Coaching practices for Sue Johnson Repair Past Hurt

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Sue Johnson Repair Past Hurt, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• There’s one moment when I needed them and they weren’t there, and even though it was a while ago it still sits between us
• After we fight we just let it sit for days with neither of us reaching out, and the hurt quietly piles up until I start reading even neutral things they do as another little jab
• There was one moment when I needed them most
• I want to actually tell my partner how scared I am of losing them, in a real way and not in the middle of a fight
• Something small my partner does

Practices that may help

1. Revisit a hurtful moment -- and repair it
   Going back to a painful past moment together, with new understanding, is how attachment injuries heal.
   Hold Me Tight: Sue Johnson's Seven Conversations for Lasting Love
2. Emotionally Focused Therapy: Sue Johnson's Framework for Lasting Bond Repair
   Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), developed by Sue Johnson, is a couples intervention grounded in attachment theory: it treats distress in close relationships as an attachment injury, and focuses on creating new emotional experiences that rebuild the sense of safe, reliable connection. EFT has one of the stronger evidence bases in couples therapy, with multiple randomized controlled trials showing sustained improvement -- though findings are not uniformly positive and many studies are small.
3. Repair quickly and thoroughly
   Don’t let injuries accumulate — repair within hours or days, not weeks.
   Secure-Functioning Relationships
4. Repair an attachment injury
   Specific relationship betrayals -- moments when you were not there -- need a specific repair, not just time.
   Emotionally Focused Therapy: Sue Johnson's Framework for Lasting Bond Repair
5. Have a Hold Me Tight conversation
   Sue Johnson's structured conversation for reaching past defensiveness to the attachment need underneath.
   Emotionally Focused Therapy: Sue Johnson's Framework for Lasting Bond Repair
6. Find and understand your raw spots
   A raw spot is a point of attachment vulnerability -- a past wound that current events trigger disproportionately.
   Hold Me Tight: Sue Johnson's Seven Conversations for Lasting Love
7. R — Recall the hurt
   Face what happened deliberately and calmly, without minimizing it or replaying it as a victim.
   Forgiveness: The REACH Model
8. Make small repairs during conflict -- not only big apologies after
   A touch, a softer tone, a brief I love you mid-argument is repair -- use it.
   Repair Attempts: Gottman's Key to Surviving Conflict in Relationships
9. Repair explicitly after each cycle episode
   Every cycle episode needs a deliberate closing repair — not just the fight ending.
   The Pursuer-Withdrawer Cycle, Explained
10. Make (and accept) repair attempts
    A repair attempt is any bid to de-escalate — a joke, a softened tone, a hand reached out — and accepting one matters as much as making it.
    Rupture and Repair

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