How Attachment Styles Affect Your Partner Relationship and Your Whole Family

Send us a text

How secure is your emotional connection with your partner?

In this episode of the Coaching Your Family Relationships Podcast, with guest Thomas Westenholz, we explore how attachment styles impact the way we relate to our partners—and how those patterns ripple into the rest of our family system.

You’ll learn:

• What attachment theory reveals about the ways we connect, argue, withdraw, or pursue in our closest relationships
• How to recognize your own attachment style—and why that awareness is the key to building emotional safety
• How a distant or conflict-filled partner relationship can lead to tension, emotional distance, or even estrangement from adult children
• The basics of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and how it helps couples repair and rebuild trust
• Why healing the parent-partner bond is foundational for improving communication and connection across the entire family

Whether you’re feeling emotionally shut down, constantly on edge, or just wondering why your relationship feels “off,” this episode will give you language, insight, and real strategies to begin shifting the dynamics—without blame or shame.

Learn more about Thomas Westenholz:

Website

Podcast

Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connect with us:

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tinagosneycoaching/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tinagosneycoaching

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Episode Transcript

Tina Gosney (00:00):
Tina, welcome back to coaching your family

(00:07):
relationships Podcast. I'm TinaGosney, a family conflict coach.
Today we're diving into a reallypowerful topic, and it often
gets overlooked when we talkabout the overall family
dynamics. And that topic is therelationship with your partner.
So in this episode, I have aspecial guest, and we're going
to explore attachment styles,and how the the attachment style

(00:30):
that you have shows it's the waythat you show up in your closest
relationships. Why? If youunderstand your own attachment
style, that can be a gamechanger for how you connect and
you communicate, and then howyou can also repair and why
creating emotional safety withyour partner is not just about
feeling good in your marriage.
It's also one of the strongestpredictors of peace and

(00:50):
stability and connectionthroughout the rest of the
family. The relationship withthe parents really creates an
atmosphere in the home that hasa powerful effect on the
functioning of the rest of thefamily. And even if you think
that you're hiding conflict thatyou might be having in your
relationship, you know the restof the family subconsciously, at
least, if not consciously, theypick up on it, and they know and

(01:13):
that's the ripple effect.
The ripple effect is how thehealth of your partnership
affects your parenting, yourenergy and the relationship with
everyone in the rest of thehome. We're also going to talk
about how Emotionally FocusedTherapy, and a shortcut for that
is EFT, can guide you to deeperemotional connection and more

(01:37):
secure attachment. And it's notthrough blame and finger
pointing, but it's throughunderstanding this episode is
especially for you. If you'veever felt emotionally distant in
your relationship, like you'renot even on the same team
anymore, or if you wonder whyyour efforts at connection just
keep falling flat. So you'regoing to walk away with some

(01:57):
real insight, some language andtools that you can start
shifting that emotional climatein your home, and we're going to
start with what's at the veryheart of it, which is your
partnership. Now, if thisepisode resonates with you,
please share it with someone whoneeds it, and if you have a
minute, leave a review and arating on Apple podcasts, your
support really does a lot inhelping to keep this podcast on

(02:20):
the air and new episodes comingout. And with that, let's get
started.
Hey, everyone. I am reallylooking forward to this
conversation that I have with aspecial guest today. This is
Thomas westenholz, and he's acouples therapist. Doesn't live

(02:40):
in the US, and you'll see thatin just a minute. And we've had
some really great preconversation that I am very
excited about having to be ableto continue that conversation as
we get into this work today. SoThomas, would you introduce
yourself to the listenersplease?

Thomas Westenholz (02:59):
Of course, absolutely. And you're right,
they can probably hear from myaccent. I'm not from the US. I'm
from a tiny little island calledDenmark in Scandinavia. So yeah,
and of course, I'll give alittle introduction. So I guess
from the whole therapeuticspectrum, I started out really
engaging with something calledsomatic trauma therapy. And what

(03:21):
that means, Soma is just a smartterm for the body. So it's about
understanding how the bodyprocess information. And you can
say the link between externalexperience and internal and
often, when we are smallchildren, this is how we start
processing before we havelanguage. Children still learn

(03:41):
and process somatically fortheir body, which is why they
can tell you I'm hungry or I'mtired. These are all sensations
that they're attuned to as soonas they are born.
But it often is a language thatwe kind of lose as we grow up
and become over intellectualizedin this society, that we forget
the language of the body andalso how it store different

(04:01):
experiences, so even if weunderstand them intellectually
or the why, doesn't necessarilycreate change in the nervous
system. And that's what reallyfascinated me with somatic
trauma therapy, is that until wehave a felt, embodied
experience, we don't fullychange. And this is something I
both saw in myself, but also inthe people that I started

(04:23):
working with. And thenobviously, on top of that, I
also started training and inpsychedelic assisted therapy in
the Netherlands. And then again,I trained in EFT, Emotionally
Focused couples therapy, whichis very much based on attachment
theory.

Tina Gosney (04:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so why do you think you started
out with the somatic trauma? Whywere you drawn there in the
first place?

Thomas Westenholz (04:49):
It's a really good question, and it actually
started with my own son beingborn, and he was diagnosed with
what's called a life limitedcondition, meaning he wasn't
expected to become. Grow up andbecome an adult. He's 13 years
old today, but he was only givena week to live, and we spent the
first year in intensive carebeing told pretty much every

(05:09):
week that he was going to die.
And despite all the differenttools that I had and support
that I had, my body was reallystruggling to cope with the
dysregulation and anxiety oflosing my son. So I ended up
twice in hospital for suspectedheart attack, and they couldn't
find anything wrongphysiologically. When they did
all their scan my bloodpressure, they said, Oh, you

(05:30):
look great, like a healthyathlete. And yet I would wake up
feeling numbness in my arm. Istarted feeling constraints
around my heart. I startedfeeling tension and pain in my
bowel, and that just kept going.
And none of the tools I reallyhad were working right. We had
talk therapy again didn't reallyhelp me. So I started figuring

(05:54):
out, and, you know, thinking,what is it here that I'm
missing? Yeah, and somehow, whenI then came across somatic
trauma therapy, there wassomething that really resonated
that this was stress that wentway past the logic. It was
something that was simplydestroying and obviously
manifesting in my body because Iwas showing symptoms of being
physical sick to a psychologicaldistress. So I kind of started

(06:18):
exploring this. I went tosomatic trauma therapists
myself, who work through thebody, and that was the first
time I started having some senseof relief from this anxiety that
obviously I was living with on adaily basis. And after doing
that, and slowly starting tocome to a place of calm again,
where I started functioningreally well, I think I really

(06:39):
saw the benefit in some of thesemodalities that haven't been
valued in traditional therapy orpsychology, where we mainly just
looked at let's talk about it.
Let's try and logicallyunderstand it that actually I
had to feel my embodied grief,and I needed to have an embodied
experience of what this is tolet go of the body. You know,

(07:00):
this fear that we have of lifeand death and dying, and only in
doing so did I started feeling asense of calm again, when I had
an experience, what does it evenmean, letting go of this body?
And when I had a felt sensationof that, then suddenly I started
coming to terms with things alot more and feeling much more
calm.

Tina Gosney (07:22):
What that was really beautiful, but what a
difficult experience to be toldthat your son was not going to
live more to than a week. Didyou say a week?

Thomas Westenholz (07:33):
Yeah. And we were pretty much told that on a
weekly basis, he's the firstchild in the world to survive
being born without a smallintestine, meaning he can't
digest food. So there was a lotof challenges to push through
that, I think even pushed myperception of therapy to the
max, right? Because all thetraditional talk therapy simply

(07:54):
were not helping me. And it'salso what motivated me to then
study psychedelic assistedtherapy, because that's a place
where, again, we sometimes canget the experience of, what does
it even mean, this idea of dyingand what happens? And I read
this study that was actuallydone here in the UK of terminal
ill cancer patients that theyhave given a psychedelic, and

(08:16):
what they found was that amajority of the people who got
that psychedelic had thisexperience of letting go of the
body and fear, disappearing withthat, and actually a sense of
calm. And when they came back,their spouses reported that
actually they felt they gottheir partner back again,
because suddenly they were ableto live with much less anxiety.

(08:36):
And that kind of also reallyobviously intrigued my interest
in that, because I was faced ona daily basis with this
devastating reality that I couldlose the physical embodiment of
my son, right? And I would saythat, together with the somatic
work, really helped me find asense of ease and joy in the

(08:57):
life that we have now withoutclinging on to that physical
existence that's so interesting.

Tina Gosney (09:04):
So you're Are you saying that you having that
experience that you wentthrough, and then having that
experience of what is it like tolet go of this body helps you to
process what it might be likefor your infant son at the time,
is that what you're saying?

Thomas Westenholz (09:24):
Yeah, I think more what it gave for me was it
gave me a sense of peace, ofwhat it means to let go of a
physical manifestation. In thisinstance, my son, right, that
has come to this world, and Ihelped create him, to some
extent, even though, obviouslyhis mother deserved more the
credit, but it helped me found asense of peace with this.

(09:45):
Because if you look at anxietyand fear in general, the main
purpose of that is to maintainthis organism that we call the
body. That's why we have fear.
It's the only biological purposeof fear, right, of trying to
create. Safety for this physicalorganism. So when we no longer
have a body, there's no placefear is not needed anymore. So

(10:05):
fear comes from trying to clingon and preserve that. And I
realized that my anxiety, myfear that was becoming quite
pervasive on my everyday life,even to the point where I
couldn't function well, alsocame from clinging on not to my
own body in this instance, butto the fear of losing my son's

(10:25):
physical body right being here.
And I realized that for somehow,for being able to live with this
and not that, to dominate mywhole life and not be able to be
present with him when he ishere, I had to come to terms
with this concept that we calldeath, that obviously means
different things to differentpeople, and the only way I could

(10:48):
do that was through thesemodalities. So you can say it
really started with trying tohelp myself, and from there,
when I saw the profound impact,I started, obviously training
and using some of these toolsfor other people, and seeing the
impact that that could have onthem too.

Tina Gosney (11:06):
You're you're bringing up such a something
that I've heard from so manypeople that enter this type of
work and that they do so becauseof an experience that they've
had personally and felt drivenand like it was a purpose and a
mission for them to then figureout their own healing and then
offer it to other people.

Thomas Westenholz (11:28):
Yeah, and I think most people who come into
this field are somehow driven bya personal motivation, because
otherwise you wouldn't do this.
There's lots of easier way tomake money. And I was an
entrepreneur before I trainedinto this, and I made a lot more
money, and I didn't have to sitand listen to people's distress
every day. So this is notsomething people choose because
they want to get rich. It'ssomething they tend to choose

(11:51):
because they have some kind ofpersonal motivation, and they
had some kind of experience ofsomething that impacted and
changed them, that motivate themto say, maybe I can then also
help other people,

Tina Gosney (12:05):
right? I think those are the best practitioners
to work with, because it's morethan a job and and a paycheck
for them, it's a purpose and amotivation to get up in the
morning and to do what they do.

Thomas Westenholz (12:16):
Yeah, I think you're spot on. That's what
really drives us to createchange, isn't it?

Tina Gosney (12:21):
Yeah, well, let's, let's focus on the couple work
that you do with with couplesand the Emotionally Focused
Therapy. Would you give us a anattachment theory? So that's not
something that we talk too muchon this podcast. So maybe go
into what that means, how, whatattachment theory is just pretty
just pretty basic definition,and then absolutely and then how

(12:43):
the Emotionally Focused Therapyhelps with that. So

Thomas Westenholz (12:48):
attachment theory is really an
understanding that came firstfrom studying children and how
infants interacted with theirmother or their caregiver. And
attachment theory is just adescription of learned models of
relating to other people, andalso the adaptive strategies
that we have to employ ifsomehow there were rupture in

(13:10):
those safe, safe connections asa child. So to give a short
example, there's four mainattachment styles as such as
they refer to them as one ofthem is called anxious
attachment, and essentially,what that means is tend to be
somebody who had to be hypervigilant to the needs of others
to be able to feel safe. And itcould be that they had some sort

(13:33):
of abandonment, and they learnednow I have to be hyper vigilant
to the other parents needs,because if they abandoned me,
I'm in real trouble. So you cansay they had to grow up too
soon. They had to suddenlybecome an adult way, way too
soon. And it's also what weoften in more popular language
call the people pleasers, right?
They tend to always believe it'stheir fault. They tend to

(13:54):
ruminate a lot when thingsaren't working in relationship.
They can feel a lot of internalanxiety. They often fear
abandonment, right? And thatoften comes from not having had
this safe, consistent attunementto them, right? And often it was
inconsistent. Maybe theirparents was an alcoholic, one
moment was really loving, onemoment suddenly wasn't there,

(14:14):
and that created this anxiety,not knowing, Can I count on you?
Will you be here for me, right?
Then there's another one werefer to as avoidant attachment,
which essentially, if youremember, there was a period
where we said, just let them cryto sleep, right? And it's
basically this idea that theyshould just learn to deal with

(14:36):
the stress without our help. Butwhat we now understand in
psychology is actually childrendon't start developing
regulatory function in the brainuntil they're eight years old,
and that only finished in theirmid to late 20s, meaning a young
child have no way of regulatingtheir distress and emotion. So
what happens when you just leavethem to deal with that distress

(14:59):
alone? Is. Is the distress willgo up and up, and at some point
it actually becomes dangerousfor the body, the organism. And
so the only option, if no helpcomes, becomes to numb out. You
literally have to shut it off.
It's a survival strategy, andit's more seen in men than
women, but it's not genderbased, but it tends to be this,
I can't count on others. I'mhyper independent. I don't like

(15:21):
to get too close, and often, ifit does, I kind of move away,
right? And there tend to bespecific patterns of adaptive
strategies that we see in thesepeople, right, of how they then
relate to others. So I'll stopthere to not overload people
with with information. But thosewere two of the four main
attachment styles.

Tina Gosney (15:42):
Yeah, so you said the anxious is, you can see them
as people pleasers and wantingto grab and hold on to
relationships avoidant. We seethem as pushing other people
away, like not letting me gettoo close. I was wondering, and
you said, very independent. Dowe maybe see avoidant

(16:04):
personalities also, or avoidantattachments as people that might
be highly successful, becausethey are very independently and
driven that way,

Thomas Westenholz (16:15):
absolutely, and they tend to be very, very
focused, and often they puttheir energy in other things
than necessary, relationalelements, right? And that means,
of course, they tend to spendmore focus, more time, more
energy on things such as theircareer, etc, right? So I think
you're spot on. I think verymuch in more high powered

(16:35):
positions, you will find peoplewho gravitate more towards
having those sense of attachmentand also just the way they calm
their nervous systems is quitedifferent. So when the more
anxious, attached, as they callit, tend to seek co regulation.
So they tend to calm themselvesthrough other people. Yeah, so
they very much need other peopleto calm down, and they struggle

(16:58):
to do that themselves. Theavoidant is polar opposite,
because they have learned not totrust other people as a place of
regulation, because they neverhad that right. So they tend to
only trust themselves, which iswhy they tend to want distance.
It's not always because, youknow, they don't care, but when
they can stress, they tend towant, I want to be on my own. I

(17:19):
want to go for a walk while theanxious one want no let's sit
and talk about it, and they finda distance even more anxious
provoking, which is also why themost typical couple
constellation that comes intocouple therapy is one person
having an anxious attachment andthe other one an avoidant. And
they tend to gravitate towardseach other. So often find each

(17:39):
other in relationship, but theyalso tend to then get caught in
this distress cycle where one ofthem chase, chase for
connection, and the other onefeels more and more overwhelmed
and that there can't be enoughand good enough, so they pull
away more and more. And so thedistress cycle kind of, you
know, spins round and round andround.

Tina Gosney (17:58):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. That
pursuant, distance or pattern isprobably one of the most common
ones that we see in couples.
It's just so so normal for thatto happen. And I do want to just
bring up one thing before wemove on, in that the attachment
styles are formed as very youngchildren as we probably even

(18:19):
before we're aware of what'shappening, we're forming these
attachment styles, and I believeand they are also dependent on
how the relationship to theparent to the child, how that
parent is relating and attuningto the child. And I believe that
most parents are doing the bestthat they can, and even if we
have a child that develops ananxious or an avoidant

(18:42):
attachment style, often that issomething that we need to give
ourselves some grace on, thatthat we were doing the best that
we can, and we can always comeback now and attune into needs
that we maybe we weren't able toas a younger version of
ourselves and a younger versionof our child as well? Yeah,

Thomas Westenholz (19:05):
I think it's really important what you
mentioned here, and actuallysomething I just mentioned on on
my own podcast where I said,good people hurt others. Yeah,
and that's something in a blackand white world that we try to
often put things into boxesthat's hard to comprehend, but
I'll give an example. So I havea client that, you know, have

(19:25):
very strong, anxious attachmentand kind of neglected her own
needs for most of her life,which obviously her called her
into trouble in all herrelationship dynamics. And, you
know, she just said to me thatwhenever I went to these sport
events or things that werereally important, I always
looked and my dad wasn't there.
And even though, as an adult, Iget that he wasn't a bad guy at

(19:45):
all. Actually, he was great. Hewas out working. He was trying
to look out for us. But my childnervous system didn't get that.
My child nervous system didn'tinternalize that. That
internalized that he doesn'tcare. I'm not important enough,
and so I start becoming anxious.
Always feel I have to reach forthese men's attention and that I

(20:07):
can lose it. So this is aperfect example of what you
said, that we have to be kindwith ourselves, because it
doesn't mean you were a badparent. It didn't even mean you
did anything wrong. Often, wejust have to acknowledge that
sometimes good people also hurtother people,

Tina Gosney (20:24):
right, right?
That's and I like that line. Imight use that sometime in the
future, if you're okay with meborrowing that absolutely once,
once someone does, we do developthese attachment styles as
avoidant or anxious. Is itpossible to to then move to you
didn't talk about secureattachment. So is it possible

(20:45):
then to move to a secureattachment later in life?

Thomas Westenholz (20:51):
Absolutely, it is. And this is what's so
exciting. And research have toldus this. And I've seen this in
my practice, happening many,many times, and I even seen it
from my own partner, who movedtowards a secure attachment,
right from a more anxious andwhat we found is what is
required, which is essentiallywhat we are trying to
reconstruct in the therapy room,is we are trying to create the

(21:15):
moments that were missed at ayoung age. And if you have that
in your friends orrelationships, then you can
slowly change your and basicallywhat we're talking about is
getting these attuned responsesthat were missed. So it's
basically when you had a needwhere you kind of, your nervous
system was asking, are you therefor me? And at that moment, of
course, the answer for thenervous system was No. Hence why

(21:37):
these adaptive strategies wereput in place to try and cope,
right? But now, as an adult, ifwe repeatedly, now get an
experience of, yes, there is ahuman. My partner is accessible.
My partner is responding thatwill slowly build a new
sensation in the nervous systemthat, over time, become a new we
call them predictive models.
Your brain basically createpredictive models of the world,

(21:59):
so we can always figure out,what can I anticipate is going
to happen? Right? That's whatthe brain is trying to do. It's
constantly trying to anticipate.
So what we're doing by creatingrepeated new experience of
attunement is we're creating anew predictive model where the
brain and the body startanticipate that people will

(22:19):
respond to you, becauseessentially, when we use this
term secure attachment, that'swhat it is. Secure attachment is
a nervous system that learned Ianticipate that people care and
respect my boundaries. Ianticipate that if I'm in
distress, somebody will careenough and come and help me. And
because they have thatpredictive model, they show off

(22:40):
feeling safe and secure, right?
Because they trust that if I saysomething, my partner will care
enough to respond, while theanxious anticipate, oh, I don't
know if they will be there ornot there. The avoidant has
already said, no, no chancethey're going to be there, so
I'm not going to be vulnerable.
So you can basically changethese predictive models through
repeated experience with peoplethat are significant in your

(23:03):
life.

Tina Gosney (23:05):
How do you do that?
And let's just say, in a maybe apursuer distance or relationship
a couple who one of them isanxious and the other one is
avoidant, and you're trying tohelp them then develop secure
attachment to each other andoverride the previous patterns
and then move into new patterns.

(23:27):
How? What does that look likefor you?

Thomas Westenholz (23:29):
That's a really, really good question,
and I guess that takes us intopart of the framework of EFT,
because part of the first stepwe do is de escalation, and what
we do is we help both people seetheir part and moves in this
dance. We refer to us at adance, because when you meet
someone, you are listening tothe same song, and it feels
good, and you're dancingtogether. And then eventually,

(23:52):
as things start to settle, it'salmost like we put on
headphones, and now we'relistening to do different songs,
different beats, differentrhythm, and we are starting to
step on each other's toes, andat some point, one of them,
often the avoidant, might findit so distressing that they
simply stop dancing altogether,and now one person is just
dragging the other around thedance floor, right? So the first

(24:14):
part we need to do to helppeople dance again, which is
essentially what I do as acouple therapists, right? Is
help them understand thedifferent moves and steps
they're taking to create thiscycle of distress, and through
that, they start learning it'sactually not my partner, that's
the enemy. It's actually thiscycle. It's almost like we get
sucked into this vacuum, and nowwe understand the steps we're

(24:36):
taking that starts that vacuumthat sucks us in where we are
stuck in fight or flight and seeeach other as the enemy. And
once they do that, then we canstart interrupting that pattern
right that continuously happenand anticipation that it will
happen. And then the next partthat we kind of do is try and
reconstruct what would havehappened in a safe. Of caregiver

(25:01):
child dynamic, which isessentially the sense of
responsiveness. So I try toobviously listen to what they're
describing and understandunderneath what they're saying.
The content they might come inand argue over sex or money or
who does most housework. This isa content, but the issue is
never in the content that thecouples bring to me, it's always

(25:22):
in the underlying attachmentneeds and cues that are being
missed. So the wife that mightcriticize a husband and say,
when you come home from work,you just go straight to the
office and I'm here alone, andyou don't care about me, they're
saying important information inthis, right? And they might be
arguing about him going to theroom, but really what it's
about? She's giving us a cueright there. She's saying my

(25:45):
interpretation of you going tothe room is that you don't care
about me. And then we go thereand understand what is that
emotional distress like? Whathappens in your body when you
suddenly get this he doesn'tcare about me, and now I help
that more vulnerable emotionbeing communicated, and what
that does is that suddenly allowus to elicit an empathetic

(26:08):
response before all the husbandwas hearing was the criticism,
and that puts him into fight orflight, right? And he then pulls
away. She feels even more alone,and the distress gets worse now
by getting her to communicatethese more vulnerable parts that
actually it makes me feel reallyalone. This is how I always felt
as a child when I was sittingwaiting for my dad, and it

(26:30):
really hurts me in my stomach,my stomach get tense, and I
almost want to cry suddenly.
That's possible to hear, right,and that help us elicit empathy,
meaning now we can get an attuneresponse, then I will obviously
help the partner, if they don'tknow how this looks like right
kind of model it and help themreconstruct. How can you respond
in a way that's attuned, whereyou don't start to lecture,

(26:52):
don't start to justify, don'tstart to defend, and don't have
to move away because there's nodanger anymore. And what happens
is, the second that you see,they get an attuned response,
the nervous system just calmsdown, and all the content is no
longer important, because mosttime people come in arguing
about who's right, yeah, or youdid the dish assessment. No, I

(27:15):
did it this many times, and theyget stuck in arguing about who
is right or wrong. Yeah, andthat's a lose, lose battle,
because we continue to miss theunderlying distress that is
actually fueling that cycle.

Tina Gosney (27:31):
That's yeah, that's wonderful. I like how you
described the taking the problemout of the person, my partner's
not the problem. The The problemis outside of us, and we're
missing each other, and it'slike you're sitting you're going

(27:52):
from opposite sides to the sameside, and taking the problem out
of you and putting it in thefront of you so that you can
both look at it together

Thomas Westenholz (28:01):
exactly, because the problem is never
them, and this is where we getlost. We're trying to often find
when people come in, who is toblame for our distress. And that
makes sense, because we are inso much distress, something has
to be the cause, and I don'twant it to be me. That means it
has to be you, right? And that'soften the pattern they're stuck
in when they come and you're sospot on, which is why it's the

(28:23):
first part of what we do isrealize that actually you are an
alliance. You are a team, andyou actually want the same
thing. You want good for eachother. You want to be on the
same team. You want to teamwork,right? You are trying to
accomplish the same thing. Butwhere we get lost is when fear
meets fear, when two predictivemodels meet that learn that the

(28:47):
world isn't safe. I can't counton somebody to care enough to
respond to me when they meeteach other, then fear creates
this chaos, and it literally isright, and the only way to calm
fear down is to not play thatgame anymore, right? Because
fear want us to have one thatwins and one that loses meaning.

(29:09):
I have to be right, and you haveto submit to my world. But in
doing so, we all lose, even ifmy partner said, I'm sorry, you
were right, we both lost,because there's no connection in
being right and one being wrong.
There's connection in both of usfeeling understood. And I think
this is where we have got solost in what relating actually

(29:32):
even means, because relatingessentially is me sharing my
internal map of the world withyou, my partner, right, and my
partner sharing their internalexperience of the world with me
and us trying to understand eachother. We don't even have to
agree. Agreement is actually notrequired for relating and

(29:54):
connection, only the willingnessto try and understand a
different. Map and experience ofthe world,

Tina Gosney (30:02):
right? Do you build a sense of safety before you
find that your clients are ableto let their inner world be
known to

Thomas Westenholz (30:13):
the Yes? Yes, absolutely. And I would say the
more trauma people had, thelonger time that takes to create
that safety, but without safety,we will get nowhere, right? And
I think safety is a buildingblock in relationship. We often
think excitement is a buildingblock. Yeah, we have to feel
very excited when really safetyis a building block. And the

(30:34):
same in the therapeuticrelationship. So a huge part of
it, which is why, what normallyhappens in the beginning is that
they share with me and I givethem what a safe, attuned adult
who were in the right, perfectcircumstance and had the time,
the energy, the resources wouldhave given them, I basically

(30:55):
reflect optimal condition. Sothey come to me I understand
their inner world and help themunderstand it, right? And I
reflect that back to them sothey get that feeling of finally
being understood, where theirbody can just go, ah, because we
often forget that at the core ofrelating is actually not that

(31:16):
our partner has to be able tofix our problems, because often
we won't be able to fix eachother's distress. My partner
can't make my son's medicaldecision go away. She can't
right even though she wanted tosee can't, and many instances,
we can't, but we often haven'tlearned that the enormous,
incredible potential that wehave as a partner to another

(31:38):
human being is purely in thefact of them not having to carry
the distress and pain alone, itbecome a huge relief, purely in
knowing I am not alone withthis. And that's why often,
especially as men, we are toldwe have to fix things right? So
we hear something straight away.
We go to logic trying to solveit, and in that we often miss

(32:00):
the most important resource thatwe have for our partner, which
is simply being able to hearthem and acknowledge them and
saying, I'm here with you. Youdon't have to do this alone,

Tina Gosney (32:16):
and if you have avoidant or or anxious
attachment, you may have neverhad that experience of someone
doing that for you, and soyou're demonstrating and role
playing that in the therapeuticroom to show the couple, this is
what it looks like, because theymay have never had that

(32:38):
experience themselves to Eventhey don't even know what they
don't know.

Thomas Westenholz (32:42):
Absolutely You're right. What you're saying
is there was no framework,right? There was no model of how
this, and this is often where,you know, I I've often pushed
back against the self help worldthat has good intention and does
a lot of good too. But thisidea, all you have to do is love
yourself. Because I think it'snot that it's it's great to love
yourself, but somebody who neverhad a model can't actually do

(33:05):
that so often, it just makespeople feel even worse and more
guilty. Why can't I do that?
Because what we often don't sayis learned is a social,
relational model that we'regiven, and some of us were lucky
enough to have that. So yes,when somebody says to me, just
love yourself, I can like, oh, Ihave a framework for how that
felt. Like, when my parents Ican do that, but somebody who

(33:26):
never experienced that, theycan't do that, and often it just
makes them feel more inadequate.
So first we have to give them afelt experience. And once they
had that, then yes, it can startmaking sense the idea of self
love, but not before,

Tina Gosney (33:43):
right? I like how you said felt experience,
because we want to logic our waythrough everything and try,
okay, give me the steps of whatit means to love myself, and
then I'll check off all theboxes and do all the things. But
that's not really what we'retalking about. We're talking
about feeling this, and we're sodisconnected from our bodies and

(34:05):
so caught up in our cognitivethinking that we don't even know
what that feels like. It's sucha foreign feeling inside, inside
of our bodies,

Thomas Westenholz (34:14):
exactly. And I think you're right, and this
is why change doesn't happen forlogical understanding, I could
literally come in and lecturepeople on all this we're talking
about now, it would not changeanything. What changes are the
key change moment where suddenlyI've been able to engineer that
one person is vulnerable and theother person is able to respond,

(34:37):
and you can see their bodyfeeling and getting that
sensation of ah and thatsuddenly create a memory that's
remembered on a bodily level aswell. This is how safety feels
like and sense like. This is howit is to be acknowledged, to be
understood, to be accepted,which are all. Key things that

(35:00):
we really craved, right, thatobviously was somehow missed
along the line, intentionally ornot intentionally, and the body
recognize instantly when it havethat experience. And the more we
get that, the more that trustbuilt, and the more new model of
anticipation becomes, oh, maybeI can anticipate that this can
actually happen, and then itbecomes easier every time to be

(35:24):
vulnerable. The first time feelslike a huge step of a ledge, and
this is why it's very difficultto do often without that
therapist there, because I'mbasically their safety net. I'm
the net that if suddenly theirpartner can't respond and let
them fall, I'm gonna catch them.
I'm the safety net that if theirpartner suddenly, for whatever
reason, actually end upattacking them, when they reveal

(35:46):
this, I'm gonna intervene andstop. Yeah, so they know that
I'm their parachute. I'm theirbulletproof vest, and that's
what makes it possible, knowingthat there's somebody there that
will intervene in case it getmissed between us, right, right?

Tina Gosney (36:05):
It's such an important role that you play in
the therapy room and with yourclients. I talk a lot in this
podcast about differentiation,about having a differentiated
self and having that as theframework to be able to then
connect with others. How wouldyou say that? This the EFT and

(36:26):
differentiation. How do those dothey work together? Are they
complementary to each other?
What would you what would yousay to that?

Thomas Westenholz (36:36):
You know, what? There's so many different
modalities out there, and Ithink it really depends on the
individual person and what theyrespond to, yeah. So I think
people come and need differententry points as well of how they
engage with something. So often,if somebody has spent most of
their life in their cognition,their thought, to suddenly throw

(36:58):
them into something somatic canbe way too overwhelming, and
they just disengage, right? So Ithink it's often trying to
because there's so many models,and a lot of the models are
fundamentally describing thesame thing, right? We just came
up with lots of different namesfor the same thing, and then we
named them different models, butessentially they come down to

(37:19):
the same core elements. So Ithink it's more about finding
language that resonate with thepeople or the person that you
are with at that moment, becausethat's how we gain an entry
point into being able to build alevel of connection and safety,
right? Because I think at thecore of any healing, and I mean
any healing, is alwaysrelational. We don't function in

(37:43):
isolation, yeah. And you canalso look at all developmental
or long term trauma. Was abreach of trust. Yeah, it was a
breach pure shock. Trauma isactually pretty easy to treat
somebody who fall off a horseand feel a bit scared. That's
quite easy to treat. It'srelational trauma that lingers,
and for many people almost lasta lot lifetime, right? And as it

(38:07):
was created relationally, wealso have to heal it
relationally. And whateverlanguage is used, I actually
don't think is that important,right? I think it's just using
language to resonate with theperson your will because that
build the sense of trust andfamiliarity, and that's really
all that matters, right? Yeah,

Tina Gosney (38:27):
I love that and and you are, right? There are so
many different modalities and somany different frameworks and
models that you could that youcould talk to people about
everybody has their kind of,their specialty, or their pet,
the one that they love the most,but they all are working towards
the same thing, and that is tohelp us self, be more healthy

(38:50):
inside, and be able to relate toothers in a more secure, healthy
way as

Thomas Westenholz (38:54):
well. That's right, exactly. And I think we
often forget that at the corerelating to the external world
in a functional way, comes froman internal sense of safety.
That I am feeling safe, my bodyis feeling safe. If we don't, it
becomes impossible. And part ofit also is even recognizing when

(39:15):
I am no longer able to do so,right? So able to be intervene
and actually notice when havethe adults left the room.
Because often what happens iswhen a couple start going at
each other, it's because the twoadults have left the room, yes,
and they're actually twochildren now jumping at each
other, trying to tear each otherapart, right? And, of course,

(39:38):
that's not going to end uppretty. So part of it is also
just recognizing, oh, the adultshave left the room. So right
now, we are not able to get to aplace of love and understanding,
because I can't hear you whenI'm in this place, right and
then knowing what are thestrategies that I need to
restore some sense of calm,where I might be able to respond

(39:59):
in a. Empathetic way, right? Soit's also just able to develop
that awareness to interrupt andnot just go with whatever
adrenaline or cortisol istelling us to do, which might be
to tear down our partner, right?
But then afterwards, we willhave to deal with the
consequences of that.

Tina Gosney (40:16):
Yeah, another reason why it would be really
beneficial to be in touch withwhat is happening inside your
body, so that you can recognizethose signs of I am in fight or
flight, and I've got thiscortisol running through my
body, and now I'm feeling likeI'm turned into a an eight year
old, or maybe a four year old.
And so that we can we canintervene and pause before

(40:39):
responding, but until we becomefamiliar with that bodily
sensation and what's happeningand what the typical pattern is,
it's almost like it's not achoice. It just automatically
takes us into

Thomas Westenholz (40:55):
that you're spot on, and that's because
logic is actually the last ofthe free processing systems we
have. The first one is alwaysthe body. Everything gets
processed through bodilysensations, first, then
emotional memory in themidbrain, and then lastly, it
come to higher cognition, ourlogical reasoning and
understanding. So by the time weoften have this logical reason

(41:18):
understanding, it's too late, asyou said, right? The other
systems has already overridelogic and have taken over and
have done whatever they feltthey needed to do to survive in
that circumstance, which often.
So you're spot on, that actuallya key, and this is where the
somatic part wasn't part of theEFT framework, hence why I
trained in that separately.

(41:40):
Because what I found, like yousaid, to interrupt it before we
have gone into the full blowntornado that's tearing the house
apart, we need to be able tospot earlier warning signals,
which is what the body wouldgive us. So often, some really
good things that people, eventhe listeners, can do is really
simple things, to just startcreating an awareness of

(42:01):
sensation. It could even beclosing your eyes, taking a deep
breath and just notice whatsensations are underneath the
soles of your feet, right? Is ittinkling? Is it cold? Is it hot?
And it's just starting to slowdown and bring a bodily
awareness. And then often Iwould do a body scan with
people, where they kind ofnotice, Oh, what about my

(42:23):
thighs? What about my spine? Isit tense? At it relaxed, right?
And it's starting to check inwith the body in a way we're not
used to. And while this will notchange things instantaneously,
over time, you will build a newmuscle like anything, so you can
do it much faster, much moretuned to subtleties. I will know
when I'm about to get stressedway before I snap at my partner,

(42:46):
by far, the majority of thetime, but that's through
training this for many years, Ididn't used to be able to do
this, and now I know tension inmy jaw means I'm starting to
develop anger, right, tension inmy stomach start, meaning I'm
beginning developing a sense ofanxiety, and by knowing these
signs very early, I canintervene before they overload

(43:08):
my whole nervous system and takecharge, right?

Tina Gosney (43:11):
Yeah, and I'm going to take an educated guess and
say that you need to practicethis when you're not already
triggered, that when you're justin a calm state, and to
practice, what do the soles ofmy feet feel like? What's
happening in my body? Do a bodyscan when nothing else is
happening to make your body gointo wondering if it's safe or

(43:33):
not.

Thomas Westenholz (43:34):
You're so spot on. It's like, we wouldn't
recommend somebody sitting downand meditating in the middle of
a tornado, right in the middleof tornado, will say, get to
shelter or get away. Right? Getin the car and drive away. This
is not the time to do a bodyscan, right? So I think you're
spot on, because once we've goneto that stage, you won't be able
to notice anymore, because quitesome significant things happen

(43:58):
when we go into fight or flight.
A survival response is that oneempathy shuts down. So empathy
can't be online at the same timeas the fear response is online,
which is why there's no chanceof us responding in an
empathetic way. Because if abear's about to eat my children,
it wasn't beneficial that Istarted feeling empathy for the
bear and think, Oh, poor bear. Ijust needed to stab that bear I

(44:20):
get my kids away, right? Soempathy simply isn't online and
the same. It's not beneficialfor me if I'm about to engage in
a fight to save my kids that Istart attuning to what seems
actually the opposite isimportant. It's good that I numb
down to pain and don't feelpain, right? So we tend to numb
when we go into that response.

(44:42):
Instead of feeling more soyou're spot on. The time is
never when we are gone into atriggered response. The time is
when we already are resourcedright, feeling calm. Have a
quiet place where we can thensay, Hey, let me just go check
and it could even be two minutesbefore going to bed. Right? I
used to do it in the morning fortwo minutes. In the evening, two

(45:03):
minutes, but that's consistentlyfour minutes every single day,
and that accumulate to our bodyawareness over time, right?

Tina Gosney (45:12):
Yeah, I like how you said two minutes, because
the last thing we need is to,okay, let me take an hour out of
every day and try to work thisin, because that's not going to
happen. But we all have twominutes, you know. How often do
we lay in bed for two minutes aweek before we get up? Which
would be a perfect time to dothis.

Thomas Westenholz (45:34):
That's it.
And I also just want to say tothe people who can't sit still,
which I know is quite a bigmajority of people now too that
it's totally okay to not do thissitting still. So we know that
for a lot of people, meditationor sitting still closed eyes
doesn't work. And often you haveso much energy in your body that
something need to be discharged.

(45:55):
So often, what we find is doingthe same exercising, but using
movement at the same time can bereally, really helpful. When I
started this, I couldn't do itsitting still, so I would
actually start dancing and puton music, and then I would dance
in my living room with closedeyes and start paying attention
to what is actually happening,how is it feeling in my body?

(46:17):
And I would just do that to onesong which is three minutes or
however long, right? And that'sa simple practice that can help
people. If they're strugglingsitting still when doing this,
that's totally fine. There'snothing wrong with you. You just
have excess energy that needsmovement.

Tina Gosney (46:32):
Yeah, you probably just answered a big question
that people had was like, Ican't, I can't do that and sit
still. So I'm glad you broughtin that we do need to have
movement and it's and we can dothe same thing with movement if
we're just tuning into our bodyas we are moving and listening
to what our body is telling us,

Thomas Westenholz (46:49):
yes, and actually, movement is almost as
lost tool, because we spent somuch time sitting still. And you
said before we shouldn't do thiswhen we're triggered. You're
spot on. But what we should dowhen we are triggered is
actually movement, because thefight the flight response. It's
kind of in the words, right,fight meaning moving. Flight

(47:11):
also mean moving away. Sositting still when we are
triggered means that adrenalineand cortisol gets trapped in the
body. It's meant to facilitatemovement, right? So what I would
always do, if either me and mypartner are triggered, she also
likes to dance, I will say,Should we just have a little
short dance? And we recognize,right? Because we do check ins,

(47:31):
and if one of us say, Oh, I'mfeeling quite stressed, we'll
say, hey, let's have a littlequick dance, because we know
that when the body moves, it geta chance to discharge the
cortisol and adrenaline thathelps the brain and body kind of
reset again. And only from thatplace can we start relating,

Tina Gosney (47:49):
and you could have some fun too. Absolutely, let's

Thomas Westenholz (47:52):
not forget that. Let's not forget that.

Tina Gosney (47:56):
Let's just go for a minute. I know our time is
getting short, but I do want tofocus on what if so, if a couple
is in this dynamic with thefight or flight and not attuning
to each other, how does thataffect the rest of the family,
and then also the opposite, ifthey are in tune with each other

(48:17):
and are able to work through andbe a safe place for each other.
How does that affect the family?
Can you give me both sides?

Thomas Westenholz (48:24):
Yeah, that is a really good question.
Actually, I haven't been askedthat before, but I really like
that question, and I think wehave to realize that it's not
what we say, it's what we do.
That model for our children,while it's great to say all
these nice things, kids look forour actions and behavior far
more than just the words we say.
So that means, in theseinstances, we get a way that we

(48:47):
can help model to the childrenhow relating could look like,
right? So that's one part, also.
The second part is children arehighly, highly attuned to our
nervous systems, because theyhave to be as a survival
strategy. If mommy and daddy isnot accessible, that to a child
means danger, so they are, whichis why they're so sensitive to

(49:08):
us pulling away or not beingthere, right? They are hyper
attuned, and they have to be atthat age, right? So basically
that also means that any changesin our nervous system, they will
also pick up. They know when weare not present. They know when
we are in distress, even if wedon't talk about it, right? And
if people often carry aroundthis distress but don't talk

(49:30):
about it because they don't wantto rock the boat, the kids also
learn these big feelings aren'tsafe. Yeah, right, so I
shouldn't bring these bigfeelings, because there are
things that we should cover upand that we shouldn't talk
about, and that becomes a modelas well that they take with
them, right on top of, ofcourse, feeling the distress
themselves. You can say on theother side, when we are able to

(49:51):
model this, we give them a modelof how to navigate conflict,
because conflict is inevitable,and even the best relationship.
Have disagreements, havetension, have frustration, have
conflict. I would say it'sstrange if you don't have any of
that, yeah. So that isabsolutely normal. It's how we
engage with that. And actually,in these moments, we have a

(50:13):
really unique opportunity to oneshow children how to deal with
big emotions. Yeah, and thiswill be a lesson that will serve
them for the rest of their life.
How do we engage when ouremotions get overwhelming? And
number two, we actually get anopportunity to teach them, how
do we repair after fracture?
Because we know that fracture isnot what causes a harm. It's a

(50:35):
lack of repair that causes theharm, right? So they obviously
see these models, but also onhow we engage with our children
ourselves. It's okay. You don'thave to be a perfect parent. We
all mess up. We all snap and getangry. I do it too. I put my
hand up, right? I have done ittoo. Lost my patience with the
kids. But that doesn't causeharm, yeah, what caused harm is

(50:58):
if I never came back and justignored it. But when I came back
and said, Hey, I think maybethere, I got a bit too angry. I
lost my cool. Can you tell mehow that was for you? And they
say, Oh, that felt really scary.
And I say, I get that becauseI'm much bigger than you. That
must have been really, reallyscary. I don't want to behave
that way. What's a way we can dothis better in the future, and I

(51:22):
involve them in the process,right? And I acknowledge that
I'm not perfect, and what thatalso does. And I know you
obviously talked to Brene Brownabout, you know, shame, guilt,
and all these concepts that shetalks about, right? And I think
this is exactly what it teachesthe child in this moment, that I
don't have to feel shame that Imessed up. I can come repair

(51:45):
Yeah, and that makes it okay tomess up, instead of me having to
hide away from the fact that Imessed up, which is what shame
does. Shame makes us want tohide right here, I'm saying. I'm
taking accountability. I'm notperfect. I'm gonna mess up as
your dad, but let's figure thisout together.

Tina Gosney (52:04):
That's a great permission to be imperfect, to
be an imperfect person and animperfect parent and an
imperfect partner, andpermission also to then repair
when we're back into our whenthe adult comes back into the
room. Child has exited, and theadult comes back into the

Thomas Westenholz (52:24):
room Exactly.
It's okay that we are imperfect.
The part that's not okay is ifwe can never come back to that
and recognize that and say, Hey,I think maybe I hurt you there,
and that's not what I want.

Tina Gosney (52:36):
Yeah. And also, as you mentioned before, what a
great example of how to do thatto your child, so that they
learn how to do that for theirfuture, in their future, present
and future relationships aswell, which will serve them
throughout their life.

Thomas Westenholz (52:51):
Yeah, and it creates a model for them that
fracture is safe because ofthat, repair doesn't happen.
They learn a fracture isn'tsafe, and that means they now
become really fearful of havingconflicts in the future, while,
if we give them a model thatactually nothing happens if we
have fracture, we always comeback in connection again,
because then suddenly they havea model. Now, hey, it's safe if

(53:14):
I have an argument, right?
Nothing bad happens. It's justan argument. But I trust that
we'll come back and we'll lookat each other and we say, Hey,
maybe I went a bit too far. Idon't want to hurt you. How can
we do this better next time?
Yeah,

Tina Gosney (53:28):
beautiful. Hey, I know you have some resources
that you can share with thelisteners. Would you mind just
outlining what those are?

Thomas Westenholz (53:35):
Yeah, of course, so people can obviously
listen to the free podcast,which is couples in focus, where
we really dive a lot into theseattachment dynamics and how they
impact. We talk about betrayaland how to try and recover from
that, etc. So that's coveredquite in depth. If people want
more information, then they canobviously go to my website,
couple therapy dot Earth, whichis where I offer couple therapy,

(53:59):
etc. And in the future, I willcreate an online course to kind
of help people do that. But evenI want to say, with an online
course, there's a relationalelement that is missing when we
only do online right? And I evensay that despite I'm creating
one, because I want to makepeople aware of that only
consuming knowledge is not goingto do the job. Yeah, it's

(54:20):
helpful, but that alone tend tonot work unless we have that
facilitation, that safety, wherewe are actually able to start
doing it together, right? Yes,

Tina Gosney (54:30):
thank you for bringing that to light. And
we'll put links in the shownotes to those resources that
you just mentioned. If you couldleave the listeners with one
more thing takeaway, orsomething that maybe we haven't
covered yet, or just somethingyou want them to remember. What
would that be? Ah,

Thomas Westenholz (54:52):
I think it's that we are born into safety,
and the nervous system alreadyknows how. Know what that is
like, and then we lose it inmoments of fracture that are not
repaired. But that also meansthat we can always return to a
place of safety again, and thatyou're not dysfunctional because

(55:14):
you have some of thesestrategies. Actually, it makes
you functional because you founda way to survive, and
congratulations on doing that,because you made it this far.

Tina Gosney (55:25):
That's That's awesome. Thank you, Thomas, this
has been such a wonderfulconversation. Thank you for
having that with me today. Ireally appreciate that and
everything that you've shared

Thomas Westenholz (55:38):
my pleasure and thank you for the great
questions you.