Hey there …
We’re Daniel Boscaljon, PhD and Angela Amias, LCSW.
We’re the creators of the Five Relationship Archetypes and the hosts of the Alchemy of Connection podcast.
We’re also the founders of the Institute for Trauma Informed Relationships. We created Alchemy of Love to provide relationship programs and resources for those with painful childhood experiences, who missed out on learning the skills for meaningful, fulfilling relationships.
why we do what we do
It’s been known for a long time that childhood trauma affects adults at many levels, from physical and mental health to emotional well-being to relationships.
While the impact of early trauma on adult relationships is frequently noted by trauma experts, there’s been very little in terms of practical, useful advice or programs that adults with childhood trauma can use to improve their own relationships.
In fact, the whole field of couples therapy is lagging at least a decade behind in the cutting-edge research on relationship trauma and has so far failed to integrate this new understanding of trauma into conventional guidance for those wanting to improve their intimate relationships.
Our programs are designed to fill that gap—to help you understand how your own past experiences influences your relationship with yourself and relationships with others.
As survivors of childhood trauma ourselves, we’ve made it our mission to help trauma survivors rediscover their innate wholeness, recognize their unique beauty, and learn the skills needed to create deeply meaningful, satisfying relationships.
Angela Amias, LCSW
I began my career as a therapist working at one of only a handful of clinics in the United States that specialized in treating adopted children who’d experienced profound attachment trauma. Their past trauma interfered with their ability to form a relationship with their adoptive parents. As a trauma therapist, my role was to help these children learn how to trust again, so they could let down their guard enough to get close to someone else.
When I left this job to become a therapist at a holistic healing center, working with women and men with depression, anxiety, and run-of-the-mill relationship issues, I imagined that my specialized skill set for treating attachment trauma would no longer be needed.
What I actually discovered was the exact opposite.
To my surprise, the struggles my adult clients described in their romantic relationships were remarkably similar to what I’d witnessed at the trauma clinic. Nearly all my adult clients seemed to be carrying the same core wounds from childhood that I’d first seen in severely traumatized children.
Many of my clients reported having unremarkable childhoods, with seemingly-adequate parenting when they were young. And yet, they’d still grown up internalizing messages that created problems in their adult relationships.
This discovery showed me that as humans, we don’t have to experience severe ‘Capital T Traum’a to be wounded by painful childhood experiences. Things like a lack of parental attention, frequent criticism, parental detachment, or rejection of our authentic selves can affect us deeply … in ways we carry with us into adulthood.
This realization—that nearly all of us have core wounds from childhood that interfere with our ability to create healthy, intimate relationships—shook my world and changed the course of my career.
The truth is: I’ve worked with hundreds of individuals and couples and I have yet to encounter anyone whose relationship problems in adulthood don’t have roots in childhood experiences.
I pioneered a new trauma-informed relationship counseling model, Trauma Informed Relationship Counseling for Individuals and Couples, which helps clients understand the connection between their childhood experiences, what they learned about relationships as a result of those experiences, and the issues they’re currently experiencing in their relationships. As the co-founder of the Institute for Trauma Informed Relationships, I provide education and training for therapists wanting to integrate a trauma informed perspective into their work with individuals and couples.
Alongside Daniel Boscaljon, I developed the Five Relationship Archetypes as a model that reflects the different ways that childhood relationship trauma impacts our adult relationships.
This model takes into account our unique and inborn temperaments as well as the kinds of messages we internalize during childhood—about ourselves and how we need to be in order to have relationships with others.
In addition to my specialized training in attachment trauma, I also hold specialized training in therapeutic writing and journaling as tools for trauma recovery, emotional healing, and personal growth.
Our mission at Alchemy of Love is to help people heal their past wounds, reclaim their wholeness, and learn how to transform past pain into the seeds for future possibilities … possibilities that include the kind of loving, intimate relationship with self and others that you deserve to have.
As a relationship expert, I’ve been featured in numerous publications, including Today, Oprah, Cosmopolitan, Well + Good, The Independent, Salon, Forbes, Refinery29, MSN, Women’s Health and the Toronto Sun. On the topic of relationships, I’ve been a contributing writer for Inc. and Fatherly. As a trauma expert, I’m a contributing author of the Clinical EFT Handbook, published in 2013.
In my spare time, I’m a mixed media artist. My artwork has been exhibited in numerous galleries around the United States and published in several journals and magazines. I’m also the co-creator of the Faces of the Divine Feminine Oracle, published in 2017.
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, I now make my happy home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. On sunny days, you can find me cozied up with a book or hiking in the mountains with Daniel.
You can find my art at angelaamias.gallery.
Daniel boscaljon, PhD
I've spent the entirety of my adult life focused on understanding the necessary ingredients of a meaningful life and learning how to share it with others.
My interest originated in the evangelical Christian home I was raised in, where I was fascinated by the questions of meaning and purpose opened by religion—questions such as "Who am I?", "What do I want?", and "How do I matter?”—but I was unsatisfied by the answers I could find within my early environment.
As an undergraduate, I studied English, Philosophy, and Religion, which gave me important tools to deepen my explorations into life’s questions. I pursued a PhD in Religious Studies as a way to more deeply engage with sources of traditional wisdom and meaning.
I followed that with a second PhD, in English, where I began studying psychoanalysis as an important resource for understanding obstacles to creating a meaningful life.
As a college instructor, I won awards for my work as teacher and mentor. I published books that focused on religion, literature, and education. And in the course of doing these things, I realized I didn't want a career teaching college students or writing academic books. So I shifted my focus to working with adults as a community educator and life coach, where I felt I could make a bigger impact in helping others explore what it means to live a meaningful life.
I led workshops on writing, using tarot as a tool for deepening your intuition, and how to access the divine feminine as a way to heal our cultural wounds around patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
Eventually, I realized that Archetypal Psychology would allow me to bring together everything I learned: the vital importance of deep questions that inspire the soul, the ways that cultural forces and conventional beliefs work against human flourishing, and how myths and stories point the way to healing, wholeness, and fulfillment.
After a career spent teaching classes about love and meaning, and looking for a context that would welcome the kind of life changing teaching I want to do, I found my place when Angela and I founded Alchemy of Love and created the Five Relationship Archetypes.
As a relationship expert, I’ve been featured in many publications, including NBC News, Newsweek, MindBodyGreen, Harper’s Bazaar, Business Insider, Fast Company, Fatherly and AskMen.
I've continued to work as a researcher and academic reviewer as part of the editorial board of the Oxford Journal of Literature and Theology. Born in California and raised in Iowa, I now happily make my home in the wilds of Wyoming.
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What’s Your Relationship Archetype?
Take the Five Relationship Archetypes quiz and find out how to use your unique gifts to create deeper, more satisfying relationships.
get started with our free relationship class
WE’re not born knowing how to communicate in relationships.
For many of us, we missed out on learning healthy communication skills during childhood. Instead of learning how to communicate in ways that allow both people to feel seen, heard, and understood, often we learn patterns of communication that create confusion, hurt, and disconnection. Or we learn that it’s safer to just keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves … and not communicate.
The secret to fulfilling relationships is learning how to connect with another person through communication. You can start learning the art of communication with our free communication class, The Communication Cure.
