Being abandoned hurts. In the moment, it can feel like you can’t breathe and that life is about to end. And then comes the painful sensations that ripple through the body and fill you with paralyzing panic.

When this happens to a client, they can become fearful of ever experiencing abandonment again. Problem is, they can then develop harmful coping strategies that not only create more pain, but put them at even greater risk of being rejected.

So how do we work with the desperate behavior and hyper-reactivity that can make abandonment a self-fulfilling prophecy?

We turned to the world’s 26 top experts to hear how they work with clients who have been abandoned. Here are the latest strategies that you can start using in your work today.