Healthy relationships start at home.

Why domestic violence is a family issue.

Blaming someone for being in a bad relationship misunderstands brain development, attachment, survival needs, & trauma.

My name is Nikole Layton & I’m a licensed therapist.

Let me explain why you or someone you know might be in an unhealthy relationship.

Healthy Relationships start at Home

Babies are born with two primary needs, survival and attachment. Babies are not able to take care of themselves and need help with every basic need.

The ability to seek out and form safe relationships with caregivers to help with self soothing is one of those basic needs.

You need a safe environment.

You need attachments with safe & healthy caregivers.

Inside healthy homes

When a baby reaches out to the caregiver, most of the time, the caregiver will respond positively and provide care & comfort.

This positive response will reinforce connections in the developing baby’s brain between the need for comfort, reaching out to an attachment figure, & safely receiving the needed comfort.

Leading to secure attachment, healthy brain development, and ability to tolerate stress over time.

But in a different home…

When a parent consistently ignores or punishes a child who reaches out for comfort, that child's brain has to adapt.

The need for comfort doesn't go away. Even if the need isn’t being met, the need is there.  

When a baby lives with chaos, fighting, or abuse between caregivers, the baby’s brain will adapt to accommodate for all the stress.

We need relationships even if the relationships available aren't safe or healthy for us…

A baby has nowhere else to go for their attachment needs & must learn how to attach to their caregivers in order to survive.

The human brain is clever and adapts to meet its attachment needs even in the presence of an unhealthy, scary, or dangerous caregiver.

The child’s brain learns that attachment & love go hand in hand with threat to life.  

Stuck in a pattern?

As survival needs are triggered along with attachment needs, more connections are made in the brain, associating attachment and danger as the same. Neurons that fire together, wire together.

Many of these babies grow up and leave their chaotic or abusive homes, swearing they will never date anyone like their ________.

Only to find themselves in a relationship similar to what they attempted to leave behind.

Or maybe they’re not in an abusive relationship but continue to be abusive to themselves…

If you find yourself or someone you love in this position, please understand that there is so much hope for healing, growth, & change.

Therapy can help survivors of domestic violence.

Healing Can Happen

Just like the brain can adapt to an unhealthy or abusive caregiver as a baby. The brain can also adapt to healthy & safe relationships as an adult. 

Therapy can help rewire your attachment needs and form positive connections. Helping people from backgrounds of chaos and trauma begin enjoying safe & healthy relationships and begin safely meeting their attachment needs.

If you’re an adult woman that is local or travels to the Lompoc area and curious to learn more about trauma therapy for yourself, I do free phone consults.

You can find more information here.

Nikole Layton, LCSW specializes in working with women with PTSD, complex trauma, and dissociation. Nikole Layton is trained in EMDR and has been providing positive outcomes and transforming the lives of women in the Lompoc community since June 2022.