Marriage Counseling Services

A guide to the process, timeline, and what actually happens in sessions for anxious-avoidant couples in Boulder

(This is part of a series on anxious-avoidant relationship patterns. For a comprehensive overview, see Understanding Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Patterns.)

Most couples arrive at therapy with some version of the same question: What's actually going to happen here?

It's a fair question. Especially if you've done therapy before and found it didn't touch what really needed to change.

Depth-oriented couples therapy — the kind that addresses anxious-avoidant dynamics, attachment injuries, and the unconscious forces beneath relationship patterns — looks different from skills-based or solution-focused approaches. It operates at a different layer. It moves at a different pace. And it asks something different of both partners.

This article walks through what that work actually involves, how long it typically takes, and what shifts you can expect along the way.

If you're coming from a traditional couples therapy model, the first thing to understand is what this work is not.

It's not:

• Teaching you how to fight better
• Giving you scripts or communication formulas
• Solving a specific presenting problem in 8-12 sessions
• Managing symptoms without addressing the root architecture

As explored in Why Communication Tools Don't Fix Attachment Wounds, tools and techniques have their place — but they don't address the attachment injuries, nervous system patterns, and protective strategies driving anxious-avoidant cycles.

Depth-oriented therapy starts where most therapy stops: underneath the conflict, at the level of the psychological forces creating it.

Depth-oriented couples therapy is active, relational, and experiential — not passive talk therapy.

In sessions with Keri Signoracci, LPCC in Boulder, the work integrates several frameworks: PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy), Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic awareness, and psychoanalytic thinking. But the experience isn't theoretical. 

It's immediate.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

Tracking what's happening in real time.Rather than only discussing conflicts that happened at home, sessions often work with what's alive in the room. If one partner shuts down mid-conversation, or the anxious partner starts escalating, that becomes the material. The pattern is happening here. We work with it here.

Noticing nervous system states.You'll learn to recognize when you're activated, when you're shutting down, when you're moving into protest or withdrawal. This isn't intellectual. It's somatic — tracking the tightening, the urgency, the numbness. Over time, you develop the capacity to catch these states earlier, before the full cycle engages.

Working with protective parts.Instead of treating the anxious pursuit or the avoidant withdrawal as problems to eliminate, we work with them as protective strategies. What are these parts protecting? What do they fear? When did they develop? Understanding them changes their grip.

Exploring the unconscious contracts.Most couples have unspoken agreements about who holds which role in the dynamic — who pursues, who withdraws, who carries the emotional intensity. Making these contracts visible is often the first step toward renegotiating them.

Building new experiences of repair.Insight alone doesn't change attachment patterns. What changes them is having different relational experiences — moments where the feared outcome doesn't happen. Where reaching out is met with presence. Where needing space doesn't mean abandonment. Sessions create opportunities for these experiences to occur in a held space.

Surface-level therapy can be short. Depth work cannot.

Most couples who engage in this process stay for 9–18 months, meeting weekly or bi-weekly. That timeline isn't arbitrary. It reflects the nature of what's being worked with.

Attachment patterns didn't form in this relationship. They formed decades earlier, in response to early caregiving that shaped the nervous system's baseline assumptions about safety, closeness, and connection. Shifting those patterns requires repetition, safety, and time.

Here's what typically happens across that timeline:

Months 1-3: Pattern recognition and stabilization.Early sessions focus on mapping the dynamic, understanding each partner's protective strategies, and developing the language to name what's happening. Couples begin to see the anxious-avoidant trap as a system they're both caught in, rather than experiencing each other as the problem.

Months 4-6: Working with nervous system regulation.The work deepens into tracking activation states in real time — learning to recognize when you're moving into protest or shutdown, and developing the capacity to slow down before the full cycle completes. This is where couples start interrupting the pattern more consistently.

Months 7-12: Addressing attachment injuries and unconscious material.Once there's enough safety and regulation capacity, the work moves into the deeper layer — the early relational experiences that formed the attachment patterns, the unconscious fears driving the protective strategies, the unresolved injuries that keep getting activated in the present relationship.

Months 12-18: Consolidation and internalization.Later sessions focus on integrating what's been learned, building resilience in the face of triggers, and ensuring that the shifts are durable outside the therapy room. Couples move from needing external support to having internalized a new way of being together.

Not every couple follows this exact timeline. Some move faster. Some need longer. But the arc is consistent: awareness first, then regulation, then depth work, then consolidation.

Couples often ask: Will we stop fighting?

The answer is more nuanced than yes or no.

What doesn't change:The attachment wiring itself. If you have anxious attachment, you'll likely always be more sensitive to disconnection cues than someone with secure attachment. If you have avoidant attachment, you'll likely always need more space to regulate than your partner does.

The patterns don't disappear entirely. The nervous system doesn't get rewired from scratch.

What does change:

Pattern recognition in real time.Instead of being inside the cycle without awareness, you start to see it as it's happening. "I'm in protest right now." "I'm shutting down." That awareness creates choice where there wasn't any before.

Faster repair.Conflicts still happen. But the time between rupture and repair shortens. What used to take three days of cold distance now takes three hours. Eventually, three minutes.

More regulation capacity.Both partners develop the ability to stay present — even briefly — during moments that used to trigger full activation or shutdown. The window of tolerance expands.

Compassion for each other's strategies.The anxious partner stops experiencing the avoidant partner's withdrawal as rejection. The avoidant partner stops experiencing the anxious partner's pursuit as suffocation. Both see the protective strategies for what they are.

Flexibility in the roles.The rigid pursuer-distancer dynamic softens. The anxious partner can tolerate more space. The avoidant partner can tolerate more closeness. The unconscious contract becomes renegotiable.

The relationship doesn't become conflict-free. It becomes a place where conflict can be metabolized instead of re-traumatizing.

Depth-oriented therapy isn't passive. It asks for genuine engagement from both partners.

What's required:

Willingness to explore your own history and patterns.This work isn't just about the relationship. It's about understanding what you brought into it — the attachment injuries, the protective strategies, the defenses formed long before you met your partner.

Capacity to tolerate discomfort.Growth happens at the edge of what's familiar. That edge is uncomfortable. Sessions sometimes surface material that's been avoided for years. Sitting with that — rather than moving away from it — is part of the process.

Commitment from both partners.One person can't do this work alone. Both partners need to be genuinely invested — not just in saving the relationship, but in understanding themselves and what they're bringing to the dynamic.

Patience with the pace.This isn't a 6-session fix. Meaningful change in attachment patterns takes months, sometimes over a year. That timeline frustrates people who want immediate relief. But depth work doesn't respond to urgency.

How is this different from regular couples therapy?

Most couples therapy is skills-based and short-term, focused on improving communication and resolving specific conflicts. Depth-oriented therapy works at the level beneath communication — addressing the attachment injuries, nervous system responses, and unconscious patterns driving the cycle. It's longer, slower, and focused on transformation rather than symptom management.

Do we have to talk about our childhoods?

Not in the way traditional therapy often does. The focus isn't on revisiting every detail of early experience. It's on understanding how early relational patterns shaped your attachment system and protective strategies — and how those patterns are showing up now. Some exploration of history is part of the work, but it's always in service of understanding the present.

What if only one of us is anxious or avoidant?

Anxious-avoidant dynamics are relational, not individual. Even if one partner identifies more strongly with one pattern, both are participating in the cycle. The work addresses how your strategies interact — not fixing one person while the other stays the same.

Will our therapist take sides?

No. One of the core principles of depth-oriented couples work is seeing the pattern as the problem, not either partner. Both the anxious and avoidant strategies are protective responses to earlier relational wounds. Neither is wrong. The work is about understanding both and helping you see each other with more accuracy.

Can we do this work if we're not sure we want to stay together?

Yes. Some couples enter therapy uncertain about the future of the relationship. The work can help clarify whether the relationship is sustainable — and if it's not, it can support a more conscious uncoupling. Not every couple that does this work stays together. But those who separate do so with more clarity and less damage.

What if we've tried therapy before and it didn't help?

That's common. If previous therapy focused on communication skills without addressing the underlying attachment patterns, the tools likely weren't accessible during real conflict. Depth-oriented therapy works at a different level — which is why couples who've "failed" at other approaches often find this one lands differently.

How do we know if this is the right fit for us?

The best way to assess fit is through a consultation. If you're willing to do long-term work, explore your own patterns, and stay engaged even when it's uncomfortable — and if both partners are genuinely invested — this approach can create real transformation. If you're looking for quick fixes or only one partner is committed, it's likely not the right time.

Depth-oriented couples therapy for anxious-avoidant dynamics is available for couples in Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and throughout Boulder County.

Sessions are 50 minutes and are offered both in-person at the Boulder office (3015 47th St, Suite E3) and via secure video for couples throughout Colorado.

For a full overview of anxious-avoidant relationship patterns and how this work addresses them, see Understanding Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Patterns.

Schedule a free 20-minute consultation to explore whether this approach is the right fit for your relationship.

Text: (303) 641-1514 Or book online: calendly.com/ksignoracci

About the Author

Keri Signoracci, MA, LPCC is a professional counselor in Boulder, Colorado. She holds advanced training in PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy), Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic therapy, and psychoanalytic approaches to couples work. Her practice, Coupling From the Core, specializes in depth-oriented therapy for anxious-avoidant dynamics, pursuer-distancer patterns, and attachment injuries in long-term relationships. She sees couples in Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and throughout Boulder County.