Primary Attachment Therapy Training (In Person, Portland, Oregon)

Primary Attachment Therapy (P.A.T.) is creative, optimistic, loving, complex, simple, sometimes paradoxical, forgiving, surprising and always exceedingly human.

P.A.T. therapists support security and mitigate insecurity of Self and Self-in-Relationship by using mindful, transpiring present-moment engagement processes in a safe and loving therapeutic container.

To help clients find healthy ways to be their unique selves and selves-in-relationship, P.A.T. focuses on their attachment system as it shows up in the session with the therapist. The therapist recognizes and validates client relational struggles and wishes and gets permission to engage their in-the-moment intrapersonal and interpersonal relational states. P.A.T. prioritizes attachment needs and indicators and emphasizes what is in the present, in the “room,” within the client, and between the client and therapist, limiting exploration of historic, future or out of the current context material.

Primary Attachment Therapy (P.A.T.) provides a comprehensive map for exploring the implicit learning from our earliest development – to resolve early attachment wounding and support the pursuit of satisfying adult relationship with self, others, and the world. P.A.T. builds on the principles, tools, and techniques of Hakomi, and is deeply informed by Interpersonal Neurobiology and CIMBS (Complex Integration of Multiples Brain Systems), developed by Beatrix & Terry Sheldon. Working with attachment states as fluid rather than fixed, P.A.T. blends brain science and deep limbic attunement to evolve individual, coupled, and other intimate relationships toward greater security.

P.A.T. is distinct in locating much of the process in the immediate relationship between client and therapist, deliberately eliciting attachment states and bringing close, loving attention to moment-to-moment dynamics. We often work in mindfulness with eyes open and focus on attachment needs and indicators that are in the transpiring present moment — in the “room,” within the client, and between the client and therapist — limiting exploration of historic, future, or out of the current context material. This supports the development of new neural pathways and brain repatterning.

Our trainings offer a supportive context for refining your own attachment responses and deepening your capacity for professional intimacy as a practitioner, which is adaptable to a range of helping contexts. P.A.T. is creative, optimistic, loving, simple, nuanced, forgiving, surprising, sometimes paradoxical, and always exceedingly human.

DAILY THEMES:
Day 1: ORIENTING & CONTACT
• Overview of the Intensive, Ethics, Attachment Theory Review, CONTACT Phase Preview
• Making it safe enough to be present together through radiating, attuning, tracking, and contacting
Day 2: CONTACT & ACCESSING
• Making it safe enough to be present together through getting agreement for this work, validating client experiences, and using the relationship as a resource
• Activating attachment dynamics
Day 3: ACCESSING & PROCESSING
• Exploring attachment dynamics through directives, questions, spaciousness, prosody, and lingering.
• Exploring and supporting client authority, autonomy, agency, and self-worth
• Interrupting and tabling out-of-the-present context material
Day 4: PROCESSING & TRAUMA
• Recognizing and supporting out-of-balance and “tipping point” states
• Recognizing and untangling hyper-connected brain systems
• Interrupting habitual dynamics and their historic “truth”
• Recognizing, assessing, engaging, and stabilizing attachment trauma arousal
Day 5: INTEGRATION/COMPLETION
• Repetition, embodying, and savoring the new
• Self-assessment; practice, practice, practice

Day 6: [ONLINE-LIVE June 8, 2025] REVIEW, REFLECTIONS, & PRACTICE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
You will learn to:

1. Recognize your attachment-connected responses as a therapist and training participant.
2. Understand foundational aspects of developmental and adult attachment theory.
3. Understand professional intimacy and the ethics of P.A.T.
4. Create a safe, right-here-right-now, limbic environment.
5. Use, induce, and support eyes-open (and closed) mindfulness in yourself and clients, and work in the transpiring present moment.
6. Intentionally access and explore client habitual attachment states/patterns and any attachment breaches with the therapist.
7. Process core attachment material.
8. Assess and integrate increased attachment security, as well as reduced attachment insecurity.

Donna Roy, MS, L.P.C., CHT, Hakomi Trainer, is a licensed professional counselor and a Certified Hakomi Therapist and Trainer, serves on the Hakomi Institute board of directors, and has had a private counseling and consulting practice in Portland, Oregon, for 25 years. She continues to offer Hakomi certification support and to teach in Hakomi trainings in the Pacific NW and with other global Hakomi teams. In 2011, she spearheaded the co-development of Primary Attachment Therapy (P.A.T.) and offers P.A.T. trainings locally and internationally. Her background includes teaching in Portland State University’s Department of Counselor Education, founding a local affordable counseling clinic, and authoring a chapter entitled, “Body-Centered Counseling & Psychotherapy” in Theories and Interventions in Counseling and Psychotherapy, published by Prentice Hall. She has advanced training in couples, marriage, and family therapy, experiential dreamwork, and clinical supervision.

Jessica Montgomery, M.S.W., CHT, Hakomi Trainer is a somatic counselor, Hakomi Trainer and catalyst. Blending brain science with mindful experiential techniques and profound regard for the unbroken wisdom within, Jessica facilitates individuals, couples and communities toward greater wholeness. Based in Portland Oregon, she has taught internationally in diverse settings from integrative medicine to wilderness retreats to bodyworker and counselor education. As co-developer of the Primary Attachment model, she supports practitioners in expanding capacity for professional intimacy. Jessica is skilled at synthesizing key information across disciplines and brings a strong social justice perspective to her work, inspiring embodied approaches to personal and social evolution.

If you are interested in sampling this work, we invite you to attend an introduction to The Power of the Transpiring Present Moment, on August 18 from 11am to 1:30pm (PST) and learn how to bring greater clinical intimacy to any helping relationship.