Dance/Movement Therapy for Healing Attachment Wounds

Healing Attachment Wounds Between Adults and their Parent or Sibling

Your sister looks down in that particular way she always does when something bothers her. As children, you took on the role of interpreting her behavior and advocating those needs to the adults in the room. Now you’re 33 and your sister is 25 and you still find yourself doing this when you’re out at the family dinner, telling your parents what she’s feeling when she excuses herself to the bathroom 30 minutes into the meal. Nobody specifically asked you to, but everything in your body tells you to keep vigilant of her feelings, and you can’t help but share what you know.

Or maybe you find yourself feeling rejected and left alone by your dad when there is family conflict in the exact way you did when you were 10. You hold onto those feelings and start withdrawing from him in any setting, even while you want to connect with him more than ever.

Or maybe you and a family member have suffered the loss of a parent or sibling together, and you can feel that your unique grief has become a point of disconnection and separation rather than connection. You want to feel less alienated and want to build up the comfort with being vulnerable together that you’ve never had previously.

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The way we form and behave in relationships is deeply embodied.

These patterns are intimately rooted in the experiences of (dis)connection, safety and presence that our bodies experienced in childhood.

This is why our patterns of relationship with family can feel especially sticky and hard to move: to change how we relate threatens the very ways we learned how to survive, no matter how illogical those patterns may seem now. To change can feel like a literal threat to life.

Giving your bodies a chance to practice moving into a new way of relating with the presence and containment of a skilled witness teaches your bodies, with time, that:

• it is safe to relate to each other in a different way.

• there is a difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe.

This work is for pairs of people within families who:

• want to feel more authentic, freer and connected than they currently do.

• want to update their shared understanding and knowing of each other rather than relating to each other the way you always have.

• are rooted in love, care and mutual respect for each other.

• are curious to explore embodied and creative interventions that require you to experience a new way of being in the moment, beyond simply talking about the relationship.

If this resonates, I’d love to help you two embody a new way of being and have the relationship you actually want.