Dr. Brittany Woolford

About me and What shapes my work? 

I became interested in relationships early on while growing up in a military town, where I saw how deployments, transitions, and high-stress roles shaped families and intimate partnerships. There was often a strong emphasis on independence, the idea that you should be able to handle things on your own, yet I kept noticing how deeply people were still impacted by their relationships. That contrast stayed with me. It led me to become curious not just about why relationships matter so much, but how people can feel more secure, understood, and connected within them, especially when life has required them to be self-reliant.

These experiences shaped both my research and educational pursuits. I’ve spent much of my training and career focused on understanding attachment and how it shows up in modern relationships—whether that’s in dating, long-term partnerships, or during transitions like breakups and divorce. This influenced my belief that relationships are at the root of most mental health distress, and therefore my work with clients revolves around how to create healthier relationships.

Specialization & Approach

I work with individuals and couples who feel stuck in recurring relationship patterns in dating, long-term partnerships, or during major transitions like breakups or divorce. My focus is on helping clients understand the deeper attachment dynamics driving these patterns and creating meaningful, lasting change. I strive to find a balance between deep insight-oriented work and clear action items so that you not only learn about yourself and your relationships, but also how to take action towards changing those patterns. Below are the modalities I use in therapy to help create change:

• Attachment-based and psychodynamic therapy: to understand your family, relationships, and experiences that create the road map to who you are today, so you can recognize the patterns that are keeping you stuck.

• Internal Family Systems (IFS): to help you understand the different parts of yourself that work to protect you and keep you from the relationships you want.

• EMDR: to process underlying trauma and impacting current relationships and to rewire your brain from protection to connection.Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT – trained): to understand your attachment history and how this impacts your relationship dynamics so that you and your partner stop getting stuck in the same cycle.

• Gottman Method (Level 1 & 2): to improve communication, manage conflict, and strengthen relational foundations.