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Destiny Davis, the Chronic Illness Therapist, joins me to discuss the powerful connection between attachment styles and coping mechanisms for managing food allergy anxiety and trauma. Together, we explore how attachment patterns—secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized—influence emotional regulation and stress responses in individuals with food allergies and those caring for them.

The conversation explores how understanding one’s attachment style can help build healthier coping strategies, improve relationships, and reduce anxiety in challenging situations like allergen exposure and medical trauma. Destiny also provides practical tips for parents and individuals to recognize their attachment styles and effective tips for managing anxiety.

Destiny offers clinical insight and accessible advice for anyone looking to deepen their self-awareness and enhance their coping skills, whether they are managing food allergies themselves or supporting a loved one.

Episode Highlights:
-Attachment styles and our coping skills
-Mindfulness
-ACE strategy from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Acknowledge/Accept, Come back into my body, Engage with the world/my values
-Brene Brown: FFT (the [Fricking] First Time)
Quotes:

1. "Pay attention to what your symptoms are without trying to make meaning" (a.k.a., constantly searching for THE diagnosis.)
2. “Mindfulness is not a way to cure your anxiety. It’s a way to pay attention to your anxiety.”
3. “Typically, if you are the type of person that fearfully moves toward a problem, you are likely more anxiously attached. And if you fearfully move away from problems, you're more avoidantly attached. Securely attached is when you know how to ebb and flow and move toward and away as appropriate, and there's not a lot of anxiety with it. It's more just a feeling of sureness and calmness...Fight is moving toward a problem, flight is moving away."

Action steps:

1. Listen to the Chronic Illness Therapist Podcast: Podcast links — The Chronic Illness Therapist
2. Go to Destiny’s website for groups and other opportunities: The Chronic Illness Therapist
3. Check out Brene Brown’s work: Brené Brown (brenebrown.com) (I highly recommend starting with the book Atlas of the Heart)

#FoodAllergyAnxiety #AnxietyRelief #TraumaRecovery #AttachmentStyles #CopingSkills

Special thanks to Kyle Dine for permission to use his song The Doghouse for the podcast theme. www.kyledine.com

You can find Dr. Whitehouse at www.DrAmandaWhitehouse.com
or on Facebook (Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, Food Allergy Anxiety Psychologist)