Wounded in Relationship, Healed in Relationship: How Therapy and Human Connection Repair Relational Trauma

Last week, I shared an article on relational, attachment, and developmental trauma, and how these forms of trauma can show up both psychologically and physically (you can find it here). This week, I want to turn to the question of healing, specifically, how such trauma can be worked through and repaired within the context of a therapeutic relationship.

Relational trauma, which refers to harm occurring within human relationships, significantly impacts how people view safety, trust, and connection. Experiences like neglect, emotional abuse, betrayal, or chronic misattunement (where someone consistently fails to accurately perceive, understand, and respond to another person's emotional state) do not just harm an individual in isolation; they influence the nervous system and the internal expectations one brings into future relationships. Since relational trauma occurs within relationships, the deepest and most enduring healing is also accomplished through relationships. At its most effective, therapy provides a structured and intentional relationship that creates the conditions needed for this type of healing.

Human beings are fundamentally relational. From infancy, the brain develops in response to interactions with caregivers, learning whether the world is safe, whether needs will be met, and whether emotions are welcome. When these early relationships are inconsistent, frightening, or invalidating, the developing person adapts in order to survive. These adaptations (e.g. hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, people-pleasing, avoidance, or mistrust) are intelligent responses to unsafe environments. However, they often persist long after the original danger has passed, shaping adult relationships in painful and limiting ways.

Relational trauma is therefore stored not only as memories, but as expectations. A person may intellectually know that a partner or friend is safe, yet their body anticipates rejection or harm. This gap between cognitive understanding and embodied experience (i.e. understanding that our physical body is interconnected with our mind) explains why healing cannot happen through insight alone. Trauma lives in the nervous system, and the nervous system learns primarily through experience, especially relational experience.

Healing through relationships means encountering new patterns of connection that contradict old expectations. When a person is met with consistency instead of unpredictability, empathy instead of judgment, and boundaries instead of exploitation, the nervous system gradually learns that closeness does not have to be dangerous. Over time, these repeated experiences create new internal working models: “I can be met as I am and not abandoned,” “My emotions are tolerable,” “Conflict does not always lead to harm and abandonment.” This type of learning is gradual, non-linear, and heavily reliant on experience.

Therapy is crucial in this process as it provides a distinctive type of relationship: one that is structured, purposeful, and focused on the client's healing. In the therapeutic relationship, the therapist strives to provide safety, attunement (i.e. responding to another person's emotional state, leaving them feeling seen, validated and understood), and reliability, often the very elements that were missing in the client’s early relationships. This does not mean the relationship is perfect or free from rupture. In fact, moments of misunderstanding or tension can become some of the most powerful opportunities for healing when they are acknowledged and repaired. For someone with relational trauma, experiencing repair rather than abandonment can be transformative.

In addition, therapy allows relational patterns to emerge in real time, both within the therapeutic relationship and in the client’s current relationships outside the therapy room. Clients may notice themselves fearing the therapist’s disapproval, minimizing their own needs, testing for rejection, or withdrawing emotionally, and may recognize these same patterns unfolding with partners, family members, colleagues, or friends. Rather than problems to be eliminated, these responses offer important information. Indeed, they reveal how the client learned to stay safe in relationships shaped by chronic threat.

When such dynamics are met with curiosity, stability, and compassion within the therapeutic relationship, clients can begin to recognize that these patterns are not expressions of who they are, but of what they learned to do in order to survive. Over time, behaviours that once felt like fixed aspects of identity can be understood as adaptive strategies shaped by trauma. For instance, individuals with relational trauma may perceive themselves as conscientious or “thorough,” when this reflects an over-reliance on perfectionism shaped by chronic vigilance; as kind-hearted, when this is influenced by people-pleasing or a fawn response; or as someone who consistently goes out of their way to help others, without yet recognizing that these patterns developed in the context of relational threat to maintain safety, reduce conflict, and prevent abandonment.

Importantly, therapy also supports the gradual transfer of this learning into relationships outside the therapy room. As clients internalize the experience of being understood and respected, they become better able to set boundaries, tolerate vulnerability, and choose healthier connections. The therapist does not replace other relationships; instead, therapy helps expand the client’s capacity to engage in them differently.

At its core, relational trauma undermines trust in oneself and in others. Healing demands more than self-dependence or solitude; it requires safe connection. By engaging in relationships that are consistent, attentive, and emotionally honest, particularly within the therapeutic relationship, individuals can reshape their understanding of intimacy and reclaim parts of themselves that were once hidden for protection. Therapy becomes not just a place to talk about healing, but a place to actively practice it, one moment and one relationship at a time.

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Dr. Ingela Thuné-Boyle is a licensed Practitioner Health Psychologist and a Doctor in Behavioural Medicine who specializes in improving the quality of life of people struggling with long-term health problems, chronic pain and trauma. She runs a private online (telehealth) practice at www.ingelathuneboyle.com. You can find out more about her background [here], and more about her approach to therapy [here].

📩 Contact: For therapy or other enquiries, you can contact her at info@ingelathuneboyle.com.

Please note: Advice given in this blog is not meant to take the place of therapy or any other professional advice. The opinions and views offered by the author is not intended to treat or diagnose, nor is it intended to replace the treatment and care that you may be receiving from a licensed physician or mental health provider. The author is not responsible for the outcome or results following their information and advice on this blog.