Couples Therapy for Couples with Attachment Trauma in Brisbane, & Telehealth throughout Australia
For couples ready to heal together and build secure connection. Transform your relationship from the inside out.
It's time to stop repeating the past and start creating the relationship you both deserve.
Are childhood trauma and attachment wounds keeping you stuck in painful relationship patterns?
You're both committed to making this work, but old patterns keep showing up: defensiveness, shutting down, or chasing after connection that feels just out of reach.
One or both of you carries childhood trauma or attachment wounds, and you can see how they're affecting your relationship, but you don't know how to break the cycle.
You find yourselves in the same arguments over and over, and it feels like you're speaking different languages even though you both want the same thing: to feel safe and loved.
You're emotionally aware enough to know that this isn't just about communication skills, there's something deeper that needs healing.
You both want to stay together and are willing to do the hard work, but you need guidance on how to actually heal together, not just manage symptoms.
You may also struggle with…
Triggered Reactions
Small moments turn into big fights because something your partner said or did triggered an old wound. You know it's not really about the dishes or the text message, but in the moment, it feels impossible to regulate. Your body goes into protection mode before your brain can catch up.
Anxious or Avoidant Attachment
You recognize anxious or avoidant patterns in yourself or your partner, and you can see how they're playing out in your relationship. You want to move toward secure attachment, but you're not sure how to rewire patterns that feel so automatic.
Pursue-Withdraw Patterns
One of you reaches for connection while the other pulls away, creating a painful dance where both of you end up feeling alone. You're trying to protect yourselves, but it's creating the very distance you're both trying to avoid.
Childhood Wounds Showing Up
Whether it's emotional neglect, inconsistent caregiving, family dysfunction, or other childhood trauma, those old experiences are affecting how you connect now. You might find yourself reacting to your partner as if they're someone from your past, even when you know intellectually that they're not.
Difficulty with Vulnerability
Opening up feels terrifying, even with the person you love most. Maybe you learned early on that vulnerability wasn't safe, and now your protective parts work overtime to keep you from getting hurt. But this protection is also keeping you from the intimacy you crave.
Feeling Stuck Despite Wanting Change
You've tried couples therapy before, or you've read the books and done the exercises, but nothing seems to create lasting change. You know what you "should" do, but your nervous system and protective parts have other plans.
It might feel impossible right now, but but you can create a secure, healing relationship together.
You can break the patterns that keep you stuck.
You can feel safe, seen, loved and learn to offer that safety to each other.
And I can help you get there.
Somatic & Parts Therapy can help you…
Understand how your nervous systems interact and learn to co-regulate instead of co-dysregulate
Identify and heal the attachment wounds and childhood trauma that are affecting your relationship
Break free from pursue-withdraw cycles and create new patterns of connection
Work with your protective parts so they can relax and trust that you're both creating safety together
Move from anxious or avoidant attachment toward earned secure attachment
Develop the skills to repair ruptures quickly and effectively, so conflicts bring you closer instead of pushing you apart and you can feel the repair in your body.
Build a relationship where both of you feel seen, valued, and secure—perhaps for the first time
Create new, healthier patterns that honor both of your needs and nervous systems
What couples often say when trauma is affecting their relationship:
"I know I'm overreacting, but I can't seem to stop myself in the moment."
"We love each other, but we keep having the same fight over and over again."
"I want to open up, but something in me just shuts down when we try to talk about deep things."
"I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, never knowing what's going to trigger a big reaction."
"One of us is always chasing and the other is pulling away, we can't seem to find a middle ground."
"I know my partner isn't trying to hurt me, but sometimes they remind me of how I felt growing up."
"We've read all the relationship books and know what we 'should' do, but our bodies don't cooperate."
"I desperately need reassurance, but the more I ask for it, the more my partner withdraws."
"When conflict happens, I completely freeze up and can't find my words, then I feel terrible about it later."
"I want to trust them fully, but my past makes it so hard to believe that this relationship will be different."
"We're both trying so hard, but it feels like we're just triggering each other's worst fears."
"I don't understand why small things become such big deals between us, it's exhausting for both of us."
My Approach to Couples Therapy
Traditional couples therapy focuses on cognitive level work but when childhood trauma and attachment wounds are present, that's often not enough. You can learn all the "I statements" in the world, but if your nervous system is hijacked or your protective parts are running the show, those skills go out the window.
That's why I work with the whole system: your thoughts, your bodies, your attachment patterns, and the protective parts that developed to keep you safe.
My approach to couples therapy is grounded in the understanding that relationship struggles are often rooted in childhood attachment trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and protective parts that developed to keep you safe. When you're triggered in your relationship, it's not just about what your partner said or did, it's about how your body and protective parts are responding to perceived threat based on past experiences.
I specialise in integrating somatic therapy, attachment theory, and parts work to help you heal together at the deepest level. Moving beyond learning communication scripts or managing symptoms. we learn to rewiring the patterns that keep you stuck and creating genuine safety and earned secure connection with each other.
Through somatic couples therapy, we'll work directly with both of your nervous systems to help you understand how you trigger and regulate each other. You'll learn to recognise when you're in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses, and develop the capacity to co-regulate instead of co-dysregulate. Unlike traditional couples therapy that stays in the cognitive realm, somatic work helps you address the body-based patterns that drive your reactions. You'll learn to tune into your body's signals, support each other's nervous systems, and create felt safety together, not just intellectual understanding.
Through attachment-focused work, we'll explore how your early attachment experiences shaped the way you connect, the patterns you repeat, and what safety means to each of you. We'll identify whether you tend toward anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment patterns, and understand how these patterns interact in your relationship. Most importantly, we'll work toward earned secure attachment using your relationship as a healing space where you can develop the security that may have been missing in childhood.
Through parts work, we'll get to know the protective parts that show up in your relationship: the part that withdraws to avoid being hurt, the part that criticizes to maintain control, the part that anxiously seeks reassurance, the part that shuts down emotionally. These parts developed to protect you, often in childhood, and they're still trying to keep you safe. Instead of fighting against these parts or judging them, we'll help them understand that you're creating something different together. When your protective parts can trust the safety you're building, they can relax and allow for deeper connection and vulnerability.
This work will include understanding how your individual trauma histories and attachment patterns intersect in your relationship. We'll help you recognize when you're responding to each other from wounded places versus your grounded, authentic Selves. You'll learn to distinguish between past and present, so you can respond to your actual partner rather than reacting to ghosts from your history.
This integrated approach will help you move beyond intellectual understanding and surface-level communication skills into embodied healing and secure attachment, so you can finally feel safe, seen, and connected with each other.
Together, we'll integrate both of your nervous systems, attachment patterns, and protective parts, so you can move from triggering cycles to secure connection and co-regulation.
I have specialized training in working with complex trauma, attachment wounds, and couples where past experiences are affecting present connection. I understand how early experiences shape your nervous system, your attachment patterns, and your capacity for intimacy.
We'll work at a pace that feels safe for both of you, always respecting your nervous systems' signals and your relationship's capacity. This is collaborative work—you're the experts on your relationship, and I'm here to guide you in understanding the deeper patterns and creating lasting change together.
Through this work, you'll develop:
Greater awareness of your individual and shared nervous system patterns
Work with your nervous systems to create safety and co-regulation
Recognize when old wounds are being activated and respond to each other with compassion instead of defense
Skills to co-regulate and support each other through difficult moments
Compassion for your own and each other's protective parts and attachment wounds
The ability to repair ruptures quickly and effectively
A felt sense of safety and secure attachment with each other
New relational patterns that honor both of your needs and nervous systems
The capacity to be present with each other, even in vulnerability, without becoming overwhelmed
A relationship that becomes a source of grounded adult safety rather than re-traumatization.
Somatic & Parts Therapy can help you…
Recognize when your nervous systems are dysregulating each other and learn to co-regulate instead, creating a felt sense of safety together
Identify the attachment wounds and childhood trauma patterns that are playing out in your relationship and begin healing them together
Break free from pursue-withdraw cycles and other painful relationship patterns that keep you feeling disconnected
Understand and work with both of your protective parts so they can trust that you're creating something different and safe together
Move from anxious or avoidant attachment patterns toward earned secure attachment, where you both feel safe, seen, and valued
Develop the capacity to stay present with each other during conflict instead of shutting down, attacking, or leaving
Repair ruptures quickly and effectively, using conflict as an opportunity to deepen connection rather than create distance
Distinguish between past and present so you can respond to your actual partner rather than reacting to old wounds
Build trust in your own and relationship's capacity to hold both of your emotional worlds without either of you becoming overwhelmed.
Create new relational patterns where vulnerability feels safe and intimacy doesn't trigger your protective responses
Develop the skills to support each other's nervous systems during difficult moments, becoming a source of regulation for each other
Transform your relationship into a healing space where you can both experience the secure attachment that may have been missing in childhood
Approaches
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Sensorimotor & Somatic Psychotherapies
Sensorimotor & Somatic Psychotherapies work directly with the body's sensations, movements, and physical experiences to process trauma. These approaches recognize that trauma is stored in the body and nervous system, not just the mind. By bringing awareness to bodily sensations, gestures, and movement patterns, clients can complete survival responses that were interrupted during traumatic experiences and develop new, adaptive patterns that support healing and regulation.
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Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment & Parts Work
Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment & Parts Work uses a phase-based approach to healing, prioritizing safety and stabilization before processing trauma. This method recognizes that trauma can cause fragmentation of the self into different parts or states. Through compassionate parts work, clients learn to understand, communicate with, and integrate these protective and wounded parts, creating internal collaboration and coherence rather than conflict.
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Somatic Movement
Somatic Movement utilizes intentional, mindful movement practices to release trauma held in the body, increase body awareness, and develop new patterns of relating to physical sensations. Movement becomes a language for processing what words cannot express, helping clients reconnect with their bodies, release chronic tension and pain, and build capacity for embodied presence and pleasure.
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Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal Theory provides a framework for understanding how the autonomic nervous system responds to safety and threat. This approach helps clients recognize their nervous system states—social engagement, fight/flight, or shutdown—and develop practices to shift between these states intentionally. By building awareness of nervous system patterns, clients can cultivate regulation, safety, and the capacity for authentic connection with themselves and others.
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Attachment Based Framework & DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy)
Attachment Based Framework & DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) focuses on healing relational trauma and attachment wounds through the therapeutic relationship itself. This approach recognizes that early attachment experiences shape how we relate to ourselves and others. Through attuned, responsive therapeutic presence and co-regulation, clients can develop earned secure attachment, repair developmental trauma, and build capacity for healthy, connected relationships.
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Movement Science
Movement Science applies research-based understanding of how the body moves, holds tension, and responds to stress to inform therapeutic interventions. This approach integrates knowledge of biomechanics, neuroscience, and embodiment to help clients understand their physical patterns, release chronic holding, and develop more adaptive ways of inhabiting their bodies that support both physical and emotional wellbeing.
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Dissociative Disorders & Structural Dissociation Framework
Dissociative Disorders & Structural Dissociation Framework provides a comprehensive understanding of how trauma can cause the personality to fragment into distinct parts or subsystems, each holding different experiences, emotions, and functions. This framework recognizes dissociation as an adaptive survival response to overwhelming trauma, particularly in childhood. Through specialized therapeutic approaches, clients can work with different parts of their personality structure, emotional parts that hold traumatic memories and experiences, and apparently normal parts that manage daily functioning to achieve greater integration, cooperation, and wholeness.
You don't have to keep repeating the past in your relationship.
You can heal together and build the secure connection you both deserve.
Couples Therapy FAQs
Still have questions? Take a look at the FAQ or reach out anytime. If you’re feeling ready, go ahead and apply.
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Most couples therapy focuses primarily on communication skills and conflict resolution through talk therapy. While those elements are part of our work, we go much deeper. We work with your nervous systems, your attachment patterns, and the protective parts that developed in childhood. This approach addresses the root causes of your relationship struggles, not just the symptoms. When childhood trauma and attachment wounds are present, you need more than better communication. You need healing and nervous system regulation.
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Not necessarily. This approach is beneficial for any couple where attachment patterns or past experiences are affecting the relationship. That said, childhood trauma and attachment wounds are incredibly common, and even if you don't identify with the term "trauma," you may recognize patterns from your past showing up in your relationship. What matters most is that you're both willing to look deeper and do the healing work together. This work is suitable for couples in safe enough relationships where one partner has BPD symptoms.
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Many couples come to me after previous therapy experiences that focused only on surface-level communication skills. If you didn't address the deeper nervous system responses, attachment patterns, and protective parts, it makes sense that change didn't last. This work is different because it targets the root causes. You'll learn not just what to do differently, but how to actually rewire your automatic responses and create lasting change in your relationship patterns.
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Every couple is different, but most couples I work with engage in therapy for several months to a year or more. Healing attachment wounds and changing deeply ingrained patterns takes time, consistency, and practice. This isn't a quick fix, but the changes you create will be lasting. Some couples also choose to do intensive therapy sessions for more concentrated healing work.
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It's common for one partner to be more ready than the other. I recommend starting with a consultation where we can all meet, and I can explain how this approach works. Often, the hesitant partner feels more comfortable once they understand that this isn't about blame or being "fixed," but about understanding yourselves and each other more deeply and healing together.
If we decide to work together, we'll start by building a foundation of safety and stability before moving into deeper trauma processing. Your nervous system's capacity and your sense of safety will always guide our pace.
If either of us feels we're not the right match, I'll gladly provide referrals to help you find the support you need.
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Absolutely. I work with couples at all stages of commitment, dating, engaged, married, or long-term partners. What matters is that you're both invested in the relationship and willing to do the work together.
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I'd love to support you both in creating the secure, healing relationship you deserve. We'll start with a consultation where we can meet, discuss your goals, and see if we're a good fit. The relationship between therapist and clients is crucial for this work, so if either of us feels we're not the right match, I'm happy to provide referrals to other therapists who might be a better fit.