Attachment Style Repatterning with Somatic Therapy: Heal Core Wounds, Repair Relational Memories & Strength Boundaries

Credit

Handouts

Speaker

Wanda Brothers, MA, LMFT Related seminars and products

---

Wanda Brothers, MA, LMFT, is a Somatic Experiencing™ practitioner and certified in Dynamic Attachment Repair experience (DARe), somatic coach, and trauma-healing expert with over 23 years of clinical experience. For the past 17 years, she has specialized in the integration of neuroscience, physiology, and attachment theory to help clients resolve and heal deep-rooted wounds and restore emotional regulation.

In addition to her clinical practice, Wanda is a seasoned speaker, educator, and clinical supervisor. Her years as a professor at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) honed her ability to translate complex concepts into engaging, accessible language for both professional and public audiences. She regularly provides workshops and trainings on trauma and stress reduction, nervous system regulation, and relational healing for schools, businesses, and community organizations. Wanda also created the Educational Trauma and Resiliency program, a four-module training designed for teachers in underserved schools, equipping them with practical tools on trauma, attachment, and fostering resilience in students.

Her teaching is grounded in the understanding that human behavior is not solely a product of the mind but is deeply influenced by the body and automatic physiology. By helping clients and students learn how the autonomic nervous system shapes emotions and behaviors, Wanda empowers them to approach life’s challenges from a more regulated, resilient, and connected state.

Wanda’s work reflects her passion for creating a world with less stress, anger, and anxiety – and more capacity for love, peace, and vitality.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Wanda Brothers is the owner of Real Life Solutions- Trauma Recovery. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Wanda Brothers is a member of the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists.

 

 

Additional Info

Program Information

Objectives

1. Present key Somatic Therapy principles in the treatment of attachment trauma.
2. Examine how both client and therapist attachment wounds influence the therapeutic relationship and outcomes.
3. Explain foundational Attachment Theory to better understand clients’ unconscious relational patterns.
4. Analyze the connection between attachment styles and boundary challenges.
5. Describe “difficult clients” as individuals shaped by attachment wounds and boundary issues.
6. Apply somatic strategies to reduce distress, shame, and resistance in challenging therapeutic dynamics.
7. Facilitate attachment-based exercises to support both client healing and therapist self-awareness.

Outline

Getting Started with Somatic Therapy for Attachment Trauma

• Fundamental principles of Somatic Therapy
• Attachment theory simplified
• Assess your own attachment style to improve the therapeutic alliance
• Create a safe first impression
• Risks, limitations and ethical issues

Boundaries: The Often-Overlooked Foundation of Effective Therapy

• The 4 key boundaries to know for every session
• Using Mirror Neurons to understand the client's experience
• Interoceptive awareness to distinguish the client's emotions from therapist's
• Reframing “difficult” clients
• How your own boundaries impact your work with clients

Assessment & Treatment Planning for Somatic Shame, Implicit & Explicit Memories

• Brain regions and their relationship to attachment styles
• Notice subtle cues in body language, eye movements and posture
• Map your client’s underlying attachment wiring
• Provide co-regulation for corrective emotional experiences
• How developmental trauma shapes somatic shame identities
• Create targeted treatment plans for unique attachment patterns
• Risks, limitations and ethical issues

Anxious Attachment Style: Treating Relational Anxiety

• Focus on deeply rooted beliefs like, “I’ll never get enough love”
• Help clients transition from anxious toward secure attachment
• Target memory rumination that reinforce anxious patterns
• Redirect clients’ attention toward positive experiences
• Help clients create internal and external boundaries
• Simple exercises to repair the core attachment wound

 Avoidant Attachment Style: Treating Relational Avoidance

• Focus on beliefs such as: "Relationships aren't enjoyable", "I am all I need.”
• Support clients to notice and experience goodness in relationships
• Target implicit/explicit memories that reinforce disconnection & withdrawal
• Effective boundaries for avoidantly attached clients
• Provide simple somatic exercises to repair the avoidant wound

Disorganized Attachment Style: Treating Terror and Creating Safety

• Focus on beliefs, such as: “I need you but relationships are dangerous.”
• Enhance relational safety with distance, pacing and more
• Target implicit and explicit memories that reinforce dissociation
• Teach effective boundaries for disorganized attached clients
• Simple somatic exercises to treat terror responses

Self-of-the-Therapist Work: Relational Impact and Self-awareness

• How somatic and attachment dynamics influence session effectiveness
• What to do when you need to work on your own attachment style
• Avoid getting “pulled in” to clients’ attachment wounds
• Identify your own implicit memories related to:
  • emotional intimacy
  • gender dynamics
  • power relations
• How the therapists’ stress and anxiety affect each session
• “Grounded, present self” as a secure attachment to accelerate healing
• Somatic transference and countertransference on alliance building

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Social Workers
• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counsellors
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Psych Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals