Karen Pando-Mars, 330 Miller Avenue, Suite J, Mill Valley, CA (2026)

Publication by Norton 2025: Tailoring Treatment to Attachment Patterns: Healing Trauma in Relationship.

09/04/2026

What do your eyes see in my eyes?

Have you ever tried to share with a client that you care for them, and they say sure you do, but I pay you? And you know that you are moved by them and you feel for their struggle, yet they bat you away.

They protest “you say this because you’re the therapist.”

“Well yes,” I respond, “you pay for my time, but my heart is not on payroll. If you look in my eyes with your eyes, what do you see?”

I trust in neuroception, that we can tell if someone is really there and really cares. And this is the medicine of radical relating that AEDP calls upon to help build relational connection to visit together the places where relational hardships led to traumatic aloneness that was so unbearable that relationships themselves become suspect. How do we heal the painful expectations of not being seen, much less discarded and disregarded?

We dare to enter the senses and experience what is true in the here and now, with hope that with true presence and patience and persistence, care can be recognizable and received. And as unbearable aloneness is undone, isolation can begin to transform and healing can begin.

07/15/2026

I am delighted tht Norton has selcted a chapter from our book with these clinical resourses. See LINK below. Clients with relational trauma come to therapy trapped in a painful paradox: avoiding connection because it was once unsafe, and now needing it to heal their deepest and most frightening wounds.
These clients need clinicians who can understand their attachment pattern and help them process the emotional and relational experiences that their defense mechanisms have blocked.
This free resource prepares you for that work, with tools you can use right away.
here's the link https://learn.wwnorton.com/l/1110283/2026-04-23/8rfz1y

07/11/2026

We welcomed Karen Pando-Mars, MFT, to the Cape Cod Institute this week. In this clip from her course, she explores what it means for the therapist to become an attachment figure, and how amplifying what's secure, establishing safety, and undoing aloneness can help facilitate healing.

07/08/2026

Leaving the Cape Cod institute after a marvelous experience teaching and feeling inspired, I visited old friends, known for forty years and then some. We went to Tanglewood to see James Taylor, which was a perfect transition from the week where undoing aloneness and cultivating secure functioning was the theme. Hearing this classic, You’ve got a friend, in James Taylor’s raspy soulful voice, at his ripe old age, I find its wisdom to be ageless and heart warming. I hear echoes of how deeply woven into my being it is, as someone who came of age listening to this song. So much a part of me that I hear its echoes in my teaching this week when I’m sharing video of a psychotherapy session. In helping a client process a piece of attachment wounding, we find comfort in lifting her younger self out of her lonely nights. In the process of building the scene as a resource, I’m saying “and you can call on this anytime, and I’ll be there.” Jeez, if this isn’t the message of James Taylor and Carole King…just call my name and I’ll be there, knocking at your door… I’d love to hear any connections this brings in comments!

05/06/2026

UNDOING ALONENESS
So much trauma-informed therapy highlights the importance of somatic interventions, co-regulation and getting to the root of trauma without re/traumatization. AEDP adds the explicit and experiential undoing of aloneness at the epicenter of suffering. We see this so clearly in attachment and relational trauma, and in the isolation that comes with having marginalized identities. It’s one thing to be present with someone, really feeling moved by that person. And it taps another level when they can feel you with them, and deeply know you get them, and how you see and understand them. To know this, we must ask. Please share your ideas and responses with me here. I’d love to hear how these ideas land in your experience.

04/23/2026

Very happy to be heading to San Diego next week to be part of the CAMFT conference. Presenting recently at PESI’s attachment summit, I’m seeing how the explicit relational work of AEDP and tuning into the make up of different insecure patterns is so valuable. Cultivating secure functioning is such a key ingredient to healing, and how we get there is different for folks with different patterns, as no one size fits all. I’m excited share and learn with folks next week…
And a hint of coming attractions—- for a deeper dive I’ll be at the Cape Cod institute Jun 30-Jul 3. More on that soon…

Address

330 Miller Avenue, Suite J
Mill Valley, CA
94941

Website

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393713558, https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-pando-mars-3b673624/, https://aedpinstitute.

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