Attachment and the Best Self

An 8-Week Path to Security, Confidence, and Purpose

This 8-week live course blends teaching on attachment and growth with powerful imaginal practices to help you repair insecure patterns, develop your best self, and live with greater clarity and purpose.

What would it feel like to finally trust your relationships, feel confident in who you are, and live with a deeper sense of purpose?

Many of us carry attachment patterns that hold us back. We may long for closeness but fear it, feel unworthy of love, or struggle to sustain secure connections. Repairing those wounds matters, yet creating a positive foundation of security, confidence, and inner strength often brings the biggest shift.

This interactive eight-week course blends modern attachment theory with powerful imaginal practices designed to rewire how you relate to yourself and others. Each week, you’ll learn accessible tools drawn from the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Dr. Daniel P. Brown’s “Best Self” protocols: techniques proven to help people move toward security, resilience, and purpose.

First, we’ll will first spend three weeks learning the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) Protocol, a groundbreaking approach developed by the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown at Harvard Medical School. These practices use the power of imagination to repair insecure attachment patterns and establish the felt sense of security many people have been missing.

From there, we will focus on the Best Self practices, which support three essential capacities:

  • Self Definition – knowing who you truly are

  • Self Agency – the strength to engage the world in a meaningful way

  • Self Esteem – a deep sense of self-worth and inner goodness

You will also explore how to form secure relationships and discover a greater sense of life purpose that can guide you going forward.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore attachment or you’re seeking structured support for growth, this course offers a unique pathway. You’ll build inner resources, gain clarity about how you want to live, and bring that vision into your relationships and daily life.

What You’ll Gain

  • A clear understanding of attachment theory and how it shapes your inner life and relationships

  • Weekly guided practices that help condition secure attachment and strengthen your best self

  • A deeper connection to your best self through imaginal work on self-definition, self-agency, and self-esteem

  • Practical tools for bringing secure relating into your everyday interactions

  • A vision of greater purpose that ties your growth into something bigger than yourself

Course Approach

This isn’t just guided meditation. Each week combines:

  • Psychoeducation: Clear, digestible teaching on attachment styles, self-development, and how the imagination reshapes memory

  • Guided Practice: Structured imaginal exercises from the Ideal Parent Figure and Best Self protocols

  • Discussion & Q&A: Time to integrate the material, share experiences, and gain clarity

Course Breakdown:

Eight weekly 90-minute sessions with guided practices, discussion, and Q&A.

Week 1: Intro to attachment theory and the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

  • Orientation

  • Introduction to attachment theory and the Three Pillars Protocol for comprehensive repair

  • How the imagination can reshape conditioning

  • Guided meditation: Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

Week 2: Deepening attachment theory

  • What is secure attachment and what does it look like?

  • Overview of dismissing/avoidant attachment

  • Overview of preoccupied/anxious attachment

  • Guided meditation: Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

Week 3: Building a secure base

  • Overview of disorganized/fearful attachment

  • How to repair insecure attachment strategies

  • A roadmap to security

  • Guided meditation: Ideal Parent Figure Protocol

Week 4: Self Definition: Knowing who we are

  • Overview of the Best Self Protocols: What is our “best self” and how to we build it

  • The interplay of attachment and the best self

  • The role of self definition and why it matters

  • Guided meditation: Self Definition

Week 5: Self Agency: Taking control of your life

  • What does it mean to have self agency and why does it matter?

  • How to shift out of stuckness and passivity

  • How to work with impulsiveness and unwanted behaviors

  • Guided meditation: Self Agency

Week 6: Self Esteem: Liking who you are

  • What is self esteem and why is it important?

  • How to reverse chronic self esteem failure

  • Orienting toward being instead of doing

  • Guided meditation: Self Esteem

Week 7: Secure Relating

  • What is a secure relationship and why do they matter?

  • How to form new relationships and move existing ones toward security

  • How to get your needs met and handle conflict

  • Guided meditation: Ideal Partner Protocol/Secure Relating

Week 8: Greater Purpose: Putting it all together

  • From security and beyond - a bird’s eye view of self development

  • How meaning can arise from how we naturally engage with the world

  • The profound mental health benefits of doing this work

  • Course recap

  • Guided meditation: Greater Purpose

For those who are unable to attend live or would like repeating viewings classes will be recorded and available for 6 months.

Pricing and Payment

  • Standard Price: $349

  • Financial Assistance: $249 (325)

  • Sustaining Price: $499 (helps support scholarships)

Student Testimonials

“I first encountered Evan during his transformative Attachment, Development, Purpose Weekend workshop. I was utterly captivated after an immersive six-hour introduction that delved into the complexities of attachment and personal habits. The experience stirred a deep desire to uncover how to embrace my best self without the nagging feeling that something was inherently wrong with me.

Eager to delve deeper, I quickly enrolled in the "Welcome to Attachment" and "Best Self" six-week course, which consisted of engaging two-hour Saturday sessions and an hour-long mid-week follow-up call. For years, I had been trapped in a cycle of distrust towards men and haunted by my feelings of inadequacy, feeling as though I had been ensnared in a frozen state of fight or flight for at least a decade. I truly believed this was the best version of myself I could achieve.

However, everything shifted after the very first class. I experienced a profound sense of safety and validation in Evan’s class—a stark contrast to the walls I had built around myself to avoid being seen or opening up to others. Each week brought transformative moments as we engaged in guided meditations that invited my younger self to heal and integrate with my adult self. With Evan's insightful tips and supportive environment, I could feel a remarkable shift within me; the once-fractured parts of my being began to merge into a more loving, confident version of myself, filled with hope and possibility.”

– A.I.R.

“I’ve known Evan Leed for over two years, and been facilitated by him for a year plus. What’s great about Evan is how much he really trusts his clients. There is no, “I know better than you,” with Evan, ever. Working with him it’s really clear he’s on your side, believes in your innate ability to heal, and trusts you to guide your own healing process — with just the right amount of in-session support from him, of course. (Though that’s not how he would describe it!) ;)

My nickname for him is Evan-the-self-effacing, and he really is. He won’t tell you that he’s one of the longest-standing people in this field — but he is! (He was in the original training/supervision class with Dan Brown.) Or that he has over 6,000 in session hours with clients — but he does! Or that he’s respected in the field by colleagues and former clients alike — but that’s so, as well. (I know because I’ve heard them say it!)

In addition to facilitating me as a client he’s also provided me supervision for my own clients, as well. Evan is the fourth Facilitator I’ve worked with as a client and truly — his knowledge of this modality is vast and extensive, and (in my experience) unparalleled. I learn from him every week — if not about myself as a client, then about how best to support my own clients. 

As far as the benefits of the attachment repair work we’ve done together as client/Facilitator…this modality has changed my life, and Evan has been a kind, consistent, caring and generous source of support and guidance through the process. I’ve become a vastly better Facilitator myself, better mother, better friend, and happier and infinitely more capable human being as a direct result of the time I’ve spent in sessions with him. No joke.

A well-lived life is 100% possible, and secure attachment really paves the way for that. I feel incredibly fortunate to have Evan guiding me along this road! For all of these reasons — and many more even! — I recommend Evan Leed wholeheartedly to anyone interested in doing this work. He’s truly a gem, and you simply could not be in better hands than his. Really really. :)”

– M.H.

Instructor

Evan Leed is a facilitator trained in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and Best Self practices developed by Dr. Daniel P. Brown and colleagues at Harvard. Evan combines attachment science, guided imaginal work, and practical psychoeducation to help students build security and thrive.