Patterns That Follow You
Attachment theory and CBT for the habits that repeat across relationships.
- Written by Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
- Grounded in Attachment theory and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- 15 minutes to read, tools you can use today
Different people, same ending. This guide helps you spot your side of the pattern, understand where it came from without blame, and practice boundaries and direct communication in the relationships that are hardest right now.
It's on the way
Check your inbox in a minute. You can also open it right now.
Open the guideOr call Brett: (513) 204-9295If it keeps ending the same way
- Friendships fade the same way, partners disappoint in the same way, and you are starting to suspect the common factor is you.
- A parent or adult child can undo your whole week with one sentence.
- You say yes when you mean no, then resent it.
- You rehearse confrontations you never have.
Change your half, and every relationship shifts
Map the pattern
A one-page exercise that lays your relationships side by side and shows the move you make every time.
Understand it without blaming anyone
Attachment theory explains how you learned to handle closeness and conflict, and why it made sense at the time.
A boundary script you can rehearse
Exact wording for the conversation you have been avoiding, built with CBT so the old thoughts do not hijack it.
A plan for the hardest relationship right now
Whether it is a parent, a boss, a friend, or a partner, you leave with a next step for that specific person.
The approach has a track record
Nothing in this guide is a hunch. It is the same Attachment theory and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy work Brett does in the room, trimmed to what you can start on your own.
Adult attachment style, formed early, reliably predicts how people handle closeness, conflict, and disappointment in their relationships.
Hazan and Shaver, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987; Mikulincer and Shaver, Attachment in Adulthood, 2007.
Attachment patterns are not fixed. They shift with new relationship experiences and with deliberate practice, which is what the exercises in this guide are.
Fraley, review of attachment stability and change, Annual Review of Psychology, 2019.
Assertiveness and direct-communication training, the CBT backbone of this guide, has decades of evidence for improving relationships and reducing distress.
Speed, Goldstein and Goldfried, review of assertiveness training, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 2018.
15 minutes, start to finish
- 01
Mapping the pattern across your relationships
- 02
Where it came from, without blame
- 03
The thoughts that run the old reaction
- 04
The boundary script
- 05
Rehearsing the conversation before you have it
- 06
Your plan for the hardest relationship right now
Written for people who
Keep ending up in the same place with different people
Are managing family conflict or a strained friendship
Want to work on their side of it, on their own or with a counselor
This guide is educational and is not a substitute for counseling or medical care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
Brett has been a licensed counselor for 24+ years, holds independent licenses in clinical counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy, and completed 3,500+ psychiatric assessments in a hospital emergency department before opening this practice. He sees adults in person in Cincinnati and by secure video across Ohio and Kentucky. The guide is written the way he talks in session: plain, practical, and without judgment.
