Understanding attachment

Attachment is about the relationships and experiences through which we first learn about safety, trust, closeness and what to expect from other people. When our early relationships are safe and reasonably consistent, we have more opportunity to develop a sense that other people can be relied upon and that our own needs and feelings are manageable.

When relationships have been frightening, inconsistent, unavailable or difficult, we may develop ways of protecting ourselves that were important at the time but can continue long after the original situation has passed.
These patterns aren't signs that there is something wrong with you. They are often understandable responses to what you have experienced.

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How can attachment experiences affect us?

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Attachment patterns can show themselves in many different ways. You may notice that you:

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• Find it difficult to trust people

• Worry about being rejected or abandoned

• Become anxious when somebody feels distant

• Find closeness uncomfortable or overwhelming

• Put other people's needs before your own

• Struggle to ask for help or depend on anybody

• Repeatedly find yourself in similar relationship patterns

• Become very sensitive to criticism or changes in another person's mood

• Feel responsible for keeping relationships safe

• Shut down, withdraw or push people away when emotions become intense

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For children and young people, attachment difficulties may appear through behaviour, emotional dysregulation, difficulty accepting comfort, controlling behaviour or difficulties within relationships. Rather than simply asking, “What's wrong with you?”, attachment-informed therapy helps us become curious about “What happened, what did you learn from it, and how did you learn to protect yourself?”

 

How can attachment therapy help?

Attachment therapy isn't about blaming parents or spending every session talking about childhood. It is about understanding how your experiences may have shaped the way you learned to relate to yourself and other people, and noticing whether those old ways of protecting yourself are still needed now.

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For adults, our work may involve exploring relationship patterns, boundaries, trust, self-worth, emotional regulation and the parts of you that learned particular ways of coping.

For children and young people, the work may involve helping them develop greater safety within relationships, understand and regulate emotions and experience adults as more predictable and trustworthy.

The therapeutic relationship itself is an important part of attachment work. Feeling safe enough to be honest, disagree, get things wrong and still remain connected can become part of the work rather than something separate from it.

 

My approach to attachment work

Attachment and trauma are particular areas of experience within my practice and have informed much of my work over many years. I work integratively, which means attachment isn't treated as a separate technique or programme. Instead, an understanding of attachment can help us make sense of what is happening for you and guide the way we work together.

I offer attachment-informed therapy to adults and young people from my practice in Stockton-on-Tees, as well as online therapy where appropriate. If you recognise yourself or somebody you care about in some of what you have read here, you don't need to know which attachment style you have before getting in touch. We can begin by understanding you, rather than trying to fit you into a label.