Abandonment and Trauma Services

Bob Robinson advocates for clients with abandonment and trauma experiences in an integrated and relational approach. Using personalized treatment he offers sensitivity, respect, and hope in individual, marital, family, and group settings.

Abandonment can be experienced by anyone at anytime. Trauma, abuse, and neglect cross all social-economic and cultural boundaries including age, gender, race, religion, creed, ethnicity, sexual identity, political persuasion, and family makeup.

The vast majority of people are hard wired for human connection. The primal universal fear (a survival mechanism) is the lack of connection to others, first in full dependence as children, second in becoming more independent through later childhood and adolescence, and finally to be interdependent in adulthood. This fosters healthy attachment and dependence as well as safety and security. When these needs go unmet we experience high levels of anxiety, fear, and insecurity. These insecurities left unmet, unaddressed, and unresolved, create abandonment issues. Depending on the severity of these issues one can experience an inability for healthy and secure attachments in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This inability is driven by a lack of trust and faith that others will be there for us when we need them. These fears, this lack of trust, keep us from allowing others to get close to us creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, many people come to believe they deserve to be abandoned after internalizing the belief that the abandoning was their fault to begin with.

Many forms of trauma can produce these kinds of abandonment issues, for example:

• Emotional, physical, or sexual abuse
• Marital infidelity
• Bullying
• Absent, abusive or neglectful parenting
• Desertion due to divorce, death, adoption
• Peer rejection

Treatment for healing abandonment issues addresses:

• Solving relationship issues with self and others
• Dealing with trust issues
• Correcting unhealthy boundaries
• Learning new Coping skills
• Stopping isolation
• Enhancing self-esteem
• Gaining a sense of self efficacy
• Eliminating personal and social anxiety
• Alleviating depression

Resulting in a life of:

• Authenticity
• Meaning and purpose
• Becoming fully adult, emotionally and behaviorally
• Trusting your own instincts and intuitions
• Knowing a true sense of inner security and peace
• Experiencing personal joy
• Challenging yourself to create new hopes, goals, and dreams