Understanding Your Attachment Style Through EMDR: A Path to Healthier Connections

You might already know your attachment style—anxious, avoidant, disorganized, or secure—but understanding it on a deeper, emotional level is an entirely different experience.

• Why does separation from a partner leave you spiraling with anxiety?
• What makes you instinctively pull away when someone gets too close?
• Why do healthy, stable relationships feel unfamiliar—even uncomfortable?

These aren’t just random reactions—they are deeply wired patterns formed in your earliest relationships.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy helps uncover the root of these patterns, not just by discussing them but by experiencing them in real time—through emotions, physical sensations, and subconscious memories.

A powerful tool EMDR therapists use for this? The floatback technique.

What is the Floatback and How Can It Reveal Your Attachment Style?

A floatback is like tracing a thread back to its source. It helps you move beyond logic and into the deep emotional memories that shaped your attachment patterns.

Here’s how it works: Instead of simply talking about your attachment style, your EMDR therapist will have you focus on a present-day feeling, behavior, or body sensation and then guide you to notice when and where that feeling first began.

Example: The Avoidant Floatback

Present-Day Behavior: You feel an intense urge to withdraw when your partner wants emotional closeness. You suddenly feel suffocated, irritated, or emotionally shut down.

Your EMDR therapist will ask:

• “As you notice this feeling of wanting to pull away, what sensations do you feel in your body?”
• “When have you felt this same feeling before?”

At first, your mind might go to past relationships, but as you float back further, you may suddenly remember being a child—your mother insisting you “stop crying” or your father giving you the silent treatment when he was upset.

Your nervous system learned early on that emotional closeness wasn’t safe, so now, as an adult, your body still reacts as if that old dynamic is playing out again.

Example: The Anxious Floatback

Present-Day Behavior: Your partner doesn’t text back for a few hours, and you immediately feel panicked, rejected, or abandoned.

Your therapist guides you to focus on this feeling:

•  “Where do you feel this in your body?” (Tight chest, stomach knots, racing thoughts.)
•  “If you float back in time, what is the earliest time you remember feeling this way?”

Suddenly, a memory surfaces—you’re five years old, waiting at the window for your dad to pick you up, but he never comes.

This is the root of your fear of abandonment—and EMDR can help process and rewire this response so you no longer feel stuck in old emotional patterns.

Try a Floatback Yourself: What Comes Up for You?

If you’re reading this, you can explore your own attachment wounds right now with this simple floatback exercise.

• Think of a recent relationship struggle. Maybe you:
  • Felt anxious when your partner pulled away.
  • Avoided expressing your needs.
  • Felt emotionally shut down during conflict.
• Tune into your body.
  • Where do you feel this in your body? Chest? Stomach? Throat?
• Float back in time.
  • When have you felt this exact feeling before?
  • Keep going—earlier, earlier… What’s the earliest moment you can recall?

Whatever memory surfaces—that’s where your nervous system first learned this pattern. And that’s where EMDR can help.

Setting Up a Memory as an EMDR Target: The Next Step in Healing

Once you’ve identified a key memory through the floatback, an EMDR therapist helps set it up as a target memory for reprocessing.

How an EMDR Target Works

An EMDR therapist will ask:

• What is the most distressing image from this memory?
• What belief did this moment create about yourself? (“I’m not enough.” “I don’t matter.” “Love isn’t safe.”)
• Where do you feel this in your body?

Then, through bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or sound), your brain reprocesses the memory—meaning you no longer feel emotionally stuck in it.

Example: Releasing a Fear of Abandonment

Before EMDR: Natalie, 30, always had intense separation anxiety in relationships. Through the floatback, she uncovered a childhood memory of waking up to find that her mom had been hospitalized during the night, and her aunt was there to watch her. Her mother did not return for a month.

During EMDR: As she reprocessed this memory, her brain integrated a new belief: “I am safe even when people are not physically present.”

After EMDR: For the first time, Natalie could experience space in relationships without spiraling into fear.

EMDR Can Help You Move From Unconscious Patterns to Conscious Healing

If your relationships keep following the same frustrating pattern, EMDR can help you:

• Identify the root of your attachment wounds.
• Rewire negative beliefs about love and connection.
• Heal old wounds so your present relationships aren’t controlled by your past.

You don’t have to stay stuck in patterns that no longer serve you. With the right tools, you can create healthier, more secure relationships—starting with yourself.

Final Thoughts from an EMDR Therapist: A Path to Secure Attachment

Understanding your attachment style isn’t about labeling yourself—it’s about learning how to heal.

Curious about how EMDR at Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing can help you process your attachment wounds? A trained EMDR therapist can guide you through a deep healing journey that moves beyond insight and into true transformation.

You deserve relationships that feel safe, fulfilling, and emotionally balanced—and EMDR can help you get there.

Heal Your Attachment Wounds Today with EMDR Therapy in Cherry Hill, NJ

At Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing, we know that attachment wounds don’t heal overnight, but with the right support, they don’t have to define your future. Our EMDR therapists at both our Medford and Haddon Heights practices create a safe, compassionate space to explore these patterns, process painful memories, and develop healthier, more secure ways of connecting with others. If you’re ready to break free from the cycles keeping you stuck, follow the steps below.

1. Connect with us here so we can get to know your story.
2. Explore our blogs to learn more about EMDR therapy and how it works.
3. Healing is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone.

Other Services We Offer in Cherry Hill & Haddon Heights, NJ

At Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing, we understand that every individual’s journey is different, and we’re here to support you through all of life’s stages. We offer specialized counseling for men and women, addressing the unique challenges each may face. Our LGBTQIA+ therapy provides a safe and affirming space for individuals exploring identity, relationships, and societal pressures. We focus on helping partners build stronger connections and improve communication with our couples therapy. We also offer counseling for 20-somethings, providing guidance and support as they navigate the challenges of early adulthood.

In addition, we provide support for those managing anxiety and stress, navigating the emotional complexities of divorce, and seeking culturally competent therapy that honors diverse backgrounds and experiences. For individuals on the journey of parenthood, our postnatal anxiety treatment offers compassionate care during pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond. No matter where you are in life, we’re here to help you find clarity, healing, and growth.