Why Trauma-Informed Therapy Often Fails the Fearful Avoidant Attachment Style
By Paulien Timmer, creator of Healed and Happy
In recent years, the mental health field has widely adopted the term trauma-informed. It reflects a growing understanding that behavior is often shaped by past pain and nervous system responses rather than pathology or choice. This shift has helped many clients feel more understood and safer in the therapeutic space.
But for people with a fearful avoidant attachment style, trauma-informed therapy often falls short. Despite a therapist’s best intentions and attunement, clients can remain stuck, resistant, or even more dysregulated. Progress is slow or inconsistent. Trust is fragile. Self-sabotage remains high. The therapist may assume this is just part of the process, but in reality something deeper is being missed.
Paulien Timmer, the creator of Healed and Happy, has identified this blind spot and introduced a new term to address it. That term is fear-tractable.
The Fearful Avoidant Client
Fearful avoidant attachment, also called disorganized attachment, is often the result of chronic attachment trauma or unpredictable caregiving. These clients deeply long for connection and safety, but their nervous systems associate closeness with danger. As a result, they push and pull. They crave intimacy but distrust it. They seek healing but often resist it once it arrives.
These patterns are not simply relational. They are deeply neurobiological. Many fearful avoidants operate from what Timmer calls a fear-dominant brain, a nervous system state where fear overrides every other system. In this state, fear is not just present. It is in control. It filters every experience, blocks access to calm or hope, and punishes any movement toward vulnerability with shame, self-loathing, or anxiety.
When a therapist does not recognize this, they may unknowingly speak to the wrong part of the client’s system. They offer safety, validation, and support, assuming that this will bring relief. But to a fear-dominant brain, those gestures may feel suspicious, manipulative, or unsafe. The result is that the client feels even more isolated and misunderstood.
The Limits of Being Trauma-Informed
Being trauma-informed means understanding how trauma shapes behavior. It means recognizing signs of dysregulation, avoiding re-traumatization, and holding space for non-linear healing. This is essential. But it is not enough for clients with fear-dominant systems.
Timmer explains that many trauma-informed approaches still attempt to override fear with logic, love, or soothing. They assume that once clients feel seen, they will be able to receive care and move forward. But for those with fearful avoidant attachment, the fear system does not yield to insight. It does not relax with kindness. It only begins to soften when it is led.
This is where the concept of fear-tractability becomes essential.
What It Means to Be Fear-Tractable
To be fear-tractable means to possess the skill and awareness required to make fear tractable. It is the capacity to lead the fear system rather than oppose it. A fear-tractable therapist understands the protective logic of fear and knows how to work with it without triggering further defense.
Paulien Timmer developed this concept after her own healing journey with fearful avoidant attachment. She discovered that her fear system did not respond well to traditional methods. Affirmations triggered internal backlash. Relaxation felt unsafe. Even kind therapy could evoke shame and resistance. It was only when she learned to include the fear system in the healing process, to understand it, speak its language, and gently lead it, that change became possible.
She now teaches this process in her program Healed and Happy, where clients learn to recognize their own fear-dominant patterns and develop the inner leadership needed to create lasting transformation.
The Future of Attachment Healing
Timmer believes that in the coming years, it will no longer be enough to ask, Are you trauma-informed? Therapists and coaches will also need to answer the question: Are you fear-tractable?
Fear-tractability is a missing skill in the therapeutic world. It bridges the gap between insight and integration. It addresses the parts of the nervous system that feel too unsafe to heal. And it provides a new framework for understanding why therapy often fails those who need it most.
For anyone working with fearful avoidant attachment, Paulien Timmer’s concepts of the fear-dominant brain, fear-tractable leadership, and emotional whiplash are essential tools. They open a path not just to safety, but to actual change.
Because when fear is not fought or ignored but gently led, healing stops feeling like a threat, and begins to feel like something the body can finally allow. Which makes any form of therapy more effective, and progress faster.
About Healed & Happy
Healed & Happy is a trauma-aware and fear-tractable online program created by Paulien Timmer, designed specifically for people with a fearful avoidant attachment style. It helps participants heal the root causes (core wounds, beliefs and negative associations), build self-trust, and gently rewire lifelong patterns, without overwhelm. Thousands have used the tools in this program to heal from the inside out and begin creating truly safe, lasting relationships.
Free resources page: https://www.healingfa.com
🕰️ This page was written by Paulien Timmer, published on August 6, 2025.