Specialist evidence-based therapy to help you understand patterns of closeness, trust and connection, and develop relationships with greater security, flexibility and choice.
Relationships can be some of the greatest sources of connection, comfort and belonging in our lives. They can also bring uncertainty, vulnerability and experiences that affect us deeply.
Perhaps you worry that people will leave, find yourself needing reassurance or become particularly sensitive to changes in somebody’s mood or availability. You might want closeness whilst finding vulnerability uncomfortable, struggle to ask for help or feel much safer relying on yourself. Or perhaps your relationships seem to follow patterns you don’t fully understand. It can be tempting to explain these experiences by deciding that you’re anxiously attached, avoidantly attached or have a particular attachment style.
Those ideas can sometimes provide useful language, but people and relationships are considerably more complicated than a category. How we relate to others can be influenced by earlier relationships, experiences of trust and loss, temperament, culture, neurodivergence, current circumstances and the particular person we’re relating to.
Therapy therefore isn’t about identifying your attachment type. It’s about understanding what happens for you in relationships, what influences those patterns and whether they still allow the closeness, independence and connection you want.
Understanding Attachment Difficulties
Attachment describes something fundamentally human: how relationships and experiences of care contribute to the ways we approach closeness, connection and support.
But attachment isn’t a personality test. You may feel comfortable depending on one person whilst finding it extremely difficult with somebody else. You might become more reassurance-seeking during periods of stress but generally feel secure in relationships. You may be emotionally open with friends whilst finding romantic relationships much more vulnerable. And importantly, how you respond doesn’t exist independently of how the other person behaves.
Feeling uncertain with somebody inconsistent doesn’t necessarily mean you have an anxious attachment style. Finding vulnerability difficult after somebody has repeatedly broken your trust isn’t automatically avoidance. The mind may begin asking:
Earlier relationships can certainly influence these questions. Repeated experiences of inconsistency, rejection, criticism, emotional unavailability or having to manage things alone may shape what we expect from relationships later.
But there isn’t always one developmental explanation. Neurodivergence can influence communication, sensory and emotional needs, experiences of rejection or misunderstanding and how much social interaction costs. Culture and family can shape expectations around independence, closeness, emotional expression and responsibility. Previous adult relationships can change what feels safe too. Sometimes the current relationship itself is the most important context.
Rather than deciding what your attachment style is, therapy helps us understand when particular patterns appear, what they seem to be responding to and what they are trying to achieve.
How Attachment Difficulties Can Affect Everyday Life
Relationship patterns can affect much more than romantic relationships. They can influence friendships, family relationships, parenting, work, intimacy and how comfortable we feel depending on or being depended upon by others. You might notice:
- Fear of rejection or abandonment, becoming particularly alert to signs that somebody may be pulling away.
- Reassurance-seeking, needing repeated confirmation that the relationship is okay.
- Monitoring relationships, noticing changes in messages, tone, affection or behaviour and wondering what they mean.
- Difficulty trusting, expecting disappointment even when part of you wants to rely on somebody.
- Difficulty expressing needs, worrying that needing something will make you demanding or vulnerable.
- Emotional distance, keeping parts of yourself private even in relationships that matter to you.
- Strong independence, finding it much easier to support others than to depend on them yourself.
- Sensitivity to conflict, experiencing disagreement as particularly threatening to the relationship.
- People-pleasing, adapting yourself to reduce the possibility of rejection or disapproval.
- Withdrawing, needing distance when closeness, conflict or emotion becomes overwhelming.
- Difficulty tolerating uncertainty, wanting to know exactly where you stand with somebody.
- Feeling torn between closeness and distance, wanting connection but becoming uncomfortable when it arrives.
Sometimes these patterns appear consistently. Sometimes they emerge only within particular relationships or circumstances. That distinction matters. If something changes dramatically depending on who you’re with, how they treat you and what is happening in your life, the explanation may lie partly in the relationship rather than solely within you.
What Can Keep Attachment Difficulties Going?
Relationship patterns can become self-reinforcing because the things we do to protect ourselves can sometimes limit opportunities to experience something different.
Imagine somebody important to you seems quieter than usual. If previous experiences have made distance particularly significant, you may quickly wonder whether something is wrong. Seeking reassurance can bring immediate relief when they tell you everything is fine. But because reassurance resolved the uncertainty, you may have less opportunity to discover whether you could tolerate not knowing immediately and whether the relationship would remain intact anyway.
For somebody else, closeness itself may feel uncomfortable. Pulling away restores a sense of independence and control, but may also mean they never discover what it would be like to remain connected whilst vulnerable.
None of this means the solution is simply to stop seeking reassurance or force yourself to trust people. Sometimes somebody is withdrawing. Sometimes trust has been broken. Sometimes distance is appropriate.
Therapy helps distinguish between what earlier expectations are bringing into the relationship and what the relationship in front of you is genuinely showing you.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy begins by developing a shared understanding of the relationship patterns that continue to influence your life today. Rather than asking “What attachment style do I have?”, we’ll explore how your experiences have shaped the expectations you hold about yourself, other people and relationships.
Because no two people develop these patterns in the same way, therapy is always tailored to your individual formulation. Together, we’ll explore what your relationships have taught you about trust, closeness, vulnerability, conflict and emotional safety, whilst identifying the strengths that have helped you navigate those experiences.
Depending on your formulation, we may integrate Schema Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), EMDR, where earlier experiences continue to influence present relationships, and elements of Integrative Psychotherapy. Throughout therapy, we work collaboratively and at a pace that feels safe.
The aim isn’t to become securely attached overnight or to fit into a particular category. It’s to help you develop relationships where trust, closeness, independence and vulnerability become guided by choice rather than by old expectations or survival strategies.
Common Misconceptions About Attachment Difficulties
“Attachment difficulties mean something went wrong in childhood.”
Not necessarily.
Early relationships can influence how we learn about closeness, trust, dependence and emotional safety, but attachment patterns are shaped across our lives.
Later relationships, loss, betrayal, trauma, neurodivergence, culture and other experiences can all influence how we relate to other people.
Therapy doesn’t begin by assuming that everything leads back to childhood.
“There is one healthy way to attach to other people.”
No. People differ in how much closeness, independence, reassurance, emotional expression and time alone they prefer.
Culture matters too. Some cultures place greater emphasis on independence, whilst others value interdependence, family and collective responsibility.
Therapy isn’t about moving everybody towards the same model of relationships. We’re interested in whether your patterns give you enough flexibility and allow you to have the relationships you want.
“If I need reassurance, I’m too dependent.”
Wanting reassurance, comfort or support from other people is part of being human.
The question is less about whether you ever need reassurance and more about what happens when reassurance isn’t immediately available, how much you need before you can feel settled and whether seeking it is creating difficulties for you or your relationships.
“Being independent means I have secure attachment.”
Not necessarily. Independence can be a genuine preference and strength.
But sometimes “I don’t need anyone” develops because needing people has previously felt disappointing, unpredictable, unsafe or uncomfortable.
Therapy doesn’t try to make independent people more dependent. It helps us understand whether independence feels chosen or necessary.
“If I pull away from people, I must be avoidantly attached.”
Not automatically. People withdraw for many reasons.
You might need time to process, feel overwhelmed by conflict, experience sensory or social overload, value privacy, have learned to protect yourself in relationships or simply need more space than somebody else does.
A behaviour alone doesn’t tell us what it means. Context does.
“Attachment style is part of my personality and can’t change.”
Attachment patterns aren’t fixed personality types.
The ways we relate to people can vary across relationships and circumstances, and they can change through new experiences, greater awareness and relationships in which different responses become possible.
The aim isn’t necessarily to replace one attachment “style” with another. It’s to develop greater flexibility and choice.
“Good relationships shouldn’t trigger attachment difficulties.”
Even safe and caring relationships can bring vulnerability.
In fact, sometimes closeness makes attachment-related fears more noticeable, because there is something meaningful to lose.
Feeling activated within a relationship doesn’t automatically mean the relationship is unhealthy.
Equally, therapy shouldn’t assume that every difficulty is an attachment response when there may be genuine problems within the relationship itself.
“Therapy will teach me to trust people.”
Not indiscriminately.
Trust isn’t something everybody automatically deserves.
Therapy can help you distinguish between current evidence, previous learning and understandable protective responses, so that decisions about closeness and trust become more flexible rather than automatic.
The aim isn’t to trust everyone.
It’s to become better able to decide who feels trustworthy, how much and when.
Food For Thought
What might become possible in your relationships if closeness didn’t require you to choose between connection and being fully yourself?
A Note from Agi
One thing I’m particularly mindful of when talking about attachment is how quickly useful psychological ideas can turn into labels.
People arrive having read that they’re anxious, avoidant or disorganised and sometimes begin interpreting almost everything they do in relationships through that category. I think we lose something important when we do that.
People can be independent and still deeply connected. They can need reassurance sometimes without being “needy”. They can find one relationship incredibly secure and another profoundly unsettling. And sometimes feeling uncertain around somebody tells us something important about that relationship, not simply about our attachment history.
I’m much more interested in understanding the pattern than naming it. What happens when somebody becomes important to you? What makes trust easier or harder? What happens during conflict? What do you need from other people, and how easy is it to let them know? What changes depending on who you’re with? Those questions give us something much richer to work with.
My role isn’t to move you from one attachment category into another. It’s to help you understand your own ways of connecting well enough that relationships can contain closeness, independence, difference and vulnerability without you having to lose yourself in any of them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are attachment difficulties?
Attachment difficulties is a broad term describing patterns involving closeness, trust, dependence, reassurance, vulnerability, boundaries or emotional connection within relationships.
You might worry intensely about people leaving, find it difficult to depend on others, withdraw when relationships become close or move between wanting connection and needing distance.
These experiences aren’t all the same, which is why therapy focuses on understanding your individual relationship patterns rather than simply assigning an attachment label.
Do I need to know my attachment style before starting therapy?
No.
You don’t need to identify yourself as securely, anxiously, avoidantly or disorganised attached before therapy can be useful.
Attachment frameworks can sometimes provide helpful language, but people are usually more complex than a single category.
We’ll focus on what happens in your relationships, what those responses mean for you and what appears to shape them.
Are attachment difficulties always caused by parents?
No.
Early caregiving relationships may be relevant for some people, but they aren’t the only influence.
Friendships, romantic relationships, bullying, loss, betrayal, trauma, culture, neurodivergence and later experiences can all shape expectations around closeness and trust.
We explore your history without deciding in advance where the explanation must be found.
Can attachment patterns be different in different relationships?
Yes.
You may feel relatively secure within friendships but much more anxious in romantic relationships, or comfortable depending on one person whilst finding vulnerability difficult elsewhere.
Different relationships can activate different expectations and experiences.
This is another reason attachment is often more useful as a framework for understanding patterns than as a fixed description of who you are.
Can neurodivergence affect relationships in ways that look like attachment difficulties?
Yes.
Autism and ADHD can influence communication, emotional regulation, sensory needs, rejection sensitivity, processing time, social energy and preferences around closeness or space.
For example, needing time alone after social interaction doesn’t automatically indicate emotional avoidance.
Therapy therefore considers neurodivergence alongside attachment rather than interpreting every relationship difference through an attachment framework.
Can attachment difficulties affect romantic relationships?
They can, but attachment patterns aren’t limited to romantic relationships.
They may also appear within friendships, family relationships, parenting, therapeutic relationships or other emotionally significant connections.
Understanding where a pattern appears, and where it doesn’t, can help us make sense of what might be happening.
Can attachment difficulties develop after a difficult adult relationship?
Yes.
Experiences of betrayal, abandonment, coercion, loss, unpredictability or other relational difficulties in adulthood can influence how safe closeness feels in later relationships.
We don’t need to assume that every current relationship response originated in childhood.
How can therapy help with attachment difficulties?
Therapy can help you understand what happens when closeness, vulnerability, conflict, separation or dependence becomes emotionally significant.
Depending on your formulation, we may explore relationship patterns, emotional responses, beliefs about yourself and other people, boundaries, communication or earlier experiences that continue to influence current relationships.
The aim isn’t to make you more dependent or independent. It’s to develop greater flexibility in how you relate to yourself and other people.
Do I need to be in a relationship for therapy to help?
No.
Relationship patterns can be explored whether you’re single, dating, in a relationship or not currently interested in one.
Sometimes being outside a relationship can actually provide useful space to understand previous patterns and consider what you might want from future relationships.
Is attachment therapy the same as couples therapy?
No.
Individual therapy focuses on your experiences, patterns and responses within relationships.
We can explore difficulties involving partners and relationships, but the work isn’t couples therapy and I’m not assessing or treating the other person through your individual sessions.
Can therapy be delivered online?
Yes. Many psychological therapies can be delivered effectively online, depending on the individual and the type of therapy being offered.
I provide online therapy across the UK, as well as working internationally where appropriate and where professional and regulatory requirements allow. For people who prefer face-to-face therapy, I offer in-person appointments in Menai Bridge, Anglesey and Llandudno, Conwy, North Wales.
During the initial assessment, we can consider whether online or in-person therapy is the best fit and discuss any practical or clinical factors that may influence how therapy is delivered.
How Do We Start?
If relationships repeatedly leave you feeling anxious, distant, uncertain or caught between wanting closeness and protecting yourself from it, you’re welcome to book a free 15-minute discovery call.
You don’t need to know your attachment style or understand where these patterns came from.
We’ll begin by exploring what happens in your relationships, when particular difficulties appear and what seems to influence how you respond. Earlier experiences can be important, but we’ll also consider your current relationships, neurodivergence, culture, identity and wider circumstances where relevant.
From there, we’ll develop a shared formulation and consider which therapeutic approach makes sense.
The aim isn’t to become a different kind of person in relationships. It’s to have more freedom to choose how you connect, trust, depend on others and remain yourself within them.
If You Only Take One Thing Away…
Attachment isn’t a fixed category that tells you who you are in relationships. The ways we connect are shaped by many experiences and can look different with different people. Understanding those patterns can create more choice about when to move closer, when to protect yourself, when to trust and how to remain yourself whilst connected to somebody else.