Episode 1: The Relational Safety Framework: Why This Framework Exists

Written by: Stephanie Underwood, RSW

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The Relational Safety Framework

Have you ever felt like you can understand your trauma, but you can’t seem to break these repeating relational patterns? Maybe you’ve done the different types of trauma therapy, read the books, learned about attachment, nervous system regulation, and something still feels… fragmented?

Trauma research and treatment have evolved tremendously over the past several decades. Today, in 2026, we have access to more trauma therapies, more insights, and more information than ever before through the internet and social media. To name a few, we have EMDR, Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Emotion-Focused Therapy, and many more.

What we do lack, however, is research focused on treating individuals with chronic exposure to trauma, specifically relational trauma, which is an umbrella term for types of trauma that occur in the context of relationships, such as attachment trauma, developmental trauma, betrayal trauma, and so on.

The majority of the research studies we have on trauma treatment focus on individuals with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder rather than Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, even though most of the cases clinicians see in their practice involve some form of relational trauma.

Before I go any further, my name is Stephanie Underwood. I’m a registered social worker and graduate researcher specializing in relational trauma. Over the past several years in clinical practice and academic work, I’ve continuously witnessed the same patterns. Individuals gain insight, they learn their attachment style, they learn about their triggers and their history. But the patterns continue to persist...

At the same time, clinicians are often trained in different silos. We talk about cognition in one model. Attachment in another. Neurobiology in another. Somatic work somewhere else. Top-Down - Bottom-Up approaches. Which one is better? Each of these perspectives offers something valuable. But they are rarely organized into one coherent system. That fragmentation leaves clinicians trying to integrate on their own. And it leaves clients feeling like they’re missing a piece.

What we don’t often have is a clear explanation of how safety, meaning, attachment strategies, and nervous system safety actually interact in real time inside relationships.

We don’t have a unified model that explains why insight alone often isn’t enough. Why regulation alone often isn’t enough. And why relational safety feels necessary but remains confusing.

This series introduces what I’ve been developing as the Relational Safety Framework.

It’s an integrative, research-informed model that organizes meaning-making, attachment strategies, and nervous system safety appraisal into one functional system. Not as competing theories. Not as separate domains. But as interacting processes.

At its core, this framework starts with a simple premise: Humans don’t just respond to events.

We respond to the meaning we assign to those events. And in relationships, meaning becomes organized into patterns - patterns that influence how safe we feel, how we regulate, and how we connect.

This is not a finished theory presented as final truth. It’s an evolving framework grounded in existing research, clinical observation, and graduate-level inquiry.

I’m documenting its development publicly.

In the next episode, we’ll begin where the framework begins: with safety. What it is. How the nervous system evaluates it. And why safety - not trauma, not attachment, not schemas - may be the central organizing variable in relational distress.

If you’ve ever felt like something important was missing in how trauma is explained… this series is for you.

Stephanie Underwood

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