Our earliest relationships shape how we connect with others throughout life. When those early experiences lack consistency, safety, or attunement, we develop protective patterns to navigate the world. As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains in The Body Keeps the Score, these experiences become encoded in both our nervous system and our unconscious expectations of relationships. Attachment wounds manifest in various ways – such as withdrawing from intimacy, struggling with trust, or becoming anxiously preoccupied with relationships.
For many, these adaptations were initially necessary for survival. Hypervigilance, for example, helped protect our ancestors from predators and immediate physical danger. But in the present day, survival isn’t just about physical threats; it’s also about navigating social and systemic realities. So, for some, hypervigilance is a redundant trauma response but for others – particularly Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) – hypervigilance remains a crucial response to ongoing racial bias, discrimination, and microaggressions. Therefore, our prehistoric emotional and physiological defences cannot always be categorised as “unnecessary.” Healing, therefore, must be understood in context: for some, safety means unlearning old survival patterns, for others, it means maintaining protective vigilance in a society that continues to pose real threats.
Attachment, emotional regulation, and systemic contexts
Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory helps us understand why healing requires safe relationships. His research shows that our nervous system is designed to regulate through connection with others. When we experience early attachment disruption, as Dr. Allan Schore‘s work demonstrates, our capacity for emotional regulation and secure attachment becomes compromised.
However, for many, the broader social world remains unsafe throughout life. Systemic inequities – such as racial discrimination, economic disparities, and the disproportionate policing or pathologising of people’s bodies – also impact our capacity for secure attachment.
Dr. Pat Ogden’s research on sensorimotor psychotherapy reveals how attachment patterns manifest in the body, affecting physical responses to intimacy and connection. Dr. Dan Siegel‘s work on interpersonal neurobiology shows how secure relationships can literally rewire our neural pathways for connection. Yet access to safe, supportive relationships is not equally available to all.
Healing through relationships: A privilege or possibility?
There’s a widespread misconception often espoused on social media that one must ‘be healed’ before entering into a romantic relationship. In fact, romantic partnerships provide the very opportunity for deeper healing – provided both parties are willing to face their triggers, openly communicate, and support one another.
That said, the privilege of healing through relationships assumes access to emotionally safe partnerships, therapeutic support, and communities that nurture growth.
Dr. Bruce Perry‘s research shows that our brains retain lifelong neuroplasticity: the ability to create new patterns through experience. But for healing to occur, individuals need environments that allow them to shift those patterns. Additionally, as Dr. Janina Fisher notes, our protective patterns often push away the very connections we need for healing – but this process plays out differently depending on race, gender, and social context. Dr. Peter Levine’s work explains how survival responses can keep us locked in patterns of disconnection, but for some, these responses are not outdated – they remain necessary tools for navigating the world.
Therapeutic relationships can provide a safe space to explore vulnerability, but access to therapy remains a privilege, often limited by financial barriers, cultural stigmas, and a lack of representation among mental health professionals. Healing through relationships requires not just individual effort but societal change – greater accessibility to mental health support, more inclusive therapeutic spaces, and a recognition that safety is not universally experienced.
Expanding our understanding of healing
Healing is not a one-size-fits-all journey. Each triggering moment in a relationship – whether from personal trauma or generational or systemic wounds – offers an invitation for growth. However, what’s crucial is recognising that these struggles – e.g. fear of abandonment, internalised messages about worthiness, anxiety about safety – must be understood in their full context. We must approach these moments with curiosity rather than judgment, both in ourselves and in the way we discuss healing more broadly.
A process of courage and collective responsibility
Opening to connection despite past hurt takes remarkable bravery. It means tolerating the discomfort of vulnerability, staying present when every instinct says to run or shut down. Yet each small step toward deeper connection rewires old patterns, building capacity for intimacy and security.
But healing is not just an individual act – it is deeply collective. This journey often begins with safer relationships – perhaps with a therapist, a trusted friend, or an understanding partner – but it must also include structural change. Mental health support must be made more accessible. Safe spaces must be expanded to include those who have historically been excluded. Conversations about healing must be rooted in an understanding of privilege, power, and the unequal distribution of safety in the world.
As Dr. Gabor Maté emphasises, healing attachment wounds requires patience and self-compassion. But it also requires community, justice, and an acknowledgment that the ability to feel safe in relationships is not equally available to all. There will be times of progress and regression, moments of deep connection and painful triggers. But each experience of staying present through difficulty, of maintaining connection despite fear, strengthens our capacity for secure attachment – and not just for ourselves, but for those around us.
Through relationships, we don’t just understand our wounds intellectually, we experience the emotional and neurobiological rewiring that leads to genuine healing. And when healing is approached with an awareness of the broader world, it becomes not just a personal journey, but a pathway toward collective change.