You Want Closeness. So Why Does It Scare You?

What happens when the person we most want to feel safe with is also the person who triggers our deepest wounds?

In this insightful episode of In Conversation with Janina Fisher, Janina sits down with pioneering couples therapist Dr. Ellyn Bader to explore why intimate relationships can so easily activate old wounds—and why those same relationships can also become powerful opportunities for growth.

Together, they unpack how childhood trauma, fear of intimacy, and unresolved disappointments can keep couples trapped in the same conflicts, even when both partners desperately want connection. Ellyn shares how her Developmental Model of Couples Therapy helps partners move beyond blame, understand what each person brings to the relationship, and learn to stay connected without abandoning themselves.

Janina and Ellyn also explore what therapists need to understand about working with couples, why individual therapists should be careful about taking sides, and how collaboration between couples and trauma therapists can open new pathways toward healing.

This episode offers a compassionate and nuanced look at relationships not simply as places where our wounds are activated, but as places where growth, differentiation, and healing can become possible.

• Trauma can make intimacy feel threatening. People may deeply desire closeness while simultaneously becoming fearful or dysregulated when it occurs.

• Repeated conflicts often point to something deeper. Unresolved trauma, early disappointments, and longstanding coping patterns can keep couples trapped in the same cycles.

• Disillusionment can become an opportunity for growth. Learning to navigate disappointment and difference can help partners develop greater maturity and intimacy.

• Healthy relationships require differentiation. Each partner must learn to express their own needs and values without abandoning themselves or expecting the other person to provide perfect safety.

• Couples therapists need to actively interrupt destructive patterns. Simply allowing partners to reenact their conflicts in therapy rarely creates meaningful change.

• Collaboration between couples and trauma therapists matters. Working together can help clinicians address both individual trauma and the relational patterns it influences.

About Ellyn Bader

Dr. Ellyn Bader is a psychotherapist, co-founder of The Couples Institute®, and co-creator of the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. A pioneer in the field of couples therapy, she has spent more than four decades advancing approaches that help partners grow, change, and stay connected.

The Developmental Model, now used by therapists in more than 74 countries, is widely taught in graduate programs and featured in her award-winning textbook, In Quest of the Mythical Mate. She is also the co-author of Tell Me No Lies with her husband and longtime collaborator, Dr. Peter Pearson.

Through The Couples Institute®, Ellyn continues to train therapists around the world in the art and practice of effective couples therapy.

Upcoming Conference:

2026 Couples Conference - October 8-10, 2026

https://www.amazon.com/portal/customer-reviews/srp/-/R268UI916X5O1Z/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8

Training:

Couples Institute Training Program

https://www.couplesinstitute.com/developmentalmodeltraining-wl/

Books:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001KIVSSY?ccs_id=df3d1f88-c175-4725-9788-72a7706dadbe