How to Break a Trauma Bond

It’s essential to understand how to break a trauma bond if you suspect you’re trapped in a trauma bond dynamic. This article covers how a trauma bond forms and the stages of how to break it.

Bonding in relationships is usually a positive thing – it means we’re forming a meaningful, emotional connection with another person. However, sometimes a bond can have a negative interpretation, such as in the case of a trauma bond.

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A trauma bond is a term used to conceptualize the unhealthy connection that can form between an abuser and the target of their abuse. This connection has significant negative effects on the target’s sense of self, emotional well-being, and even physical health.

For these reasons, it’s important to understand how to break a trauma bond. This article covers how to do so through the following topics:

• The causes and signs of a trauma bond
• Tips and strategies for getting over and breaking trauma bonds
• How long it takes to get over and heal from a trauma bond

The Causes and Signs of a Trauma Bond

Research on the causes of a trauma bond is still in its early stages. However, one of the core reasons for the actions of the abuser is considered to be the need for power – which is highly attributed to narcissistic personality traits.

Additionally, another factor believed to be associated with the formation of a trauma bond is an unhealthy attachment. Similar to how someone develops an insecure attachment style, someone may develop a trauma bond because they are reliant on their abuser to fulfill their emotional needs. The target becomes emotionally dependent on their abuser.

Consider, for example, a caregiver-child dynamic in which the caregiver acts abusively towards the child. The child instinctively understands that their primary caregiver is their main source of love, safety, and protection. Therefore, if the caregiver acts abusively, the child misconstrues safety and love with abusive behaviors. Not having any other template for how relationships work, the child misinterprets this relationship as “normal.”

Therefore, as adults, someone with similarly unstable formative years may confuse the trauma bond for how normal relationships work. If you don’t yet know your attachment style and are wondering whether it could be feeding into your adult relationship dynamics, take our Attachment Styles Quiz and receive a free report.

If you would like to know more about the signs of a trauma bond and the different stages of trauma bonding, our articles on these topics can help. feels for the target of the abuse, as well as the signs that a trauma bond is forming.

Tips on How to Get Over and Break a Trauma Bond

Due to the particularly insidious effects of abuse in relationships, it’s important to understand that to fully get over a trauma bond you may need the input of a mental health professional. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Psychodynamic Therapy are common forms of trauma intervention therapies. Also, a combination approach of therapies often works best for people trying to get over and break a trauma bond.

Aside from therapy, the following steps can help you get over and break a trauma bond:

1. Learn About the Differences Between Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships

The love bombing phase of a trauma bond is not real love; it’s a manipulative technique used to increase dependence on an abuser. It’s important to take an objective stance on your relationship and view its patterns for what they are. Are periods of love and affection quickly followed by ones in which you’re belittled or gaslit? Have you been isolated from friends and family? Do you find yourself condoning your partner’s actions to others?

Read up about the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships to help you distinguish the differences between both.

2. Understand Your Early Years

Our early years, including the type of attachment style we developed, can leave us susceptible to developing a trauma bond. For example, if we experienced neglect or abuse from someone who was supposed to keep us safe and protect us, we might confuse abuse for love.

Understanding how your early template for relationships is affecting your well-being as an adult is an important step toward change. However, again, we need to highlight that therapy is often required to overcome trauma in childhood and prevent it from affecting us as adults.

You can learn about the forms of insecure attachment and how they affect your outlook and actions in our articles on the anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant (disorganized) attachment styles.

3. Focus on the Present

It’s tempting in a trauma bond dynamic to romanticize the periods when it was “good” and hope that the relationship returns to how it was during these times. However, the periods when the relationship was good were the abuser’s attempts to manipulate and forge dependence. What they have achieved is a chemical reaction in the target similar to that of a drug – you crave the good times so much that you endure the abuse, and perhaps even apologize for what you did to cause it.

It’s time to take off the rose-tinted glasses and focus on the present. Stop minimizing abusive behaviors and view the relationship for what it is in the here and now. How are they currently treating you? Do the bad times outweigh the good? Can you detect a cycle of behaviors?

4. Find Support

In many trauma bonds, the target of abuse is isolated from their friends and families by their abuser. This can make the target feel alone and as though the abuser is the only person they can depend on. This could not be further from the truth.

Abuse within relationships is, unfortunately, more common than most people anticipate. For this reason, there are many support groups available. If you feel anxious about going to one in person, there are online options available. Plus, hearing about other peoples’ experiences helps you understand that you’re not alone and they can also offer valuable advice.

5. Forge Healthy Connections

Healthy relationships can help you rewrite your template for how relationships work. Consider reaching out to your family and friends. They likely want the best for you, and although they may not completely understand, it’s rare that such people close the door of the connection entirely.

Alternatively, you could try to make new friends (through activity, sports, or interest groups).

Overall, remember to advocate for your needs and avoid relationship patterns you may have fallen into in the past. Practice open, mutually respectful communication and expect the same in return.

6. Practice Self-Compassion and Self-Care

Developing compassion for yourself is akin to training your body to become more physically fit–you’re training your brain to become more empathetic to yourself. Something to keep in mind when practicing compassionate self-care is that the more you practice it, the more skilled you become. The key to effective self-care is to choose activities that make you feel like the best version of yourself – this way, you will start to rely on yourself for comfort rather than turning to someone who abuses you. These activities could be rewatching a favorite film, curling up with a book, or cooking a meal you enjoy; the list is endless.

7. Challenge Your Negative Inner Narrative

A trauma bond is often characterized by self-blame: the target of the abuse feels at fault for why their abuser’s actions towards them have changed from loving to abusive. First and foremost, you are not to blame for how this person is treating you. However, you may need to challenge your inner dialogue as it has been conditioned to think this way through manipulation techniques such as gaslighting and belittling (and sometimes, your early years).

The next time you find your inner narrative shifting towards self-blame or negative self-talk, try the following steps:

1. Note down any negative thoughts that you have about yourself.
2. Analyze how your negative thoughts are distorted or inaccurate by challenging them. For example, ask yourself, Is this thought based on facts? What evidence do I have that this thought is true? And, What evidence is there that opposes this thought?
3. Practice this technique until you start to recognize how much of your inner narrative is negative and inaccurate. Continue to challenge these negative beliefs and replace them with more realistic and positive ones such as, I am a good and worthwhile person. These thoughts are not accurate, so I don’t need to believe in or act on them.

8. Visualize Your Future

If you were to imagine your ideal (but still realistic) future, what would it look like? What steps can you take to make this future happen? Can you break these steps down into smaller actions that you can take today, this week, or this month? It’s important to create goals for yourself and to recognize how your trauma bond relationship is taking you away from these.

How long does it take to break a trauma bond?

Breaking a trauma bond and healing from it is not a simple, timelined process. Each person who has experienced trauma has unique circumstances, experiences, and personality traits that can influence the process. For this reason, healing from trauma is a phased process that requires sensitivity, patience, self-compassion, and time.

Healing from a trauma bond might seem incredibly daunting if you’re in the early stages of healing – or even just considering breaking the trauma bond. However, with each small step, you will start to feel a sense of accomplishment and mastery over your own life. In time, you will be able to reflect back and realize that each small step came together to forge a huge lifestyle change.

As a note, it’s important to mention again how essential the role of therapy is in the recovery from trauma. You need to know when the trauma started and how it was maintained to effectively heal and move towards healthier future relationships. A therapist is integral in this process as they can help you work through issues such as unhealthy attachment, self-blame, and lack of self-worth and assist in your transition to a blame-free and fulfilled future.

Final Thoughts on Trauma Bonding Recovery

If you’re wondering how to break a trauma bond it’s important to realize that this is a journey that you don’t have to take by yourself. There is help out there in the form of support groups and therapy, it’s just important that you take the first step in seeking this support. You deserve a life in which you are able to recognize your worth and have control over your feelings.

Remember, there are steps you can take, such as understanding the differences between healthy versus unhealthy relationships, understanding your early years, practicing self-compassion, and challenging your inner narrative, amongst others. Plus, therapy is an excellent and recommended route for breaking a trauma bond.

As a final note, clinical psychologist and author Jaqueline Gunn once said, “Stop trying to get validation from people who can’t or won’t acknowledge your feelings. This reflects their inability to empathize. It’s a failure on their part and has nothing to do with you.” Remember these words, and that we at The Attachment Project are always at hand should you need advice.