🪻About:🪻

Our goal is to help those that have experienced early parent loss, better understand the impact it has on romantic relationships into adulthood. The parent-child relationship is vital to a child's emotional development, and losing such a profound attachment figure would likely create life long psychological changes for a child or young adult. It's valuable to learn new ways of healing from major grief to allow space for healthy relationships. 

There is a section about the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) Questionnaire that can give indicators as to what attachment style a person exhibits. With a focus on romantic connections, research articles from Høeg et al.'s "Early Parental Loss and Intimate Relationships in Adulthood: A Nationwide Study" and Van Heijningen et al.'s "Losing a Parent During Childhood: The Impact on Adult Romantic Relationships," served as guidance for creating the Early Parent Loss and Romantic Attachment Healing Worksheet. The worksheet prioritizes the importance of memory in attachment, and will walk users through different reflection exercises that refocus their grief in a way more conducive to healing. 

How does it help?

Counselors can reference this website to gain a better grasp of the interconnectedness between early parental grief and romantic attachment. Without taking the two into account, it can be difficult to recognize client difficulties relating to intimacy later in life due to this intense loss. Additionally, the worksheet aid should prove to offer insight and deep reflection for clients struggling to realize unhealthy relationship patterns, along with ways to for healthier attachments to their romantic partner. 

The ECR assesses attachment based on anxiety (fears of rejection and abandonment; desiring closeness and reassurance) and avoidance (discomfort with intimacy and dependency) for a total of 36 questions. 

The test screens for the four resulting attachment styles: Secure, Anxious-Preoccupied, Dismissive-Avoidant, and Fearful Avoidant.

Validity of the ECR has been affirmed by Brauer and Proyer's research article, "A Study of the Measurement Invariance of the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) Questionnaire Across Relationships Status, Romantic Partners, and Gender." Meaningful comparisons of observed scores on the ECR scales were found between both men and women, determining that the scale is not skewed by gender or relationship status.

A fillable online version of the ECR can be found here: ECR Online Test 

References

Brauer, K., & Proyer, R. T. (2025). A study of the measurement invariance of the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) Questionnaire across relationship status, romantic partners, and gender. European Journal of Psychological Assessment. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000902

Høeg, B. L., Johansen, C., Christensen, J., Frederiksen, K., Dalton, S. O., Dyregrov, A., Bøge, P., Dencker, A., & Bidstrup, P. E. (2018). Early Parental Loss and Intimate Relationships in Adulthood: A Nationwide Study. Developmental Psychology, 54(5), 963–974. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000483

Van Heijningen, C. J. M., Van Berkel, S. R., Langereis, I., Elzinga, B. M., & Alink, L. R. A. (2025). Losing a parent during childhood: The impact on adult romantic relationships. Family process, 64(1), e13060. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.13060