Therapy for Relational Traumas and Attachment Wounds in Los Angeles
Relational Healing Through Attachment-Focused Therapy in the South Bay
Individual therapy for clients navigating the lasting effects of relational trauma and attachment wounds. Together, we’ll work on rebuilding self-trust, understanding your emotional patterns, and learning to relate to yourself and others in a healthier way. I work with clients in Hermosa Beach, throughout the South Bay, Los Angeles, and online across California.
If you grew up with caregivers who were critical, emotionally unavailable, inconsistent or overwhelmed themselves, you likely learned early on how to adapt. Maybe that meant becoming easy, helpful or invisible. Maybe it meant being the emotional container for everyone else. Maybe it meant tuning out your own needs to keep the peace. You figured out how to survive - often by abandoning parts of yourself.
Over time, those early relationships become the blueprint and, not just for how you connect with others, but for how you show up for yourself. Attachment wounds don’t just stay tucked away in childhood; they echo into your adult relationships. They show up in the way you over function or disappear; the way you cling or push away; in the way you second-guess your feelings, struggle to set boundaries or brace for rejection even when things seem calm on the surface.
If love felt inconsistent, you might always feel a little uncertain like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. If you were often shamed and criticized, you might carry an inner critic that never lets up. If you were ignored, you might downplay your needs, so you don’t have to face the pain of them not being met again.
Healing relational trauma doesn’t have to happen alone. Many of the patterns we carry show up in partnerships, which is why I also offer Couples Therapy for attachment-challenged relationships. Together, we work on understanding each other’s emotional worlds and rebuilding connection in ways that feel safe and authentic.
And here’s the thing: you didn’t choose those patterns. And you are allowed to outgrow them.
Individual Therapy for Attachment Wounds in Hermosa Beach the South Bay
The way you relate to yourself was shaped in relationship with people who couldn’t always show up the way you needed
Attachment-Focused Therapy in Hermosa Beach and Los Angeles
We might be a good fit If...
You notice that you’re hyper-critical of yourself and when you think about it, it sounds eerily like the way someone once spoke to you.
We might be a good fit If...
You struggle to trust your own emotional responses and find yourself constantly questioning if you’re being “too much” or “not enough.”
We might be a good fit If...
You feel panicked, rejected or abandoned when your partner needs space. And you respond by pushing harder to resolve things right now because your nervous system doesn’t feel safe with distance or by shutting down.
We might be a good fit If...
You often choose emotionally unavailable or unpredictable partners, and part of you already knows it’s not an accident. Or you find yourself trying to “fix” or upgrade your partner not because you don’t love them, but because their imperfections trigger parts of you that you haven’t fully accepted.
We might be a good fit If...
You try to be the perfect partner/ friend/ child/ coworker: low-maintenance, adaptable, self-sufficient, and then you feel alone and silently resent that no one sees what it costs you.
We might be a good fit If...
You find yourself caught between two painful strategies: over-functioning to earn love or disconnecting completely so you don’t have to risk needing anyone. You’re the one who gives, fixes, anticipates, and then quietly wonders why no one ever seems to show up for you.
We might be a good fit If...
You wish your partner would just know what you need because asking makes you feel like a burden or unchosen or unworthy.
We might be a good fit If...
You’ve experienced emotional neglect, enmeshment, parentification or ongoing abuse and you’re ready to start working through the wounds.
Relational trauma can come from experiences that were clearly harmful : manipulation, abuse, addiction, mental illness, psychological control or growing up in environments where fear, unpredictability or power struggles were part of daily life for a numerous reasons. These are the wounds that are easier to name, even if they’re still hard to hold. When love and harm come from the same people, the nervous system learns to stay alert, guarded, and braced for impact.
But relational trauma doesn’t always announce itself so loudly. Sometimes it shows up as emotional neglect - a parent who was physically present but emotionally absent. Sometimes it’s growing up with emotionally immature parents, where your needs weren’t allowed, were minimized or quietly eclipsed by the emotional needs of the adults around you. This can lead to enmeshment, parentification or learning early that being “good,” “easy,” or “useful” was the safest way to stay connected.
In families like this, children often fall into roles: the caretaker, the peacemaker, the achiever, the invisible one. Those early family roles don’t disappear; they tend to follow us into adulthood. You may now find yourself over-giving, rescuing others, or slipping into the savior role, while quietly abandoning your own needs.
These experiences are a blueprint for how we show up for ourselves and others. Some people develop anxious attachment, always scanning for closeness or reassurance. Others lean avoidant, relying on self-sufficiency and distance to feel safe. And for many, especially when care and harm were intertwined, attachment becomes disorganized: longing for connection while also fearing it. None of these are character flaws; they are adaptations to early relational environments that didn’t offer consistent emotional safety.
Over time, these patterns often show up in close, adult relationships becoming high-conflict partnerships where familiar dynamics of pursuit, withdrawal, control or emotional chaos get replayed. For others, the imprint of relational trauma shows up through achievement: staying busy, productive, successful, and outwardly “fine,” while feeling internally disconnected, exhausted, or unsure of who you are beneath the role you learned to play.
Healing relational trauma means gently stepping out of survival mode and learning to relate to yourself and others in a new way that is rooted in self-trust, emotional safety, and mutual care. Therapy becomes a place to understand how these patterns formed, how they’ve protected you, and how to slowly build relationships, including the one with yourself, that feel steadier, more honest, and more nourishing.
Relational Trauma Therapy in Hermosa Beach
Learning to reparent your emotional world by creating space and compassion for the parts of you that had to grow up too fast, stay small or shut down to stay safe. These younger parts often take the wheel in adulthood by shaping how you protect yourself, how you connect, and how you expect to be treated. In therapy, we begin to notice when they’re in charge, and help your adult self step back in with clarity and care.
