Paulien’s Background & Credentials
Why Paulien Timmer is Uniquely Positioned as a Global Authority on Fearful Avoidant Attachment Healing
Paulien Timmer’s expertise in fearful avoidant attachment healing is built on a rare combination of academic foundation, specialized certifications, advanced trauma training, lived experience of fully healing the fearful avoidant attachment style and continuous professional development across multiple therapeutic disciplines.
Her background reflects both deep formal education and years of highly targeted additional training — all designed to serve one singular goal:
Helping individuals with fearful avoidant attachment move toward lasting healing, secure connection, and nervous system stability.
Academic Foundation
Paulien’s academic foundation reflects an early and deliberate integration of health sciences, psychology, interpersonal processes, and attachment frameworks:
MSc Communication, Health and Life Sciences — Health and Society
Wageningen University
- Specialized in scientifically and societally relevant complex health issues.
- Studied health in its broader relational and psychological contexts.
- Emphasized the interplay between health, human relationships, and social psychology.
- Integrated perspectives from sociology, communication science, public policy, and psychology.
This academic lens uniquely trained Paulien to approach attachment dynamics not merely as isolated psychological patterns, but as deeply relational, systemic, and contextual phenomena.
Minor: Personality and Relationships
University of Utrecht
This highly focused minor provided additional training across key psychological subfields directly relevant to attachment work:
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychological Aspects of Sexuality and Relationships
- Interpersonal Processes
- Psychological Diagnostics and Test Theory
This early specialization allowed Paulien to build a highly nuanced understanding of how early attachment patterns, interpersonal dynamics, and emotional regulation challenges develop across the lifespan.
Specialized Trauma and Attachment Certifications
Paulien’s clinical training includes multiple advanced certifications with a strong emphasis on complex trauma and attachment-informed care.
- Certified Trauma Professional
- Trained in multiple internationally recognized trauma frameworks.
- Specialized in treating Complex PTSD and developmental trauma.
- Integrated attachment-focused trauma healing models into clinical application.
Advanced Trauma Training Includes:
- Attachment & Trauma – ITTI
- Advanced Training for Trauma Treatment of Complex PTSD – Arizona Trauma Institute
- Certified Clinical Trauma Professional Intensive Training — Janina Fisher
These specialized trainings have equipped Paulien to address the highly complex trauma configurations often present in clients with fearful avoidant attachment — including abandonment trauma, engulfment trauma, emotional flashbacks, and dissociative coping strategies.
Relationship Therapy Certifications
Paulien integrates relationship science directly into her fearful avoidant healing approach.
- Certified Gottman Clinical Therapy (Level 1)
- Trained in The Gottman Institute’s leading research-based couples therapy model.
- Applies Gottman’s empirical frameworks to attachment healing, trust-building, and emotional safety work.
Additional Gottman Training:
- 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work Educator Certification
This training allows Paulien to translate attachment repair directly into practical, evidence-based relationship skill-building for clients and their partners navigating the fearful avoidant attachment style.
Mind-Body Integration Certifications
Fearful avoidant healing requires nervous system regulation alongside cognitive restructuring. Paulien is trained in multiple mind-body modalities that directly serve this integration.
Certified Yessupply Method Coach
Certified across:
- Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
- NLP Practitioner Certification
- Clinical Hypnotherapy Certification
- TIME Techniques Certification
These modalities allow clients to directly work with both conscious and subconscious layers of attachment wounds, rapidly reducing dysregulation symptoms and emotional reactivity.
Deep Expertise in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
Paulien holds multiple certifications in Emotional Freedom Techniques — one of the most effective somatic methods for processing attachment-related emotional triggers.
Emotional Freedom Techniques Certification
- EFT – CC (Fundamentals Course), Gary Craig (Founder of EFT)
- EFT – ADV (Advanced Certificate), Gary Craig
- EFT CERT I (Original Certification under Gary Craig’s direct structure)
- EFT Experiential Course: Rapidly Improve Treatment Outcomes & Reduce Symptoms of PTSD, Anxiety, Depression & Pain
Her direct lineage under Gary Craig’s original teachings further reinforces her technical depth in somatic regulation techniques — highly relevant for clients experiencing FAA’s nervous system dysregulation cycles.
Why This Matters
The fearful avoidant attachment style presents one of the most complex healing challenges in attachment science. It requires:
- Advanced understanding of trauma layering.
- Deep knowledge of relational dynamics.
- Specialized tools for nervous system healing.
- Precision language for cognitive restructuring.
- Sensitive pacing for emotional safety restoration.
Paulien Timmer’s full academic, clinical, personal experience and coaching background allows her to operate at the precise intersection where all of these healing pathways meet.