♠️ ACEs Back To Back

Chris Cantergiani
Nov 10
5 min read

by Chris Cantergiani on November 10th, 2025

Before couples even walk through my door for their first session, I'm already learning about them. As part of intake, I ask new clients to complete an ACEs questionnaire online—the Adverse Childhood Experiences screening that asks about ten categories of childhood trauma, from physical abuse to household dysfunction.

Last week, I reviewed a new couple's forms before meeting them.

His score: 0.Hers: 7.

This kind of mismatch tells me we're looking at two people who learned to survive very different childhoods. And those differences will show up everywhere in their relationship. It also shapes how I'll approach sessions 2 and 3, when I meet with each partner individually.

Here's what these mismatches often look like:

The partner with the low ACEs score might say, "I just don't understand why you assume the worst," or "Why can't you just talk to me instead of shutting down?" They grew up where expressing needs led to getting them met, where conflict was navigable, where love felt steady.

The partner with the high ACEs score operates from a different playbook—one where expressing needs meant ridicule or rejection, where conflict escalated dangerously, where love was conditional or chaotic. Their nervous system learned that hypervigilance keeps you safe, that vulnerability is dangerous.

In EFT terms, they developed different attachment strategies. The person with fewer adverse experiences likely developed secure attachment—they can reach for connection when distressed and trust their partner will respond. The person with more adverse experiences? They're more likely to show up anxiously attached (pursuing, hypervigilant to disconnection) or avoidantly attached (withdrawing, self-protecting through distance).

Both things can be true: Both partners desperately want connection. AND their childhood experiences taught them fundamentally different things about whether connection is safe.

This is where the genogram comes in. Early in my work with couples, I create a family tree that maps patterns of relationships, losses, traumas, and attachment across generations. When you place ACEs scores alongside genograms, stories emerge that make perfect sense.

The husband with an ACEs score of 0 might show two married parents, stable employment, regular family dinners. His attachment style fits—he learned relationships are generally safe.

The wife with an ACEs score of 7 might show parental divorce, substance abuse, early parental death, grandparents stepping in to raise her. Her protective strategies fit too—she learned to guard herself because no one else reliably would.

Neither approach is wrong. They're both adaptive responses to very different realities.

As EFT therapists, our job isn't to pathologize the higher ACEs score or dismiss the lower one as "having it easy." Instead, we help couples understand that these differences create different attachment needs and ways of managing distress.

We might help the low-ACEs partner understand: "When she shuts down, her nervous system learned that talking about feelings can be dangerous. She needs to know you're safe before she can be vulnerable."

We might help the high-ACEs partner understand: "When he keeps asking if you're okay, he didn't grow up learning to read subtle danger signals like you did. He needs reassurance that you'll tell him when something's wrong."

The ACEs questionnaire and genogram become tools for building empathy. When couples see their different childhood experiences mapped out, something shifts. The low-ACEs partner might say, "No wonder you need space when we fight." The high-ACEs partner might say, "It makes sense that my reactions seem extreme to you."

From there, we help them build new patterns—ones that honor both experiences while creating something different together. We teach the pursuing partner to approach more gently, to understand that silence is sometimes a trauma response, not rejection. We teach the withdrawing partner to risk staying present a little longer, to recognize that not all conflict ends in catastrophe.

The research on ACEs reminds us that childhood trauma lives in our bodies, in our nervous systems, in how we reach for or retreat from connection. But here's the hopeful part: Attachment isn't fixed. With the right relationship and support, we can develop secure attachment, even if we didn't learn it as children.

You can’t change the cards you were dealt in childhood, but in a secure relationship, you get to reshuffle the deck and deal again.

Now on with this week’s Ohio EFT Newsletter:

What the ‘Bird Theory’ Reveals About Your Relationship.

by Catherine Pearson on November 10th, 2025

Experts weigh in on whether those viral Gottman-based TikTok tests are a real litmus for a couple’s connection.

AI For Therapy? Some Therapists Are Fine With It — And Use It Themselves.

by Daniel Wu on November 10th, 2025

As scrutiny over AI therapy grows, licensed therapists are split on whether it’s okay to talk to chatbots about mental health.

Why Is Marriage Less Attractive Than Ever?

by Maher Ahmad on November 10th, 2025

The era of relationship discontent.

A Mother And Son Share An Autism Diagnosis. Their Worlds Couldn’t Be More Different.

by Sumathi Reddy on November 10th, 2025

Parents and doctors question whether one label can encompass a condition with a range of needs.

I Simplified My Phone (Without Making It Dumb).

by David Pierce on November 10th, 2025

Several times a week I hear from clients who want to have a better relationship with their phone. Usually I recommend Catherine Price’s great book How To Break Up With Your Phone, which helped me back in 2019 with my phone hang ups. (Pun intended.) Here’s a great video with some updated ideas from Ryder Carroll, the creator of the Bullet Journal Method. Even if you’re ultimately not worried about your relationship with your phone, or don’t want to do the work to get a setup like this, I really do recommend periodically just blowing up your whole system.

Need A Boost? Try This Energizing Yoga Routine.

by Christine Wu on November 10th, 2025

Reverse the afternoon slump with a short, refreshing sequence.

Our Next Ohio EFT Virtual Call Is A Week Earlier This Month - Friday, November 21st.

by Ohio EFT on November 10th, 2025

Join us at 9:00am on Friday, November 21st, for our continuing online discussion about Emotionally Focused Therapy. It will be a week earlier than usual due to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We’ve been taking a journey through the 9 steps of EFT, covering Step 3 in October. However, for this month, we thought we’d change it up a bit and tackle something big: “Everything You Wanted To Know About Attachment But Were Afraid To Ask”.

Send us an email for a link to this month's call. If you already subscribe to our newsletter, we’ll send out a reminder email with the link again on Thursday, November 20th.