Understanding Detachment Styles

What does a healthy breakup, separation, or divorce look like? While attachment theory has revolutionized our understanding of how clients form relationships, we've overlooked a crucial piece: how they end them. Research shows that the way people detach whether through dramatic exits, peaceful transitions, or emotional ghosting profoundly impacts their self-concept, resilience, and future relationship patterns. In this workshop you’ll discover why some clients repeatedly find themselves in chaotic breakups while others vanish from relationships without explanation. You’ll also explore your own detachment patterns as you gain the clinical clarity needed to guide clients through one of life's most challenging yet growth-promoting experiences: transitions and letting go. Whether clients frame this process as detachment, transitioning, ending, pruning, or re-bucketing, each carries different emotional weight and therapeutic implications. You’ll learn to help clients:

• Recognize which of the seven distinct "detachment styles" they engage in
• Approach endings in ways that are healthy and promote growth through interventions targeted to their particular “detachment style”
• Create personalized transition and ending plans in low-stakes relationships before applying these skills to major life transitions
• Match your clients’ unique ending style with precise clinical language