Angelica Garcia of Constitutional Psychology: How Applying Attachment Theory to Civic Life Repairs Our Fractured Relationship with Government

As a part of this series, we had the pleasure to interview Angelica Garcia.

Angelica Garcia, LCSW, couples therapist, author, and founder of Constitutional Psychology, a framework exploring how emotional safety, identity, attachment, and civic life shape our inner experience. With more than a decade of work in trauma, relational repair, and community mental health, she helps individuals and communities understand the emotional patterns that drive behavior, resilience, and belonging. Her writing helps translate complex psychological ideas into accessible, emotionally intelligent conversations about the hidden forces shaping modern life.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

Thank you for this opportunity, and hello to all the readers! I hope that after my responses you get to know me more intimately, as I believe it will give you a better understanding of the need for my new discipline: Constitutional Psychology.

I was born in California to Mexican parents. I identify as Mexican American, and this lens has emboldened me to take up space assertively. I have lived the experience of being first-generation, navigating the challenges of feeling excluded and “othered” by peers and systems I grew up in. I was not the typical idea of what an “American” is — i.e., I am not white. I grew up knowing real truths, like understanding that Native peoples were systematically genocided by colonists, and that Black Americans built this country through enslavement and exploitation. Cruelty that, to this day, is still experienced by Black Americans due to systemic racism and the rights and laws the current Supreme Court continues to overturn.

I come from anxious and insecure attachments because, at a very young age, I was exposed to instability and trauma while living with my parents. Due to severe abuse, I entered a guardianship where the physical and emotional abuse did not end. Those years — first with my parents and then in guardianship — left me with profound anxiety, trauma, and grief. I entered foster care at 16 and graduated high school as a foster child. I will always be grateful for my foster parents.

Being part of these three parental systems, and growing up in rural California, my Mexican American identity clashed with the white supremacist structures in the educational systems I interacted with. This shaped and harmed me in ways I continue to decipher, unlearn, and heal from to this day. I encountered many racist stereotypes about my culture and heritage, and I was exposed to racial stereotypes about other races, ethnicities, and cultures by all of these systems. I have been deeply and irrevocably harmed by the systems I encountered. These systems failed me. I have also been given love and supported by many — my siblings, my husband, those I consider parents, and friends. I am forever grateful for your love, generosity, kindness, and support. Thank you. I have continued to commit to anti-racism precisely because all of these systems failed me in one way or another. I am not suggesting I didn’t grow or heal — that work continues — and I am committed to understanding how to be a better person, showing compassion, care, and love. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t express my upbringing in terms of having been failed by these systems.

The lesson I want to share most about my upbringing is that, because of my resiliency and the help of those who chose to support and love me through all of these hardships, I have been able to create autonomy and take control over internalizing the true history of this country — not the white-washed version of it. I have been able to read and absorb information as an active, lifelong knowledge-seeker, especially from books by Black authors and historians. Books like The 1619 Project and my African American studies courses at Berkeley and NYU helped me heal and repair the pain of growing up in educational systems that obscured and confused me.

I want to thank Black and Native Peoples for teaching me everything about this country. I am committed to uplifting and supporting Black and Native Peoples and all of us who have continued to feel “other” because of the original sins of this country. My discipline emerged as a result of the educational systems that failed me and contributed to my frustrations and ignorance. Growing up with those frustrations highlighted to me, as an adult and as I came to form my discipline, that the unprocessed and unresolved original sins of this country were the key to the powerlessness we all feel when our government fails us.

It helped me understand that because these harms and wounds remain unresolved, unrepaired, and unhealed, we are insecurely attached to our government. We have a relationship — a deep one — with a government that promises rights and then takes them away, despite those rights being enshrined in our Constitution. The 14th Amendment guarantees our rights, yet we have extreme abortion laws, racism has risen under Donald Trump, and ICE has killed citizens. We are told to trust our government to protect us, but that is a lie when white supremacy is embedded in our institutions. As a result, we are unable, as a society, to establish safety and security with our government.

My discipline highlights this, explains why it happens, and outlines what we can do to truly repair the original sins — allowing us, for the first time, to reach safety and security based on the ideals the Constitution promises us all. My upbringing shaped everything about how and why it became necessary to found an entirely new framework: a discipline to help us understand our relationship with our government and the need for true healing and repair in order to achieve earned security.

When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?

There were many, many books that inspired me to take action or that helped change my life in introspective and impactful ways. But one of the books that sticks in my memory is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I read it at such a young age, and the first time I read it, I knew it resonated with me. I, too, was feeling many of the same emotions that Esperanza felt and shared. I felt the attachment fears of being dismissed by the educational system I was part of, and by peers who poked fun at our cultural food, our music, our way of dressing, our complexion, and who exposed us to slurs like “wetbacks.” I have very painful memories of being told I was “white-washed” because I was speaking “white,” meaning I was assimilating into the dominant white culture in our educational systems.

This book validated so much of the pain of growing up in a system that wants you to assimilate, but also ostracizes you and does not protect you from supremacist views that, as a child, you are powerless to do anything about. The tension and hardship of not feeling protected, and having to be at the mercy of a system that tears at your identity before you are even a full adult, was devastating. It was painful to grow up in these systems without being able to form a healthy identity of self. I love my cultural food, both eating it and making it, singing to our Mexican pop songs and rancheras, speaking Spanish, playing loteria, all of my Mexicanness. This book helped me navigate these complicated feelings of grief — wanting to hold close to my ethnicity and still succeed.

I learned from this book how to create my own home of safety, freedom from stereotypes, the ability to make my own choices, and how to provide myself dignity when the systems I interact with do not offer it to me. Every winter we make Mexican hot chocolate, tamales, and posole. I make carne asada whenever I want. I make homemade Mexican salsas for scrambled eggs, any meat dish, or simply just because. When I shower, I listen to and sing music from Juan Gabriel, Belanova, Joan Sebastian, and Yuridia. I wake up from dreams in Spanish. I have created a safe identity that incorporates my heritage and honors my lived experience. I don’t want it any other way. The House on Mango Street saw me before I could see myself.

Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and I have dedicated my entire career to helping people. I have only ever wanted to assist individuals in learning to regulate their emotions and improve their quality of life through the mental health services I can provide. I continue to learn and apply what I learn in my therapy sessions because I want to provide evidence-based therapy for everyone who enters my therapy room. I am committed to helping our society by reaching the couples and individuals who come to me for support. I am in service to society as my purpose. With my new discipline, I am extending this purpose to the larger public, as my book applies to the general population and to other global societies with constitutions. I want people to recognize that the relationship they maintain with their government functions similarly to attachment styles normally seen between individuals and their caretakers. This is based on the premise that the government asks us to engage in a relationship with it in which it will protect us and provide us with rights. When our government betrays us and violates this sacred relationship, we are unable to feel safe. That is the fundamental premise of my discipline.

Another significant contribution of my book is that it aims to advance civic emotional literacy. I help teach readers how their emotional responses to political events are not random or irrational, but instead are rooted in attachment dynamics with the government. When people can understand why they feel fear, betrayal, anger, or hopelessness, they can respond with clarity rather than reactivity. This helps strengthen civic engagement, improves public discourse, and empowers individuals to participate in democracy with emotional intelligence rather than with distress.

Additionally, I want people to know that beyond this, we can achieve repair and heal from this insecure relationship with our government. The framework offers collective healing and repair. I outline how society can move from insecure attachment to earned security with their government through acknowledgement, accountability, constitutional protections, and relational repair. This framework gives individuals, communities, and policymakers a roadmap for addressing the unresolved harms that continue to destabilize our civic life. My goal is to show that repair is possible — not just theoretically, but practically. I provide hope.

Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?

One of the most interesting stories I share in my book is the one that was most important for developing my framework. It is the moment I realized that the relationships we keep with our government mirror the attachment styles we develop with our caregivers. This insight came from years of working with individuals and couples in therapy who discussed their fears, betrayals, hopes, and longings. These fears were emotional patterns that were also present in how people in my sessions talked about their rights, their safety, and their government.

For example, in the book, I describe a session where a client expressed feeling “abandoned” by their government after a policy change directly harmed their family. The language they used — feeling abandoned, betrayed, fearful — was identical to what I hear when someone is describing an attachment rupture with a parent. This showed me that the emotional injuries we experience at the civic level are not abstract; they are deeply personal and relational. This story helped me understand how our constitutional rights are not just legal protections — they are emotional promises. When these promises are broken, we experience real psychological harm. Sharing this story in the book helps readers understand why civic distress feels so intimate and why healing requires both constitutional repair and emotional repair.

What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?

The series of events were directly tied to the rights being overturned by the Supreme Court, the racism and ongoing rise in racism since Donald Trump has continued in office. It is also due to the failure of the Democratic party to address the fears and failures during the Biden Presidency prior to Donald Trump taking power again. Other events include the brutality displayed by the ICE agents toward citizens and immigrants, the disregard and will of the people denouncing the genocide of Palestinians, and the ongoing atrocious war in Iran. The list does actually go on and on. All of these and more highlight keenly the need for a framework like mine to provide understanding and hope during a time of great harm to our society and societies around the world.

I observed people and communities struggle to make sense of these government failures, rights violations and political instability. Session after session, I saw how ordinary people were emotionally breaking under the weight of this civic harm. Clients who had never discussed politics in therapy were suddenly coming in with panic attacks after rights were being overturned, grief after witnessing the violence against other humans, and profound fear about the future of their families. I realized that people were experiencing constitutional trauma, not in an abstract political sense, but in a deeply personal psychological way. Their emotional language mirrored attachment ruptures: abandonment, betrayal, insecurity, fear, hopelessness.

Seeing this pattern across clients of different backgrounds made it clear that our society lacked a framework to explain this pain. That was the moment I understood that my discipline needed to exist beyond the therapy room. People needed language, validation, and a roadmap for healing. That realization pushed me to bring my message to the greater world.

Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?

In my therapy framework, I work through the lens of attachment theory, specifically utilizing Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, as I also work with couples. This lens has allowed me to observe the attachment fears people discuss in our therapy sessions. There was one moment that has stayed with me over the years. In a therapy session, a client described feeling “constantly on edge” every time a new policy was announced. They shared that they felt like they were “waiting for a parent to explode,” even though the issue we were discussing was related to politics.

They were naturally describing attachment fear, but directed toward the government. They were talking about betrayal, abandonment, and insecurity in the same emotional language used when discussing ruptures with caregivers. This was long before I had named my discipline, but it was a moment when I realized that people were already living the framework. They were experiencing civic harm as relational harm. That client helped me see that the emotional reality existed even if the discipline did not yet have a name.

This experience affirmed that the world needed a language for this and that I needed to bring it forward.

Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?

One of the most important things society and our political institutions can do is commit to rituals of naming and rebuilding. My discipline shows that repair begins with the courage to name what was harmed. Communities need shared practices that acknowledge truth without denial, because naming is the first step toward integration and constitutional healing.

Second, we need rituals of witnessing and mourning. When harm goes unnamed or unseen, people experience constitutional abandonment. Collective witnessing restores visibility, and collective mourning transforms chaos into coherence. These rituals are not symbolic — they regulate our nervous systems, rebuild belonging, and help us metabolize civic trauma.

Finally, we need rituals of rebuilding, both locally and nationally. Local rituals restore community identity; national rituals restore constitutional identity. Without them, our democracy lacks emotional infrastructure. With them, we create the conditions for repair, coherence, and a future rooted in truth rather than reenacted wounds.

These three practices — naming, witnessing/mourning, and rebuilding — are essential for addressing the root problem my discipline identifies: a nation that has never emotionally processed its constitutional ruptures. Rituals give us a path forward.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

I define leadership as the ability to lead others through vision, dignity, compassion, and humanity. For me, it requires a constant willingness to become introspective about what you don’t know, to be willing to unlearn your bias, to address your ignorance as it becomes known to you, and to be accountable to those you serve.

An example of leadership, from my perspective, is Ms. Angela Davis. I have often found myself thinking about her and being in awe of her life. She is an incredible human being whom I look up to, someone who has endured cruelty and injustice at the hands of this government. Despite all of the racism she has experienced, she continues to contribute to communities that are better served because of her. She continues to be an amazing professor, advocating for noble causes. She is an admirable and respectable person, and I feel so lucky to know she exists in this world at the same time that I do. When I think of her, I am reminded of the resiliency and leadership role she has taken on to teach the world — and the United States in particular — about itself. She is courageous and a thought leader I aspire one day to be like. I feel such debt to her for showing us how to lead by example.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

There are always wiser people than myself, and I am grateful that I have so many people to look up to who offer advice and meaningful support. Still, when I first started out, I wish I had been told the following.

1. Growing up can take longer than we think!

We are learning now that our brains are not fully in adult mode until our 30s, and throughout all of my 20s I believed I was fully grown and supposed to carry forward as if I were in control of my future. I wish I had been told that while it’s important to begin your professional education and start your career, it’s okay to not have everything figured out. Too much anxiety was created by feeling the pressure to grow up fast, especially now that science is catching up to the fact that we may need more support and grace as we grow into adulthood.

2. That I’m allowed to feel joy before my life feels stable.

I wish someone had told me that joy can be found in your day-to-day, even when you’re struggling to survive. For the majority of my 20s, my experience was that I would feel anxious when attempting to enjoy myself as I was building a stable life. It was often the case that I felt stressed trying to enjoy myself when so much of my future was uncertain. I wish someone had told me to slow down and breathe, and that I could still find joy in the ordinary parts of life.

3. That I don’t have to deserve rest.

I wish someone had told me that rest is not a reward. As a Social Worker, I find myself telling my clients a version of this. For someone with a traumatic childhood like mine, I find it difficult to practice. I struggle because I was conditioned to believe the opposite — that I must be constantly and incessantly productive to merit rest. It has taken so long to unlearn this, and I still struggle, but I know now that it is essential if I want to create the emotional capacity to engage with life.

4. That there is always time to grow into a better version of myself.

I wish someone had told me that there is always time to reinvent yourself, as I have in my 30s. I’m finding myself constantly learning how to slow down and how to grow in ways that are meaningful for becoming a better human. I had a false sense that by my 30s I should be fully realized and that my identity would be fixed. That has not been my experience. I am always astounded by my ability to expand and grow, not for the sake of improving or seeking perfection, but because it’s important that I learn to be a good human.

5. That finding my people can change everything.

I wish someone had told me that community is not optional. I am notoriously an introvert, but I come to life with the right people. I value my inner peace and harmony above chaos and dysfunction. I have had difficulty finding my people over the years, and as a result, I’ve struggled with loneliness. Still, I’m grateful I never gave up, because I’m only now beginning to forge a community that is nurturing and supportive. I feel more connected, less lonely, and invigorated to keep showing up for them as well. It makes all the difference to find your people — the ones with whom you can be yourself and feel loved and supported.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Rupi Kaur, another influence in my life, has said, “What is stronger than the human heart which shatters over and over and still lives.” I love this quote so much because it embodies many of us. It is, at the heart — pun intended — my story. With all my childhood trauma that shapes who I am, my heart has never given up on me. More and more these days, I find myself feeling more hopeful about the rest of my life, feeling optimistic because there is so much more life to experience and to metabolize. I want to soak it all in; no matter what future challenges arise, I want to experience it all. I have better tools, a hearty support network, and a zeal for experiencing more than I ever had before. I have found, time and time again, a reason to repair and heal. And as Rupi Kaur also notes, “you do not just wake up and become a butterfly — growth is a process.” I’m in process.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

This is a very difficult question because I have a hard time choosing just one — there are many. An individual I look up to and am grateful to exist in the same timeline is Ibram X. Kendi. He is a remarkable human being and leader. His work on antiracism and founding the Center for Antiracist Research inspires me to keep doing the work I am doing. Someone like him, with all his life experiences — being a public intellectual, professor, writer, and founder — shows incredible leadership. Through his example, I am inspired to be accountable for offering my skills and knowledge to make this country and the world a better and safer place for humanity.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Website: Constitutional Psychology

Email: constitutionalpsychology@gmail.com

Instagram: Angelica Garcia (@constitutionalpsychology)

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/angelica-garcia-18b62629a

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!