges. In this program we address the most common reasons why people seek counseling, but there are many things that can disrupt your relationships including sudden grief and loss, receiving a medical diagnosis like cancer, or loss of a job. Our trained clinicians have experience addressing a wide range of issues that impact relationships, so if you don’t find what you are looking for in this program, please contact us.

Sometimes relationship challenges are due to the untreated symptoms of someone you care about. When a loved one or friend drinks or uses drugs excessively, struggles with mood swings and thoughts of suicide, or suffers from some other mental, emotional, or physical challenge, it can be hard to know how to help. And it can be even harder when the person you care about is not interested in helping themselves.

The way forward is to ensure that you are taking care of yourself first and identifying and managing your own symptoms. This program can help with that, then you can learn about an approach to helping your loved one that significantly increases your impact on their life. The approach is called the Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) approach, and it has been mostly used with addictions but can be adapted to other life challenges as well. This program provides you with all the tools necessary to learn about CRAFT and begin implementing it in your life.