Healing The Trauma

Bonded Client
A BOOKLET OF CLINICAL STRATEGIES AND EXCERPTS FROM “LOVING
YOU IS HURTING ME:

Dr. Laura Copley, PhD, LPC | Author of Loving You is Hurting Me: A New Approach to
Healing the Trauma Bond and Creating Authentic Connection
IDENTIFYING THE ATTACHMENT WOUND EXERCISE
There are five attachment wounds that are left over after an attachment trauma. Let’s
break these down one by one.

− Abandonment wounds: These emotional wounds are caused by people

important in your life discarding you or refusing to acknowledge you. Something
that you once had has been ripped from your life and you are left feeling alone and
unloved.

− Betrayal wounds: A violation of trust, these emotional wounds are a result of

people you care about consciously breaking a promise, whether spoken or
unspoken, to you and your relationship. The person you trusted intentionally
made a choice they knew would hurt you. You are left feeling disoriented and
distrusting.

− Humiliation wounds: The loss of confidence due to people making you feel
embarrassed or ashamed causes these emotional wounds. You begin to feel guilt
and shame for who you are and will often hold yourself back out of fear of others
making fun of you.

− Injustice wounds: These emotional wounds result from reexperiencing unfair

treatment that violates who you are as a person by means of power, oppression,
and suppression. Your sense of morality and belief in a just world is shattered. It
can make you feel deep anger and powerlessness.

− Rejection wounds: Profound experiences of being dismissed by people from

whom you longed for acceptance or repeated experiences of feeling unwanted by
others can cause these emotional wounds. Unlike the abandonment wound, you
were not even given a chance to be accepted by another or a group. You feel
inherently bad or wrong.

Think of your childhood home and upbringing. Do any of these patterns click? If so, a
probable reason you feel like you’re being caught in the same toxic patterns in your adult
relationships is because something about them feels familiar to patterns passed down
from your childhood. This book will help you release those patterns and form healthier
ways to connect and give and receive love.

Now, let’s slow the next part down a bit… The ways you adapted to hostility, neglect,
smothering behaviors, poor boundaries, inconsistent affection, and unpredictable
behavior as a child calibrated you to be emotionally drawn to this same type of familiar
pattern in adulthood. After all, this is what you know. This was your normal. This
calibration is known as repetition compulsion, which means you replicate the same
damaging dynamic you learned during childhood in your adult relationships. This includes
reenacting the same role you had to play in childhood for your parents.

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Reflecting During Session:

• Do any of these attachment wounds remind you of experiences you had in your
life? What memories do they bring up?
• How did you learn to protect yourself as a result of going through these
attachment traumas?
• How do those learned protective strategies play out as a repetition compulsion in
your relationships today?
• What role does this repetition compulsion get you to play in your life now?
• How are those strategies helping you? How are they sabotaging you?

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TRAUMA BONDED CHECKLIST
Discuss during session how the following is present in your relationships, to what
extreme, and how frequent:

− How often do you become emotionally and behaviorally triggered by fear of

abandonment, betrayal, humiliation, injustice, or rejection in my closest
relationships? What do these emotions and behaviors look like? In other words, are
there certain experiences that trigger you to feel fear and behave reactively in your
relationships?

− How often do you become emotionally shut down by fear of becoming too close to
someone else? What does this shutdown look like when it happens?

− Do you genuinely feel seen and heard in my relationships? Or are you desperately
seeking to be chosen by another to prove your worth and prevent feeling so unloved?

− Do your close relationships know and accept your authentic self? Or do your
relationships force you to betray parts of who you are in order to feel loved by them?
What values, beliefs, and boundaries do you betray?

− Is there an emotional addiction pattern in how you experience relationships? Are

there any patterns of highs and lows, push and pull, or pursue and withdraw that you
can identify?

Now, tune in to how your body is responding to your answers to these questions. Notice
any thoughts, emotions, or sensations that are surfacing. Are you surprised by any of your
answers? Did any particular memory surface that stirred feelings or sensations in your
body?

If any of these questions resonated with you, it is very possible that you have deeply
rooted attachment wounds that influence your trauma bond. What is it like to sit with this
possibility? Have you ever considered this before?

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TRAUMA IMPRINTS AND THE TOXIC HOOK
Mapping out the trauma bond dance is helpful to gain insight into where you can begin
implementing the new skills and strategies you learned in therapy. The Toxic Hook is a
visual that guides you step-by-step in how to breakdown the painful pattern in your
relationship.

Use the list of Trauma Imprints below and your knowledge of attachment wounds to fill in
your version of the Toxic Hook.

List of Trauma Imprints

Emotional overwhelm Emotional numbness

Racing Thoughts Disconnected
Panic Shut down
Impulsivity No feelings
Feeling unsafe Feeling “dead”
Reactive No energy
Angry Ashamed
Hypervigilance Dissociated
Defensiveness Unable to think
Control issues Lack of “control”
Need to regain power Feeling powerless
Fear of being alone Feeling helpless
Critical of others Need to withdraw
Micromanaging Unable to say “no”
Emotional outbursts Apathy
Need to pursue others Self-isolating
Entitlement issues Self-shaming
Competitive Passive

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The Toxic Hook

Therapy Exercise:

1. What skills have you learned in therapy that can be implemented at each stage of
The Toxic Hook?
2. Describe an example of your Toxic Hook being activated in your relationship.
What happened? Describe in detail what you and your partner can do differently
next time?
3. How will it feel going through a conflict in a safer way? What will it mean to you?

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Dr. Laura Copley is a PhD Licensed Professional Counselor, international speaker, podcast
host of “Tough Love with Dr. Laura Copley,” and author of the upcoming book, Loving You
is Hurting Me.

To contact Laura

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://lauracopley.com/

Get 20% off Laura’s book when you

pre-order before her release date of
October 10, 2023 at the website below:

https://lauracopley.com/loving-you-
is-hurting-me

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@DocCopley

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