Stephanie Underwood RSW

06/21/2026

A lot of people tend to confuse the Avoidant Attachment Style with the Fearful-Avoidant Attachment and vice versa. But these are two completely different insecure attachments.

The person with a fearful-avoidant attachment will use both avoidant and anxious coping mechanisms, depending on the relationship and situation.

The Avoidant attachment is characterized by a consistent pattern of emotional distancing and self-reliance, whereas the disorganized attachment involves a more chaotic and unpredictable mix of wanting and avoiding closeness, typically rooted in more severe early trauma and inconsistent caregiving.

06/16/2026

Beneath our attachment patterns and schemas are often unmet emotional needs from childhood that continue to shape how we see ourselves, others, and relationships.

That’s why I created the ENAQ (Emotional Needs Assessment Questionnaire).

This free questionnaire explores 20 core emotional needs and helps identify the areas that may still be influencing your relationships, self-esteem, boundaries, emotional regulation, and sense of safety.

✨ Gain deeper insight into yourself
✨ Identify potential unmet emotional needs
✨ Better understand patterns that keep showing up in your life

Take the questionnaire for free:

https://enaq-questionnaire.base44.app

I’d love to hear your thoughts and results in the comments. 👇

06/12/2026

🔗 New blog post on the Self-Sacrifice Schema. This is a schema that many individuals struggle with. If you have the Self-Sacrifice schema - you are not alone.

Learn more about the Self-Sacrifice Schema 👇🏼💜

Explore the underpinnings of the Self-Sacrificing schema and how it impacts your choices, decisions, and relationships.

06/09/2026

New Blog Post on the Punitive Schema 🔗

There are two sub-types for this Schema; the self-punitive and the punitive (others). This post focuses on the self-punitive schema, which is most common among those with an anxious attachment.

The self-punitive schema does not make you a better person. It makes you a more suffering one. This post breaks down how it forms, how it presents across childhood and adulthood, and why the inner critic that feels like the truth is actually a learned survival strategy.

06/07/2026

I’ve got a new, free questionnaire the Emotional Needs Assessment Questionnaire (ENAQ) which I use with my own clients in private practice.

This questionnaire helps you identify which core emotional needs may not have been consistently met during childhood and how those experiences may still be influencing your relationships, self-esteem, emotional well-being, and sense of safety today.

✓ Receive an overall emotional needs score
✓ Visualize areas where emotional needs may have gone unmet
✓ Download a personalized results summary
✓ Gain deeper insight into your patterns and relationships

Sometimes awareness is the first step toward meaningful change.

Take the assessment today:

https://enaq-questionnaire.base44.app

06/07/2026

You can have had good parents and still carry deep unmet emotional needs. Physical presence isn't the same as emotional presence.

This isn't about blame, it's about finally naming what was missing, so you can stop unconsciously recreating it.

Check out the latest blog post and take the free emotional needs assessment question to help you see your own gaps. 🤍



Blog Post:

You can have had good parents and still carry deep unmet emotional needs. Learn what childhood emotional needs actually are, how unmet needs become the schemas that shape your adult relationships, and why your nervous system keeps seeking the familiar. Includes a free, private questionnaire to disco...

06/07/2026

Lots of people want a baby.
Lots of people want the idea of a family.
Lots of people want the Kodak moments.

Far fewer people spend years imagining what being a parent actually is like.

A child is not a lifestyle accessory.
A child is not a retirement plan.
A child is not a source of unconditional love.
A child is not a solution to loneliness.
A child is not responsible for filling emotional holes in an adult.

The child didn’t sign the contract.

The adult did.

06/01/2026

Many of us, not all, but many of us are the result of an unhealed anxious-avoidant parenting dynamic.

The anxious-avoidant parental pairing is one of the most common family dynamics in clinical practice that I see - and one of the least discussed in terms of its impact on children.

This post breaks down what this dynamic actually produces in the nervous systems of the people raised inside it.

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/many-of-us-are-the-product-of-an-anxious-avoidant-pairing

05/31/2026

The Subjugation Schema is created when a child learns that their parent’s emotional world is bigger and more important than theirs.

You avoid conflict. You suppress your feelings, your needs, your wants. You learn that being yourself isn’t safe.

You become exactly what people want you to be. Compliant, easy to get a long with, and low maintenance.

Until one day you realize you’re carrying resentment toward people who never actually asked you to disappear.

This post is about what is actually happening underneath, and what it costs the person carrying it.

👇 Read more:

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-subjugation-schema-when-shrinking-yourself-feels-like-the-only-way-to-stay-safe

05/26/2026

The line between relationship and code is starting to blur.

In my latest post I unpack how AI chatbots trigger attachment systems, create emotional dependency, and are reshaping relationships without us even realizing.

This is one of the most important and critical pieces that I’ve written on this topic to date.

Link below 🔗

https://www.healingnarrativescounselling.com/post/the-dangerous-psychological-reality-of-ai-companions-why-humans-are-beginning-to-attach-to-machines

AI chatbots and companion apps are doing more than entertaining people. They are beginning to activate attachment systems, emotional dependency, and maladaptive relational patterns in ways most people do not yet understand. Explore the psychological dangers of attachment and AI, including parasocial...