Healing Early Attachment Wounds and Building Secure Attachment as an adult ı Attachment Therapy

Many of us carry the impact of our early childhood experiences into adulthood. Sometimes our first experiences of trust and attachment were broken, leaving us anxious, avoidant, or disconnected and not only from others, but also from ourselves.

But here’s the truth: earned secure attachment is possible. You can heal, repair, and learn to connect in healthy ways, even if your early experiences were painful. Recovery isn’t just about learning coping skills but it’s about going back, meeting yourself and those unmet needs, and practicing new ways of relating. It’s about building a foundation for relationships that feel safe, secure, and nourishing.

Why Early Attachment Matters

Psychologist Erik Erikson described the first stage of human development of Infancy as a critical period for trust versus mistrust. He said that when a baby feels safe, seen, and cared for, they're able to develop a Secure Attachment, a Sense of Safety in their environment and the ability to trust and connect with others.

Trust and a healthy Secure attachment are foundational pre-requisites to healthy relationships

However, when this early trust is disrupted, it can create long-term challenges that often follow us into adulthood. Rather than developing secure attachment, the child may grow up with insecure attachment patterns, such as anxious, avoidant, or disorganised attachment. For an infant whose survival is entirely dependent on their caregivers, and who does not yet have the capacity to think, “Mum is depressed or overwhelmed right now, that’s why she isn’t emotionally available,” the experience is deeply internalised.

Rather than understanding the caregiver’s limitations, the child makes sense of the world in the only way they can—by assuming the problem must be them.

This can later show up as:

• Shame and self-doubt

  When a child’s need for comfort, attunement, or responsiveness isn’t met, they don’t assume the caregiver is overwhelmed, depressed, or struggling. Instead, they internalise the experience. The meaning becomes “There must be something wrong with me". This can form deep beliefs such as “I’m not lovable,” “I am defective” or “I’m not enough.”

  
  

• Losing authenticity and becoming a ‘chameleon’

  If attachment feels uncertain or unsafe, the child may unconsciously conclude, “I was rejected because people don’t like me”. To preserve connection, they learn to hide parts of themselves and adapt to others instead. Over time, this can look like people-pleasing, fawning, or constantly changing who they are to fit in which leads to wearing masks in order to stay attached (even if that attachment isn't safe).

  
  

• Disconnection from self

  When a child believes they are the problem, the rejection doesn’t just affect how they relate to others but it affects how they relate to themselves. They may begin to dislike, distrust, or even abandon their own inner world. This disconnection from your Self can feel like not knowing who you are, not trusting your own feelings, or staying constantly busy to avoid being alone with yourself.

  
  

• Underlying anger

  Beneath shame and self-abandonment, there is often a lot of anger. This might show up as anger toward the Self for “not being good enough,” and anger toward the world for feeling unsafe or rejecting. This anger can quietly seep into many areas of life, sometimes turned inward as self-criticism, and sometimes outward in irritability, resentment, or emotional reactivity.

  
  

• Anxiety and depression

  Without a felt sense of safety in attachment, the nervous system stays on high alert. Anxiety can show up as constant worry about what others think, fear of rejection, or hyper-vigilance in relationships. Depression may emerge as a sense of hopelessness, low self-worth, or a belief that life is fundamentally disappointing or unfulfilling.

  
  

• Difficulties with emotional regulation

  Infants rely on caregivers to help regulate their emotions which is a process known as co-regulation. When this is missing, the child doesn’t learn how to manage intense emotional states. As an adult, this can lead to either suppressing emotions entirely or becoming quickly overwhelmed, escalating rapidly when triggered, and feeling out of control in emotional moments.

  
  

Even with years of coping strategies, these early wounds can limit growth. Healing attachment isn’t about fixing surface behaviours, it’s about addressing the root of the wound. In the therapy space, this work is known as Reparative work or Re-Parenting.

So how can you go about healing these core attachment wounds?

Healing attachment as an adult is a practice, not a quick fix. Here’s some suggestions to begin trying:

Connect With Yourself

Building a relationships with yourself and getting to know yourself better, your likes, dislikes, values, boundaries. One way of building this is to take some time each day to do a Daily Check-In. Spend a few minutes in the morning and the same in the evening to simply notice any sensations arising in your body, then any emotions that you might be feeling or have felt and then any thoughts that are coming up as you sit quitely with yourself for a few minutes. Another step would be to begin Journaling and writing down any thoughts, feelings, and sensations in order to deepen self-awareness. You could start to Take yourself out on dates and engage in activities you enjoy to strengthen your relationship with yourself. Finally, practicing Self-compassion by approaching yourself with warmth and patience and leaning in to learning not perfectionism.

Learn Emotional Regulation

When early attachment is disrupted, many people struggle to regulate strong emotions. Learning to do this often starts through co-regulation: processing emotions with a therapist or safe person.

Grounding practices such as breathwork or sensory awareness can help calm the nervous system, especially when you feel triggered. An important skill here is learning to pause before reacting, giving yourself space to notice what you’re feeling before withdrawing, lashing out, or people-pleasing. Working with a therapist can help to build these skills and then put them into practice.

Build Safe Relationships

Secure attachment grows slowly through consistent experiences of safety. Rather than starting with intense or romantic relationships, begin with low-pressure connections, such as with a therpist or in friendships that feel safe or new connections with people who have shared activities, values or interests.

As trust builds, practice gradual vulnerability, sharing a little more over time. Trust develops in small steps, it takes time to build and is based on reliability and consistency, not instant closeness. Healthy boundaries are essential here, secure attachment allows for both connection and autonomy. Brene Brown has a lovely theory representing how trust is built in relationships https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Vaq2jMJe4mU

Practice Rupture and Repair

All relationships experience moments of misunderstanding or disconnection. What builds security is learning how to repair, so naming hurt, expressing feelings, and working through misunderstandings rather than avoiding them or escalating into conflict.

For many people, this can feel terrifying. If you grew up fearing the loss of connection, you may have learned to stay quiet, minimise your needs, or go along with others in order to avoid conflict altogether. While this might feel safer in the short term, it is rarely sustainable and often comes at the cost of having authenticity and emotional closeness in relationships.

The therapeutic relationship can be a particularly safe place to practise rupture and repair. Therapy offers a contained space where misunderstandings can be explored and repaired, providing a lived experience of what healthy repair looks and feels like. This experience can then be carried into relationships outside of therapy.

If you’re interested in learning more, The School of Life has a thoughtful and accessible video on rupture and repair and why it matters in relationships, which you can watch here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQvqi6aYD8

Surround Yourself With Healthy People

Being around people who demonstrate secure attachment can be deeply healing. Observing how others navigate boundaries, conflict, and emotional closeness helps you internalise new ways of relating and expands your sense of what is possible in relationships.

This can also mean gently stepping back from relationships that don’t feel emotionally safe, even if only temporarily. It’s very common to seek safety and repair from the same people who contributed to our insecurity in the first place. As a client once described to me, going back to the snake who bit us to heal the poison is rarely the best way forward.

The Therapeutic Relationship: A Safe Place to Practice

One of the most powerful tools for healing attachment wounds is the therapeutic relationship itself. For many people, therapy provides a first experience of secure attachment. A therapist offers consistency, clear boundaries, and a safe space to explore connection, repair, and trust—acting as a microcosm for how secure relationships can feel in the wider world. Therapy provides a microcosm for the macrocosm of your real-world relationships: a safe space to practice trust, connection, and repair.

Here’s how therapy can help:

• Modelling secure attachment A therapist offers consistency, reliability, and clear boundaries, allowing you to experience what a healthy, attuned connection can feel like.

  
  

• Rupture and repair Misunderstandings or emotional triggers can arise in therapy, just as they do in any relationship. Learning to notice ruptures, name them, and repair them within the safety of the therapeutic relationship helps build essential relational skills that can be carried into life outside the therapy room.

  
  

• Safe boundaries The boundaries within therapy, such as agreed session times, confidentiality, and mutual respect, create a sense of relational safety while also supporting autonomy. This balance of closeness and space is central to secure attachment.

  
  

• Reconnecting with yourself and disowned parts Therapy can help you reconnect with parts of yourself that were once pushed aside or exiled, including the inner child who didn’t receive what they needed early on. This is a core part of the reparenting process: learning to offer yourself the care, protection, and attunement you may not have received in the first place.

  
  

Through these experiences, you can gradually learn to trust, connect, and manage conflict, gaining confidence to apply these skills in life beyond therapy.

Key Takeaways

• Early attachment disruptions are not permanent—healing is possible. To read more about earned secure attachment, check out this article from the attachment project https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/earned-secure-attachment/

• Recovery is more than coping—it’s about repairing foundational attachment wounds.

• Earned secure attachment comes from consistent practice, safe relationships, and self-compassion.

• The therapeutic relationship is a safe “practice field” for learning trust, boundaries, and rupture-repair skills.

• Healing takes time, patience, and small steps—but each step strengthens your capacity to trust, connect, and experience secure relationships.

  
  

Remember: You can learn to trust, connect, and form healthy, secure relationships—even if early experiences left you feeling disconnected. Start with yourself, practice in safe spaces, and let supportive relationships guide you along the way.