Attached Together is a podcast exploring attachment theory, attachment styles, and psychotherapy in clinical practice.
Created by the therapists and tutors at Optima Health Services, this podcast is for counsellors, psychotherapists, and mental health professionals who want grounded, thoughtful conversations about attachment, trauma, relationships, and everyday therapeutic work.
Each episode examines how attachment shapes the way we love, cope, regulate, and connect - both in our personal lives and in the therapy room. Expect practical insights, reflective discussion, and training-level knowledge that bridges theory and practice without unnecessary jargon.
Listeners can also receive a CPD certificate for each episode, making it easy to integrate ongoing professional development into your week while deepening your understanding of attachment-informed practice.
Whether you’re working with anxious, avoidant, or disorganised attachment, supporting couples, or strengthening your clinical formulation skills, Attached Together offers thoughtful, experience-based conversations rooted in real therapeutic work.
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In this episode of Attach Together, Darren is joined by Jo Oxley (founder of Optima) to unpack one of the most important concepts in attachment-informed practice: internal working models (also called inner working models).
Jo explains models are formed and become an unconscious “blueprint” for how we experience ourselves, other people, and relationships. With a wonderfully accessible metaphor (yes, Inside Out makes an appearance), They explore how secure beginnings can build a sense of worth and safety, and how inconsistent or emotionally unavailable care can lead to avoidant or preoccupied strategies in later life.
They discuss why shame and fear often sit underneath insecure attachment patterns, and how therapy supports change by building new relational experiences - creating “new pathways” that can gradually replace old default routes.
This episode is a grounded, practical listen for counsellors, psychotherapists, trainees, and anyone wanting to understand how attachment patterns show up in real life -and how they can be updated.
Takeaways
What are Internal Working Models? Understand models as unconscious templates formed through attachment experiences -shaping expectations of self, other, and relationship.
Secure vs Insecure: How Early Experiences Become a Blueprint Explore how attuned caregiving tends to support confidence and exploration, and how emotional unavailability or inconsistency can shape threat-based expectations.
Avoidant Strategies: “I’ll Cope on My Own” How avoidant patterns develop as a protective strategy when care is unreliable, and why shame can sit underneath self-reliance.
Preoccupied Strategies: Fear, Hypervigilance, and Reassurance-Seeking Understand inconsistency fuels uncertainty and alarm, often leading to clinging, protest, and push–pull relational dynamics.
How Therapy Helps Update IWM Why change happens in relationship — and how repeated new experiences can build new neural pathways (the “new path through the woods” idea).
Therapist Dilemma: When a Client is Distressed by Friendship Breakdown A short reflection on working with relational rupture, meaning-making, and bringing patterns into awareness through the body and the therapeutic relationship.
If You Found This Episode Helpful…
If this episode supported your practice or your learning, please follow the podcast and share it with a colleague or fellow trainee who enjoys attachment-informed conversations.
There is a CPD reflection pack available if you would like this please click this link and we will send you all the resources including, reflective questions, 3 things to try in your practice and insights.
Trailer
Sunday, February 22, 2026 • Duration 00:50
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Avoidant Attachment in Therapy: Defences, Distance & Building Secure Connection
In this episode of Attach Together, we explore one of the most misunderstood attachment styles: avoidant attachment.
What does avoidant attachment really mean from an attachment theory perspective? How does it show up in the therapy room? And how can therapists build connection without overwhelming clients who experience closeness as unsafe?
Darren and Georgina unpack:
How avoidant attachment develops in early caregiving environments
Why “independence” can actually be compulsive self-reliance
The emotional cost of being praised for stoicism
What therapists feel in the room (countertransference clues)
Humour, intellectualising and distance as protective strategies
How to work slowly and relationally to build safety
When boundary-testing may signal growth, not resistance
Drawing on attachment theory, relational practice and insights from John Bowlby and Stan Tatkin, this episode offers grounded, practical reflections for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and trainees.
If you’ve ever felt deskilled, distanced or unsure how to “reach” an avoidant client - this conversation will reassure and guide you.
🔎 What You’ll Learn
What Avoidant Attachment Really Is Not procrastination. Not laziness. But a protective relational strategy shaped by early experiences where emotions felt unsafe or unwelcome.
Clues in the Therapy Room Flat affect, humour, intellectualising, minimising, brief communication - and the therapist’s own felt sense of distance.
Why We Must Go Slowly Building safety may mean resisting the urge to “go to feelings” too quickly.
Compulsive Self-Reliance vs True Independence How attachment patterns are reinforced by societal praise - and the hidden emotional cost.
In this episode of Attach Together - the attachment theory podcast for counsellors and psychotherapists, we explore anxious ambivalent attachment, often described as preoccupied attachment.
We explore how anxious ambivalent attachment develops, how it appears in adult relationships, and how therapists can support clients experiencing intense relational anxiety, reassurance seeking and fear of abandonment.
Host Darren, BACP-accredited counsellor and attachment-based psychotherapist, is joined by Uruj Anjum, BACP-accredited psychotherapist, supervisor and lecturer in attachment-based psychotherapy at Optima.
Together, they unpack:
• What preoccupied attachment means beyond the stereotype • How inconsistent caregiving shapes anxious ambivalent attachment • Why reassurance seeking and overthinking often appear in relationships • The nervous system dynamics beneath attachment anxiety • Why preoccupied clients are often drawn to therapy • The therapeutic task of slowing emotional overwhelm • Boundary management with reassurance-seeking clients • Understanding the “doorknob confession” through an attachment lens
🔎What You'll Learn
Preoccupied attachment is protection, not pathology
Clients with anxious attachment styles often developed sophisticated strategies in childhood to maintain closeness with unpredictable caregivers.
Understanding Disorganised Attachment in Relationships, Trauma & Attachment-Informed Therapy
Disorganised attachment is one of the most complex and misunderstood attachment styles in attachment theory.
In this episode of Attach Together, Darren is joined by counsellor and attachment-based psychotherapist Gav McKee to explore how disorganised attachment develops, how it shapes adult relationships, and how therapists can work safely and effectively with clients who carry unresolved attachment trauma.
For therapists working with trauma, personality disorder presentations, complex PTSD, or dissociation, understanding this attachment style is essential.
This conversation explores the clinical realities of working with unresolved attachment in therapy, including relational dynamics, emotional dysregulation, dissociation, and the importance of pacing and safety.
🔎What You'll Learn
• What disorganised attachment is and how it develops • The research of Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main and Judith Solomon • The concept of fright without solution in attachment theory • How trauma can be transmitted across generations • Why disorganised attachment often appears alongside complex PTSD • The push-pull dynamic often seen in adult relationships • Emotional flooding, dissociation and shame in attachment trauma • Why safety and stabilisation must come before trauma processing • How therapists can become a consistent and regulating relational presence
Clinical Takeaways for Therapists
• Disorganised attachment often originates when the caregiver is both comfort and threat • Clients may experience intense approach-avoid patterns in relationships • Emotional dysregulation and dissociation are common presentations• Therapy must prioritise relational safety before trauma processing• The therapeutic relationship itself becomes a corrective attachment experience
How do attachment relationships shape the development of theory of mind?
In this episode of Attach Together - an attachment theory podcast for therapists, Darren and Jo explore the relationship between attachment theory, theory of mind, emotional regulation and relational development.
Theory of mind - sometimes called mentalisation - is the ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, feelings, beliefs and intentions.
Through an attachment lens, this capacity develops within secure caregiving relationships. When caregivers respond sensitively and reflectively, children begin to understand both their own mind and the minds of others.
But when early attachment experiences are marked by anxiety, disconnection or emotional overwhelm, this developmental process can be interrupted.
For therapists working with attachment styles and relational patterns, understanding theory of mind provides powerful insight into:
emotional regulation
relational misunderstandings
perspective taking
therapeutic stuckness
This conversation also explores how therapists can help clients develop theory of mind within the therapeutic relationship.
Jo shares practical clinical insights including Daniel Siegel’s hand-brain model, ways to bring the prefrontal cortex back online, and how calming the nervous system allows clients to think about minds more reflectively.
Attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships and therapy all shape how clients experience food, soothing and care. In this episode of Attach Together, Darren is joined by therapist, supervisor and Optima tutor Jo Oxley to explore attachment and disordered eating through an attachment-informed lens.
Attachment and disordered eating is not only about food choices. It can reflect early relational experiences around feeding, comfort, attunement, shame, reward, control and soothing. Jo explores how food may become more than nutrition: it can carry memories of care, absence, pressure, comfort, deprivation or emotional survival.
In this episode
Jo and Darren explore how feeding is one of the earliest attachment experiences we have, and how those moments can shape internal working models around safety, need, nurture and self-soothing. The conversation also considers how family dinner-table dynamics, emotional neglect, reward systems, and modern digital distractions may all influence a person’s relationship with food.
🔎What you’ll learn
How feeding becomes an early relational experience, not just a biological one
Why food can become linked to comfort, soothing and emotional survival
The role of family dinner-table dynamics in shaping later food patterns
Why food may function as a substitute attachment figure
The difference between disordered eating and a formal eating disorder
How shame, guilt, reward and self-denial can become entangled with eating
Whether different insecure attachment styles may relate differently to food
How therapists can work with clients who bring food into the therapy room
🕝 Chapters
00:00 Introduction 01:24 Why explore attachment and food? 03:00 Feeding as an early attachment experience 06:19 Family dinner tables and relational meaning 08:23 Phones, disconnection and food rituals 10:09 Food as soothing, reward and shame 12:16 Food addiction and emotional regulation 17:53 Which attachment styles are most affected? 20:35 Therapeutic takeaway for practitioners 23:25 Dilemma: client eating during the session28:21 Training opportunities at Optima31:47 Closing reflections
Common questions🎓Resources MentionedFREE CPD Certificate & Reflection Pack
Attachment Supervision for Therapists: Understanding Attachment Styles in Therapy & Professional Relationships
Attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships, and therapy all come together in this episode as we explore supervision through an attachment-informed lens. Rather than viewing supervision purely as a space for guidance and skill development, this conversation reframes it as a deeply relational process rooted in attachment dynamics.
Darren is joined by Georgina Sturmer, BACP-accredited psychotherapist, supervisor, and lecturer in attachment-based psychotherapy, to explore how supervision functions as both a secure base and safe haven for therapists.
🔎What You'll Learn1. Supervision as a Secure Base
Supervision provides a foundation for exploration and growth
Therapists need emotional safety to reflect honestly
Co-regulation enhances clinical thinking and presence
2. Attachment Styles in Supervision
Anxious (preoccupied) supervisees may seek reassurance
Avoidant (dismissive) supervisees may intellectualise and avoid emotional reflection
Secure supervision supports flexibility across all functions
3. The “Attachment Dance”
Dynamics between supervisor and supervisee mirror relational patterns
Group supervision introduces systemic attachment processes
Awareness reduces blind spots in clinical work
4. The Three Functions of Supervision Through an Attachment Lens
Restorative (emotional support)
Normative (ethical accountability)
Formative (learning and development) Attachment styles influence where therapists feel most comfortable.
🕝Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Attachment Supervision 02:00 Supervision as a Relational Space 03:45 Secure Base & Safe Haven in Supervision 06:00 Attachment Styles in Supervisees 09:00 The Attachment Dance in Supervision12:00 Avoidant vs Anxious Dynamics14:30 Choosing a Supervisor17:30 Listener Dilemma: Avoiding Challenges in Supervision20:00 Final Reflections
Common QuestionsFREE CPD Certificate & Reflection Pack
Attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships, and therapy are all deeply connected through the concept of mentalization in therapy. In this episode of Attach Together, Darren is joined by Joanne Kay, psychodynamic and attachment-based therapist and Level 5 trainer, to explore one of the most essential - and often misunderstood - processes in attachment-informed practice.
Mentalization in therapy refers to our ability to make sense of our own internal world while also holding the mind of another person. It is a foundational capacity that develops within early attachment relationships and directly impacts how clients engage in therapy, relationships, and emotional regulation.
🔎What You’ll Learn
What mentalization actually means in clinical practice
How mentalization develops through early attachment relationships
The difference between baseline (trait) and moment-to-moment (state) mentalizing
Why mentalization collapses under stress and dysregulation
The link between nervous system regulation and reflective capacity
How therapists can adopt a not-knowing stance
Recognising when certainty replaces curiosity in the therapy room
Working with “resistance” through a mentalizing lens
The role of supervision in restoring reflective thinking
🕝Chapters
00:00 Introduction 01:24 What is Mentalization? 03:09 Mentalization as Attachment Process 05:50 Not-Knowing Stance in Therapy 07:46 Development in Early Relationships 09:29 Trait vs State Mentalization 11:55 Regulation and Mentalizing 14:00 Ruptures in Therapy 16:54 Core Definition 18:46 Client “Resistance” Explored 21:05 Therapist Self-Reflection 23:05 Supervision and Mentalizing
Common Questions
What is mentalization in therapy?Mentalization in therapy is the ability to understand thoughts, feelings, and intentions in ourselves and others within relational contexts.
Attachment and Trauma in therapy: How Trauma and Attachment Show Up in the Counselling Room
Season 1 · Episode 9
Tuesday, April 21, 2026 • Duration 25:56
Attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships, and therapy are all central to this episode as Darren is joined by Gav, counsellor, tutor, and attachment-based psychotherapist, for a grounded conversation about the link between trauma and attachment in clinical practice.
This episode explores a vital idea for therapists: trauma is not only about what happened, but also about what did not happen - the safety, attunement, soothing, and protection that were missing when they were needed most. Together, Darren and Gav unpack how early relational wounds shape attachment styles, emotional regulation, trust, and adult relationship patterns, and how these dynamics show up in the counselling room.
You’ll hear a practical discussion of secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment, including why disorganised attachment can feel especially destabilising in therapy. The conversation also looks at how clients may move towards closeness and then pull away, why defences develop for good reason, and why attachment-informed work often requires patience, pacing, and a strong focus on relational safety.
For counsellors in training and qualified practitioners alike, this episode offers a clear and clinically useful framework for understanding how trauma and attachment are often inseparable. Darren and Gav also reflect on therapist self-awareness, countertransference, burnout, and the importance of regulation in the room.
The episode closes with a thoughtful counsellor dilemma on contact between sessions, exploring how boundaries, client need, and the therapist’s own attachment pattern can all shape the response.
🔎What you'll learn
trauma through an attachment lens
how unmet needs shape internal working models
secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment
trust, regulation, and defences in therapy
countertransference and therapist self-awareness
boundaries and between-session contact
Common questions answered in this episode
What is attachment trauma?Attachment trauma is the emotional and relational impact of early caregiving experiences where a child’s needs for safety, attunement, soothing, or protection were not met consistently.
Boundaries & Contact Between Sessions Why an avoidant client reaching out may represent relational growth - and how to respond in an attachment-informed way.
00:00 – Introduction to the Attachment & Relationships Podcast 02:00 – What is Avoidant Attachment? 05:00 – Why Avoidant Clients Rarely Seek Therapy 08:00 – Building Safety Before Emotion 11:00 – Humour, Deflection & Therapist Spidey Senses 15:00 – Compulsive Self-Reliance Explained 18:00 – Moving Beyond Defences 21:00 – Dilemma: Clients Contacting You Between Sessions 25:00 – Attachment-Informed Boundaries 28:00 – Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
Optima Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory & Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
Restoring Your Secure Base: Attachment-Informed Therapist Retreat
If this episode supported your practice, follow the podcast and share it with a colleague interested in attachment theory and attachment styles in therapy.
When connection feels uncertain, the attachment system activates strongly - creating hypervigilance to tone, messages and relational shifts.
Therapy focuses on containment and mentalisation.
Slowing down emotional overwhelm allows clients to move from pure emotional activation toward reflective thinking.
Boundaries create safety
Maintaining consistent boundaries is a crucial part of providing a secure therapeutic base.
00:00 Introduction to the Attach Together Podcast 02:10 What Is Preoccupied Attachment? 04:50 Fear of Abandonment in Attachment Styles 07:00 How Anxious Ambivalent Attachment Develops 10:20 The “Full Fridge” Metaphor Explained 11:27 Working With Preoccupied Clients in Therapy 13:40 Slowing Down Emotional Overwhelm 16:00 Repetition and Circular Narratives in Therapy 18:20 Boundaries With Preoccupied Clients 20:05 Therapist Dilemma: The Doorknob Confession 22:20 Maintaining Boundaries in Session 24:50 Why Boundaries Matter for Clients 25:20 Closing Reflections
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
Optima Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory & Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
Bowlby - Attachment Theory
If this episode supported your practice, follow the podcast and share it with a colleague interested in attachment theory and attachment styles in therapy.
00:00 Introduction to the Attachment Theory Podcast 01:40 What Is Disorganised Attachment? 03:25 Fright Without Solution Explained 06:52 Intergenerational Trauma and Attachment 08:34 How Disorganised Attachment Appears in Adults 11:29 Relationship Patterns and Emotional Dysregulation 13:17 Working Safely with Disorganised Attachment 15:19 The Therapist as a Secure Base 18:55 Can Disorganised Attachment Be Resolved? 23:34 Clinical Dilemma: Dissociation in Therapy 26:02 Grounding Clients in the Therapy Room 27:11 The Value of Attachment Training
27:11 The Value of Attachment Training
• Mary Ainsworth – Strange Situation research • Mary Main & Judith Solomon – Disorganised attachment classification
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
The episode finishes with a clinical dilemma many therapists will recognise: The client who is always late.
Through an attachment-informed perspective, the discussion explores how lateness might relate to:
avoidance strategies
anxiety about emotional closeness
practical life pressures
therapeutic pacing and safety
• Attachment theory provides the soil in which theory of mind develops • Secure caregiving supports the ability to understand other minds • Anxiety can take the thinking brain offline • Regulation helps restore reflective capacity • Therapy can help clients develop mentalisation later in life • Slowing the therapeutic pace can support relational safety
00:00 Introduction to the Attach Together Podcast 01:40 What Is Theory of Mind in Attachment Theory? 04:00 How Children Develop Theory of Mind 06:10 The Famous Smarties Experiment Explained 08:20 Attachment Security & Mentalisation 10:45 The Hand Brain Model (Daniel Siegel) 13:20 Anxiety, Cortisol & the Thinking Brain 15:00 Regulation Techniques for Clients 17:00 Using Theory of Mind in Therapy 21:40 Therapist Dilemma — The Client Who Is Always Late 24:00 Avoidant Attachment & Therapy Engagement 26:00 Final Takeaway for Therapists
• Daniel Siegel - Hand Brain Model • Simon Baron-Cohen - Theory of Mind Research
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
What is attachment and disordered eating? It is the link between early attachment experiences and later patterns of using food for comfort, control, soothing or emotional survival.
How does attachment affect eating patterns? Attachment affects how people regulate distress, seek comfort, experience need and relate to care. Food may become a way to manage feelings when relational soothing feels unavailable or unsafe.
How can disordered eating show up in therapy? Clients may describe bingeing, yo-yo dieting, guilt around food, using food as reward, or bringing food into sessions as a form of comfort, defence or relational support.
What should therapists listen for? Listen for the story beneath the food: early feeding experiences, family dynamics, shame, comfort, self-worth, loneliness, stress and unmet relational needs.
• Optima Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory & Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
Linda Cundy — Love in a Digital Age
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
What is attachment supervision in therapy? Attachment supervision in therapy is a relational approach to supervision that considers how attachment styles influence the supervisory relationship and clinical reflection.
How do attachment styles affect supervision? Attachment styles shape how therapists engage in supervision, including their comfort with feedback, emotional reflection, and vulnerability.
Why is supervision a relational space? Supervision involves attunement, trust, and co-regulation, making it similar to therapy in its relational depth.
How can supervision improve therapy outcomes? When therapists feel safe and supported, they can reflect more deeply, leading to more effective and ethical client work.
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
How does mentalization affect relationships? It allows individuals to interpret behaviour with curiosity rather than assumption, improving emotional connection and reducing conflict.
Why does mentalization collapse under stress? Because dysregulation activates survival responses, limiting access to reflective thinking and higher brain integration.
How can therapists support mentalization? By prioritising regulation, maintaining a not-knowing stance, and modelling curiosity in the therapeutic relationship.
• Optima Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory & Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
Bowlby - Attachment Theory
Peter Fonagy - Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
How does attachment trauma affect relationships? It can shape trust, closeness, emotional regulation, self-worth, and the expectations people carry into adult relationships.
How does attachment trauma show up in therapy? It may appear as avoidance, dependency, fear of closeness, dysregulation, intellectualising, boundary-testing, or difficulty trusting the therapist.
00:00 Introduction 01:02 What trauma often means to people 03:33 Trauma as what did not happen 05:30 Attachment styles explained 07:20 Disorganised attachment and fear 09:22 Countertransference and therapist awareness 10:32 Burnout, self-care, and regulation 11:26 How trauma shows up in the room 13:41 Why the work takes time 17:35 Dysregulation, addiction, and soothing 20:20 Counsellor dilemma: contact between sessions 23:01 Therapist attachment and boundaries 24:10 Final reflections
• Optima Level 5 & Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory & Attachment-Based Psychotherapy
You can download the FREE CPD Certificate for this episode via our website www.optimahealthservices.co.uk and join our listener list to receive the Reflection Pack for future episodes.
