What I help with
Attachment
When closeness feels both necessary and unsafe.
What it can feel like
You might find yourself anxious when someone you care about pulls back even slightly, reading into every delayed reply and needing reassurance that things are okay. Or the opposite: as soon as someone gets close, you feel an urge to create distance, pick at their flaws, or keep a foot out the door.
Some people experience both, depending on the relationship. It can be confusing and painful to want connection deeply and still feel that it isn't safe — or to watch yourself undermine something good without quite knowing why.
What's happening underneath
Attachment theory describes how our earliest relationships shape our expectations of others: whether people will be there when we need them, and whether it's safe to depend on them. If care was inconsistent, conditional, or unavailable, we adapt — by becoming hyper-attuned to signs of abandonment, or by learning to rely on ourselves and keep needs hidden.
These patterns aren't flaws or fixed personality types. They're strategies that once helped you stay connected or stay safe. And attachment patterns can shift over time, particularly through relationships — including the therapeutic one — that feel consistent and trustworthy.
How therapy can help
Because attachment is about relationships, the relationship we build in therapy matters a great deal. Over time, it can become a place to notice your patterns as they happen, understand where they came from, and practise something different in a setting that is steady and non-judgmental.
Approaches we might draw on
- Parts WorkConnecting with the younger parts of you that learned closeness wasn't safe, and offering them what they didn't get.
- Narrative TherapyUnderstanding your relationship history as a story that can still change, rather than a verdict.
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)Skills for managing the intense emotions that closeness and distance can trigger.
Want to talk about what you're going through?
A free 20-minute consultation is a chance to share a little about what's going on and ask any questions — with no obligation to continue.