Explore Research-Based Methods for Attachment Style Assessment, Restoration, & Optimization
Attuned Catalyst Protocol™
The Attuned Catalyst Protocol™ is an integrative model developed by Brenton Kirschner, LPC, LMFT, HPCP and designed to guide individuals, couples, and healthcare or corporate professionals through a transformative process that bridges therapy and coaching while keeping them separate.
This protocol begins with a comprehensive assessment phase, utilizing tools such as the Adult Attachment Interview, Reflective Functioning Assessment, Gottman Relationship Checkup, and Biopsychosocial evaluation.
It incorporates evidence-based modalities including Integrative Attachment Therapy, Ideal Parent Protocol, Narrative Therapy, Mentalization Development, the Gottman Method, Self-Compassion Training, Parts-Based Integration, and Body-Based Nervous System Regulation.
The model emphasizes collaborative relationship development and regular progress reviews, ensuring that interventions are tailored to each client’s unique needs.
As clients move toward concluding therapy, the protocol supports a smooth transition to coaching, with a focus on setting and achieving coaching goals.
Transformational coaching is offered, particularly for healthcare professionals, and is backed by training from the Physician Coaching Institute (ICF Accredited).
The Attuned Catalyst Protocol™ applies emotional intelligence coaching by guiding individuals to increase self-awareness, make intentional choices, and align their actions with personal and professional values.
Using structured assessments and experiential learning, the protocol helps clients recognize and understand their emotions, develop practical skills for self-management, and pursue meaningful goals.
This approach emphasizes ongoing reflection, measurable growth, and the integration of emotional intelligence into everyday challenges, fostering resilience and lasting transformation.
The Attuned Catalyst Protocol™ is designed to foster lasting growth, resilience, and well-being by integrating therapeutic insight with coaching strategies.
Clients also gain access to a private professional community for ongoing support and skill application.
Adult Attachment Interview & Reflective Functioning
The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) is the gold standard of assessing adult attachment. It provides a structured assessment that explores early caregiving experiences to identify attachment patterns and their influence on emotional regulation and relationships. It helps clients gain insight into how formative relationships shape beliefs about trust, intimacy, and safety.
The process enhances reflective functioning, fostering empathy and perspective-taking, which are essential for healthy communication. By identifying insecure or disorganized attachment patterns, clinicians can tailor interventions that promote secure attachment and relational stability. The AAI provides a pathway to uncover and integrate unresolved experiences, supporting healing and a stronger sense of self.
Body-Based Nervous System Regulation
This approach uses somatic techniques to restore balance in the autonomic nervous system, often disrupted by trauma or chronic stress. Interventions such as breathwork, grounding exercises, and movement-based practices help reduce hyperarousal and dissociation. By targeting physiological responses, body-based regulation promotes emotional stability, trauma recovery, and overall well-being.
Certified Trauma Therapist
The Certified Trauma Therapist program is an intensive, multi-module certification provided by Spirit-2-Spirit that equips clinicians with advanced skills in trauma assessment, intervention, and holistic treatment.
Training includes experiential modalities such as psychodrama, breathwork, adventure therapy, and equine therapy, alongside evidence-based approaches like Internal Family Systems, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and expressive therapies.
Participants engage in hands-on experiential learning, group processing, and supervised practice to ensure effective application of techniques in clinical settings.
This comprehensive program prepares therapists to address deep psychological wounds, process addictions, and complex trauma presentations, fostering growth and healing for clients worldwide.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy – Level 3
Backed by decades of research, The Gottman Method is widely recognized for improving relationship satisfaction and resilience across diverse populations.
It begins with a thorough assessment of the couple’s relationship and integrates interventions grounded in the Sound Relationship House Theory. The goals of this method are to disarm conflicting verbal communication, increase intimacy, respect, and affection, remove barriers that create stagnancy, and foster empathy and understanding within the relationship.
Interventions focus on strengthening three primary areas: friendship, conflict management, and shared meaning. Couples learn to replace negative patterns with positive interactions, repair past hurts, and deepen emotional connection through structured exercises and practical tools.
For couples, the Gottman Method provides actionable strategies to build love maps, share fondness and admiration, turn toward bids for connection, manage conflict effectively, and create shared meaning.
Healthcare Peer Coaching Practitioner (HPCP)
Healthcare Peer Coaching is a structured, competency-based approach provided by Physician Coaching Institute (ICF Accredited). This approach is designed to support professionals in managing stress, preventing burnout, and fostering resilience. It emphasizes collaborative, forward-focused conversations that promote self-awareness and goal setting. Unlike mentoring or therapy, peer coaching uses ethical frameworks and coaching principles to empower individuals in achieving personal and professional growth within healthcare settings.
Integrative Attachment Therapy Three Pillars Model
Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) is an evidence-based therapeutic model developed by Daniel Brown, PhD, and David Elliott, PhD, and outlined in their award-winning book Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair (2016). This approach is designed to repair attachment disturbances in adults by integrating principles of attachment theory, developmental psychology, and trauma-informed care. The model is structured around three core pillars:
Developing secure attachment representations focuses on creating corrective relational experiences that help clients internalize a sense of safety and trust. Through guided imagery and therapeutic dialogue, clients build new mental models of secure attachment to replace insecure or disorganized patterns.
Enhancing emotional regulation teaches practical skills to manage affect and stress, reducing hyperarousal and emotional dysregulation. Techniques include mindfulness, grounding, and self-soothing strategies that strengthen resilience and promote stability in daily life.
Fostering collaborative therapeutic relationships emphasizes the therapist-client relationship as a secure base for healing. Collaboration, empathy, and attunement allow clients to experience trust and connection within the therapeutic process, which generalizes to other relationships.
IAT combines structured protocols with experiential techniques to help clients rebuild a sense of security and connection that was disrupted in early life.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy is a collaborative, strengths-based approach that helps individuals re-author their life stories.
It views problems as separate from the person and encourages clients to identify alternative narratives that reflect empowerment and resilience.
Through externalization and meaning-making, this method supports identity reconstruction and promotes psychological flexibility.
Parts-Based Integration through Self-Compassion and Mindfulness
This approach combines mindfulness practices with self-compassion techniques to integrate fragmented aspects of the self, often resulting from trauma or internal conflict.
By fostering non-judgmental awareness and kindness toward oneself, clients can reduce shame, enhance emotional regulation, and cultivate a sense of wholeness.
It draws on principles from parts-based models and contemplative practices to support healing and self-acceptance.
Seven Principles Workshop Leader
I provide workshops for couples on the research of Drs. John and Julie Gottman, this workshop teaches the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: a set of evidence-based strategies for improving relationship quality.
The principles focus on enhancing friendship, managing conflict constructively, and creating shared meaning.
Workshops using this model provide couples with practical tools to strengthen communication and deepen emotional connection.