Hi, my name is Briana...
...and I love romance novels and campy science fiction shows (anyone else a die-hard Supernatural fan?). I also like being my own boss. Doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. And treating work like play.
Through my education, professional experience, and personal life experiences, I have come to passionately serve insecurely attached adults who want to experience soul-deep intimacy in their romantic relationships.
As a licensed and board-certified creative arts therapist, (with certifications in Reiki Healing, EFT Tapping, and Trauma-Informed Somatic Therapy), I've spent more than 15 years helping adults struggling with insecure attachment styles, rediscover their power, become more self-confident, and find the relationships of their dreams.
Experience has taught me it’s not complicated to learn how to attract stable and emotionally available partners when you have a deep understanding of how attachment styles and energy healing works.
Attachment styles and healing attachment wounds is a topic so near and dear to my heart, because I don’t just teach this stuff, I’ve lived it. As a child of divorce, my parents were always on the move, and we lived on the edge of poverty most of the time. I became a high achiever to compensate until my relationship struggles tore down everything I’d accomplished, and I wound up a divorced, single mom.
Then, both my parents and my brother were diagnosed with serious, chronic illnesses. And the new partner I had fallen madly in love with couldn’t prioritize me or stay faithful. When he left, my heart broke anew, and I miscarried what would’ve been my second child.
I decided to dive straight down into my demons and write a contributed volume about attachment and grief. Writing the book emboldened me to shed my shame, and learned how to move from an insecure to a secure attachment style! This led to creating the curriculum for my online courses, using The MacWilliam Method™, and building an online community for support. Much to my delight, both caught fire, and I’ve never looked back!
What Makes My Approach Different
I help individuals struggling with insecure attachment go from self-doubting to self-sovereign, with my unique service:
The MacWilliam Method™ (TMM) is a service that utilizes a psycho-spiritual approach to applying creative arts interventions, through the framework of attachment theory. TMM is informed by evidence-based practices in attachment and trauma research but is rooted in creative arts interventions as the primary healing modality.
The directives in my online courses have been modified for experiential learning, coupled with live support and discussion in private Facebook group forums.
TMM is composed of three principal tools to address mind, body, and spirit:
#1 Cognitive Reframing
Raise conscious awareness through cognitive reframing, so you can re-write painful narratives and create an openness to receiving the love you want.
#2 Body Activation
With a blend of guided imagery, basic movement, and sound healing, we gently titrate all that anxious energy stored up in your body to build new neural networks in a healthier framework, using the language of the body and the unconscious.
#3 Arts-Based Experientials
Through creative expression, we externalize the inner world and achieve self-sovereignty by being in dialogue with the Authentic Self.
Books I’ve Published...
It has been my honor to work with all of the wonderful contributors that have made these published works possible!
Complicated Grief, Attachment and Art Therapy: Theory, Treatment and 14 Ready-to-Use Protocols
This wide-ranging book on art therapy and grief provides everything an art therapist needs to feel confident in creating an effective treatment plan. It features fourteen clear-cut protocols, outlining 4-8 week curriculums for working with Complicated Grief, and explains the theory which informs the practice, including popular and evolving models such as Attachment Theory, Mindfulness, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Art Therapy Relational Neuroscience (ATR-N).
Suitable for a variety of settings and clinical populations, the book breaks through the analytical jargon of the field and provides first-person narratives of art therapists exploring their own experiences of grief and client case studies.
Creative Arts Therapies and The LGBTQ Community: Theory and Practice
Providing theory and practical interventions, this book is the perfect companion to creative arts therapy students and professionals who wish to work with the LGBTQ community and the unique challenges that sexual minorities, transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) clients face today.
Considering ally development, unconscious bias and intersectionality, the book provides theory, case studies and practical guidance for working with this client group, as well as experiences emerging from within the LGBTQ and CATs community. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, from exploring sexuality and gender identity through portraiture to facilitating a music therapy group with transgender clients, and foster ally development in senior living communities through a multimodal approach.
With research finding that people from the LGBTQ community are at increased risk of depression and anxiety, Creative Art Therapies and the LGBTQ Community provides indispensable guidance for therapists.
With Me Online
Facebook is probably where I hang out the most, because that is where I get to interact with my online community. Inside my private group for Attachment and Adult Relationships, is really where the party’s at, with monthly livestream Q&A’s, new video postings, special discounted offers on my courses, and occasional live challenges.
YOUTUBE
If you believe content is king, and want someone to give it to you straight when it comes to love, follow my YouTube channel on Attachment in Adult Relationships. I post between 4 new videos per month (if not more), based on subscriber questions. So be sure to like, subscribe, and ring the bell for notifications
Instagram is where I share my artwork and meditative moments of insight. If you’re looking to feel inspired by some pretty amazing eye-candy (if I do say so myself) and mind-blowing memes, the ‘gram is your jam.
Using the tools and techniques for accessing your inner wisdom in my course, Sally made a huge decision to quit her job and move to a new town, and away from a toxic, on-again off-again relationship that was preventing her from realizing her dream of having a family and building a secure foundation for her future. Within 4 months, she’d found her dream job, and was already in a committed relationship with a healthy partner that also happened to be a widowed parent. Sally found herself accepting the idea that "family" comes in all shapes and sizes, and joyfully embraced the role of stepmother.
“Finally getting away from the toxic push-pull dynamic between me and my ex allowed my nervous system to calm down, and gain perspective. Letting go of what I thought a family “should” look like, allowed me to finally welcome a family into my life!”
Sally
Maddie was a divorced, single mom who, on the outside, appeared to be fiercely managing all the moving parts in her life with ease, but on the inside, she was feeling lonely and exhausted. She labored under a harsh internal critic that told her she had “too much baggage” and “no one could ever love someone like [her]”. After taking my course, Maddie learned how to mother her own inner child, and adopt a loving stance towards herself. Six months after the program, she met another single parent, and within a year, they were engaged to be married.
“I used to think no one could ever love someone like me, because I was too damaged and had too much baggage. Once I challenged that belief, I found a partner that I could relate to, and in loving each other, we learned to accept ourselves.”
Maddie
Paul and his wife had been married 20 years, when his wife told him he needed to change or she was leaving him. She’d felt isolated and alone for most of their marriage, and wanted more from him, or she was calling it quits. When Paul in my program, he was looking for ways to get in touch with his emotions, when his whole life he’d been taught to dismiss or suppress them. In Healing Attachment Wounds, Paul was able to apply his creativity as an engineer and problem solver towards connecting with his emotions, in a way he’d never expected. He also reported experiencing deeper levels of intimacy with his wife, who emailed me personally to express gratitude for helping him.
“This program surprised me in so many ways, not just the content, but my emotional reactions to it. I thought I just wasn’t a creative or emotionally ‘in touch’ person, but it turns out that was a story I bought into. I can relate so much better to my wife, and she is really happy with the changes she sees in me. I definitely recommend the course.”
Paul
