Online attachment and trauma therapy with Jennifer Nurick, clinical psychotherapist and author of Heal Your Anxious Attachment.
Do you feel anxious in relationships, fear rejection or need frequent reassurance? Or do you pull away, shut down or feel trapped when someone gets too close? These anxious and avoidant attachment patterns can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself and caught in painful relationship cycles. Therapy can help you understand these patterns, heal the wounds beneath them and build greater security within yourself and your relationships.
Do You Recognise These Attachment Patterns?
Attachment difficulties can look different for everyone. You may experience anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, disorganised attachment or a mixture of different patterns.
You may:
- Overthink messages or changes in someone’s tone
- Fear rejection, abandonment or losing the relationship
- Need frequent reassurance to feel secure
- Lose yourself while trying to maintain connection
- Feel drawn to emotionally unavailable partners
- Pull away or shut down when intimacy feels intense
- Feel trapped when someone needs emotional closeness
- Struggle to trust others or depend on them
- Alternate between seeking connection and pushing it away
- Become overwhelmed when past relationship wounds are triggered
- Repeat anxious–avoidant relationship cycles despite wanting something different
These responses are not character flaws. They are often protective adaptations shaped by earlier relationships and experiences.
What Is Attachment Therapy?
Attachment therapy explores how your early experiences of closeness, safety, separation and emotional responsiveness continue to influence your adult relationships.
If connection was inconsistent, you may have learned to remain highly alert to signs of rejection or withdrawal. If your needs were dismissed, criticised or overwhelming to others, you may have learned to suppress them and rely primarily on yourself. If relationships felt both comforting and frightening, you may experience a confusing combination of longing for closeness and fearing it.
Understanding these patterns is an important beginning, but attachment healing involves more than intellectual insight. Therapy also helps you work with the emotions, bodily responses, protective parts and unresolved experiences that keep these patterns active.
The aim is to develop earned secure attachment: a greater capacity to trust yourself, communicate your needs, maintain boundaries and stay connected without abandoning yourself.
How Can Therapy Help Anxious Attachment?
Anxious attachment involves a strong fear of rejection, abandonment or emotional distance. Small changes in another person’s availability, tone or behaviour may feel highly significant.
You may seek reassurance, overanalyse interactions, struggle with uncertainty or feel responsible for keeping the relationship connected. Even when part of you knows the relationship is secure, another part may remain afraid that love could disappear.
Therapy can help you understand the younger and protective parts involved in these reactions, process the experiences beneath them and develop greater internal security. Over time, you can learn to soothe attachment anxiety without ignoring your needs or depending entirely on another person’s reassurance.
How Can Therapy Help Avoidant Attachment?
Avoidant attachment involves withdrawing, shutting down or feeling trapped when relationships become emotionally intense. You may value independence, find it difficult to identify or express your needs, or feel uncomfortable relying on others.
These patterns often developed when emotional needs were unwelcome, unavailable or associated with disappointment. Self-reliance may have become an intelligent way to stay safe.
Therapy approaches avoidance with curiosity rather than pressure. We explore what your protective responses are trying to prevent and gradually build your capacity to remain present with emotion, vulnerability and connection without feeling that you will lose yourself.
How Are Attachment Wounds Connected With Trauma?
Attachment wounds can develop through abuse or neglect, but they may also emerge from less visible experiences such as emotional inconsistency, family conflict, criticism, separation, loss or having caregivers who were unable to respond to your emotional needs.
Repeated relational experiences can shape beliefs such as “I am too much,” “My needs do not matter,” “People always leave”, or “I can only rely on myself.” These beliefs may continue to influence adult relationships long after the original circumstances have passed.
Trauma-informed attachment therapy helps you process these experiences at a pace that respects your protective system. The goal is to release the stuck stress of the past so that you have more freedom to respond from your adult Self.
Which Therapies Can Help Heal Attachment Wounds?
Attachment healing usually involves more than talking intellectually about your experiences. I tailor therapy to your history, needs and preferences, drawing from more than 21 years of clinical and healing experience.
My approach may include:
- Attachment-based psychotherapy to understand how early relationships continue to influence trust, intimacy, emotional safety and present-day relationship patterns.
- Internal Family Systems (IFS) and parts work to develop compassionate relationships with the protective and wounded parts connected with anxiety, withdrawal, shame and self-criticism.
- EMDR to process unresolved experiences and distressing memories that continue to activate intense emotional or bodily responses.
- Somatic psychotherapy to work with tension, numbness, overwhelm, shutdown and other experiences held within the body.
- Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy to help couples recognise and change cycles of pursuit, withdrawal, conflict and disconnection.
- Energy healing, where appropriate, as part of a grounded and integrative approach that honours the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of healing.
You can read more about my approaches on my IFS Therapy, EMDR Therapy and Spiritual Therapy pages.
Work With Jennifer Nurick
I’m Jennifer Nurick, a Master’s-qualified Clinical Psychotherapist, couples therapist and energetic healer with 21 years’ experience. I am the author of Heal Your Anxious Attachment, published by New Harbinger, and a PACFA Clinical registrant.
I have completed Level 2 training in Internal Family Systems and have twice served as a Program Assistant on IFS training courses in Australia. I receive monthly supervision specifically focused on my IFS practice and am also a trained EMDR practitioner.
My additional training includes somatic psychotherapy, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and a Diploma of Energetic Health. My style is warm, compassionate, relational and non-pathologising.
Rather than asking what is wrong with you, we explore how your patterns developed, what they have been protecting you from and what is needed for greater security, connection and choice.
You can also view my Psychology Today profile for more information about my qualifications, specialties and therapeutic approach.
Individual and Couples Attachment Therapy
Individual Attachment Therapy
Individual therapy offers a space to understand your attachment patterns, process past trauma and build a more secure relationship with yourself. We may work with relationship anxiety, fear of abandonment, emotional overwhelm, self-criticism, difficulty trusting and patterns of choosing unavailable partners.
Couples Attachment Therapy
Couples therapy helps you understand the attachment needs and protective responses beneath conflict, pursuit, withdrawal and emotional disconnection. Together, we work to change recurring cycles, communicate more openly and create greater security within the relationship.
Online Attachment Therapy in Australia and Internationally
I offer online attachment and trauma therapy to adults and couples across Australia and internationally. Online sessions allow you to access therapy from the privacy and familiarity of your own space.
During an initial appointment, we discuss what is bringing you to therapy, the patterns you would like to change and whether my approach feels suitable for your needs.
Frequently Asked Questions About Attachment Therapy
Can attachment styles change?
Yes. Attachment patterns are adaptations rather than fixed personality traits. Through supportive relationships, self-awareness and therapeutic work, you can develop earned secure attachment and more flexible ways of responding to closeness, conflict and uncertainty.
How long does attachment therapy take?
The timeframe depends on your history, goals and the complexity of the patterns involved. Some people notice meaningful changes within several sessions, while longstanding attachment wounds or complex trauma may benefit from sustained therapeutic work. We can discuss this during your first session.
Is attachment therapy only about childhood?
Early relationships are important, but attachment therapy also explores later experiences, current relationships and the patterns occurring in the present.
Can attachment therapy help couples?
Yes. Attachment-focused couples therapy can help partners recognise the fears and needs beneath criticism, pursuit, withdrawal and shutdown. This creates opportunities for more open communication, emotional responsiveness and secure connection.
Can attachment therapy be done online?
Yes. Attachment therapy can be offered online to individuals and couples. You will need a private space, a reliable internet connection and enough time to transition after your session.
Ready to Begin?
Seeking support can feel vulnerable, particularly when relationships have not always felt safe. Therapy offers a compassionate space to understand your experiences, heal the wounds beneath recurring patterns and move towards greater security within yourself and your relationships.
If you are ready to work with your anxious or avoidant attachment patterns, I invite you to reach out.
Prefer to Begin with a Self-Paced Course?
If you want to understand and change your attachment patterns in your own time, Relationship Cycle Breaker offers a structured, self-paced alternative to therapy. The course helps you recognise anxious and avoidant patterns, understand your triggers and develop more secure ways of relating to yourself and others.
Looking for personalised therapeutic support?
Sessions are available online across Australia and internationally.