About Annelisa
Annelisa MacBean, Ph.D.
Founder of Fluid Intimacy™
"Creating a pause between stimulus and response . . . enables Fluid Intimacy™."
Annelisa MacBean, Ph.D., is a globally recognized leader in relationship transformation. With more than 35 years of therapeutic consulting experience, she has helped thousands around the world move from emotional chaos to deep connection.
Annelisa holds a Doctorate in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology, grounding her work in a deep understanding of early relational imprinting and lifespan development. Her clinical and theoretical training is extensive and integrative. She is certified in:
Clinical Hypnotherapy
Hakomi
Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Bert Hellinger's Constellations
Somatic Psychotherapy
Systems Theory
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Asten Patterning / Massage Therapy
Death Doula
This diverse foundation allows Annelisa to move fluidly between attachment theory, nervous system regulation, early developmental trauma, and relational systems dynamics, always bringing the focus back to embodied experience.
Driven by a deep belief that human connection is our most vital regulator, Annelisa’s work sits at the intersection of attachment theory, emotional regulation, and somatic awareness. She has dedicated her career to illuminating how early patterns shape adult relational experiences, not as fixed destinies, but as adaptive structures that can be reorganized through awareness, regulation, and relational courage.
Annelisa’s approach rejects simplistic fix-it formulas. Instead, she offers a relational architecture rooted in felt experience: a way of engaging ourselves and others that is grounded in science and alive to nuance. Fluid Intimacy™ invites individuals and partners to slow down, tune inward, and recognize the interplay between sensation, story, and nervous system states. From this awareness, reactivity softens, accountability deepens, and intimacy becomes sustainable.
Her teaching is clear, precise, and deeply humane. She honors the complexity of human experience without collapsing it into jargon, cultivating understanding that is both accessible and transformative.
Annelisa’s work has influenced therapists, coaches, couples, business leaders and individuals seeking a grounded framework for relationship repair and growth. Whether navigating high-conflict moments, life transitions, or the quiet erosions of disconnection, her guidance emphasizes:
Embodied self-awareness before defensiveness
Regulation before resolution
Curiosity before correction
Connection before content
She does not merely teach relational change. She models it through depth, presence, and the willingness to stay with what is alive in the moment.