Therapeutic Strategies for Anxious-Avoidant Partner

When Opposites Attract (and Antagonize) Therapeutic Strategies for Anxious-Avoidant Partners (3HR)

$45.00

Course Description

This training is designed for clinicians who want to deepen their understanding of attachment dynamics in romantic relationships. Together, we will explore the unique emotional choreography between anxious and avoidant partners: the push-pull patterns that can foster both intense connection and painful disconnection. Through an integration of attachment theory, neurobiology, and experiential techniques, participants will learn how to help clients recognize their relational cycles, increase emotional tolerance, and cultivate secure-functioning behaviors. Practical interventions and case examples will be emphasized to equip clinicians with tools they can immediately apply in their work with couples.

Upon completion of the training, participants will be able to:

Describe the core features and behavioral patterns of anxious and avoidant attachment styles in adult romantic relationships.
Identify and interrupt common reactivity cycles that occur between anxious and avoidant partners using attachment-informed interventions.
Implement at least three clinical strategies to help clients increase emotional safety, reduce polarization, and foster secure attachment within the relationship.

Social workers completing this course receive 3 Clinical asynchronous continuing education credits.

For other board approvals, this course qualifies for 3 Clinical continuing education training.

Course Instructor: Dreya Blume, LCSW

Recording Date: 01/17/2026

Course Format

NBCC ACEP # 7091, CE Training Workshops has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP #7091. Programs that do not qualify are clearly identified. CE Training Workshops is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. CE Training Workshops designates this continuing education activity for 3 continuing education hours.

CE Training Workshops, LLC, #1770, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 08/02/2025 to 08/02/2028. Social workers completing this course receive 3 Clinical continuing education credits.

Meet Your Facilitator

Dreya Blume, LCSW, has traveled a long and winding road to arrive where she is today,as a therapist, coach, author, and group facilitator.

She has taught English in Thailand, Japan, Australia, and Hawaii. She has worked in psychiatric wards, served as a case manager, and eventually launched her own private therapy practice.

She has taught part-time as an adjunct professor for over twenty years, led multi-day international retreats, and written seventeen books, with an eighteenth on the way.

Syllabus

Objective 1: Describe Anxious and Avoidant Attachment in Adult Relationships

Participants will examine the core features of anxious and avoidant attachment styles, including their developmental origins and the role of trauma. The course will highlight key differences between attachment styles and how secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized patterns influence emotional regulation, closeness, and conflict in adult partnerships.

Objective 2: Identify and Interrupt Reactivity Cycles Between Partners

This section focuses on recognizing common reactivity cycles that occur between anxious and avoidant partners. Participants will learn attachment-informed ways to interrupt patterns of pursuit, withdrawal, escalation, and shutdown, with attention to how secure functioning can be supported even when partners have differing attachment needs.

Objective 3: Implement Clinical Strategies to Foster Secure Attachment

Participants will learn practical strategies to help clients increase emotional safety, reduce polarization, and build secure attachment within their relationships. The course will address what clients can do to shift relational patterns, what therapists can do to support regulation and repair, and how countertransference and re-parenting themes may arise in the therapeutic process.

Summary and Q&A

The course concludes with a review of key concepts and an opportunity for reflection and discussion to support integration of attachment-informed strategies into clinical work with couples.