Explore every episode of the podcast Attach Together

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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.

• 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 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.

• Optima Training Programmes – Level 5 and Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment Theory and Attachment-Based Psychotherapy (https://optimahealthservices.co.uk/attachment-psychotherapeutic-counselling-level-5-diploma-cpcab/)
• Restoring Your Secure Base: Attachment-Informed Therapist Retreat – A two-day retreat with teaching, reflection, rest, and CPD https://optimahealthservices.co.uk/therapist-retreat/

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.

New podcast coming soon, subscribe and follow now so you don't miss the first episode.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

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 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.

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.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

Preoccupied Attachment, Attachment Theory, Therapy & Relationships

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

Preoccupied attachment is protection, not pathology

Clients with anxious attachment styles often developed sophisticated strategies in childhood to maintain closeness with unpredictable caregivers.

Emotional intensity reflects attachment alarm.

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.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

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 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

• 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

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.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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

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 session
28:21 Training opportunities at Optima
31:47 Closing reflections

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.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

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.

• Supervision provides a foundation for exploration and growth
• Therapists need emotional safety to reflect honestly
• Co-regulation enhances clinical thinking and presence

• Anxious (preoccupied) supervisees may seek reassurance
• Avoidant (dismissive) supervisees may intellectualise and avoid emotional reflection
• Secure supervision supports flexibility across all functions

• Dynamics between supervisor and supervisee mirror relational patterns
• Group supervision introduces systemic attachment processes
• Awareness reduces blind spots in clinical work

• Restorative (emotional support)
• Normative (ethical accountability)
• Formative (learning and development)
  Attachment styles influence where therapists feel most comfortable.

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 Supervision
12:00 Avoidant vs Anxious Dynamics
14:30 Choosing a Supervisor
17:30 Listener Dilemma: Avoiding Challenges in Supervision
20:00 Final Reflections

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.

🎓 Get your CPD certificate from our website.

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 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

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

What is mentalization in therapy?
Mentalization in therapy is the ability to understand thoughts, feelings, and intentions in ourselves and others within relational contexts.

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.

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

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.

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.

Mindfulness burnout prevention helps therapists, counsellors and psychologists notice early signs of exhaustion, emotional fatigue and professional disconnection before burnout becomes entrenched.

In this bonus episode of Attach Together, Darren speaks with Christopher Dines, author, mindfulness practitioner, coach and former DJ, about MBP: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention. Christopher has published eight books on mindfulness and addiction, including The Kindness Habit, co-authored with Dr Barbara Mariposa.

This conversation explores how mindfulness burnout prevention supports mental health professionals at risk of burnout, isolation and emotional depletion. Rather than simply focusing on meditation, MBP encourages awareness of thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, lifestyle, relational needs and professional limits.

For attachment-informed practitioners, this matters deeply. Therapists often become a secure base for others, yet may struggle to notice when their own capacity is becoming depleted.

🔎 What You’ll Learn

• What mindfulness burnout prevention means
• Early warning signs of therapist burnout
• The difference between tiredness, exhaustion and burnout
• Why therapists can feel isolated in modern practice
• How online therapy has changed professional connection
• Why community helps prevent emotional depletion
• How mindfulness creates space, clarity and regulation
• Why asking for help is a professional strength

Common Search Questions

What is mindfulness burnout prevention?
Mindfulness burnout prevention uses awareness, reflection and supportive community to help therapists notice and respond to early signs of professional fatigue.

How does burnout affect therapists?
Burnout can lead to exhaustion, apathy, resentment, reduced empathy, isolation and feeling disconnected from clinical work.

Why is community important for therapists?
Community offers therapists connection, reflection and support from others who understand the emotional demands of the work.

How does mindfulness help prevent burnout?
Mindfulness helps practitioners notice stress, bodily tension, emotional withdrawal and reduced capacity earlier, supporting better boundaries and self-care.

00:00 Welcome to this bonus episode
01:25 What is MBP?
02:25 Christopher’s recovery journey and mindfulness practice
05:54 When mindfulness became more widely recognised
07:07 How MBP developed for therapists and psychologists
09:21 Warning signs of burnout
11:15 What support can look like
12:51 The emotional demands of therapy work
14:02 Online therapy, isolation and the shrinking gap between work and life
15:59 Key takeaways: asking for help and finding community
17:20 Bonus reflection on retreats, group meditation and practitioner support

• Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: mindfulnessburnoutprevention.com
• Christopher Dines’ books on mindfulness and addiction
• The Kindness Habit by Christopher Dines and Dr Barbara Mariposa
• Optima Health Services CPD certificate and reflection pack
• Optima therapist retreat with Darren, Jo and guest speaker Linda Cundy

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.

Attachment defences in therapy are protective patterns clients use when they feel relationally threatened, emotionally exposed, or unsafe in connection. In this final episode of Season One of Attach Together, Georgina and Darren return to the foundations of attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships and therapy to explore how defences show up in the counselling room - and how therapists can respond with patience, curiosity and clinical care.

This episode is especially relevant for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and therapy trainees who want to deepen their attachment-informed practice. Rather than viewing defences as resistance or pathology, Darren invites us to understand them as normal human strategies for safety, shaped by early relational experience.

Attachment defences in therapy are not signs that a client is difficult or unwilling. They are often the client’s best attempt to stay safe.

🔎 You’ll Learn

• The difference between attachment traits and attachment defences
• How avoidant and preoccupied attachment patterns intensify under pressure
• Why clients may withdraw, escalate, intellectualise or seek reassurance
• How therapists can avoid colluding with defensive strategies
• The role of mentalisation, countertransference and pacing
• How PACE - patience/playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy - can support attachment-informed therapy
• What to consider when meeting clients, former clients or your own therapist in professional spaces

Common Questions

What are attachment defences in therapy?
Attachment defences in therapy are protective strategies clients use when they feel unsafe, vulnerable or relationally exposed. They often develop from earlier experiences where closeness, need, conflict or emotional expression felt risky.

How do attachment defences affect relationships?
Attachment defences shape how people manage conflict, closeness and vulnerability. Some people withdraw to feel safe, while others intensify bids for connection, reassurance or validation.

How do attachment defences appear in counselling?
In counselling, defences may appear when a client feels emotionally close, challenged, misunderstood or exposed. They may become cognitive, shut down, seek reassurance, argue their position, change the subject or test whether the therapist will remain steady.

How should therapists respond?
Therapists can slow the pace, stay curious, avoid shame and notice what the defence is protecting. The task is not to dismantle the defence too quickly, but to build enough relational safety for exploration.

🕑 Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Attach Together
00:16 Welcome and episode context
01:28 Why focus on attachment defences?
02:32 What is attachment?
03:05 Attachment traits versus defences
05:02 Defences under pressure
08:17 Defences as safety strategies
10:04 Using attachment defences in practice
10:44 Avoiding collusion
12:10 Working with avoidant defences
13:17 Countertransference and therapist responses
15:43 Pace, PACE and attachment-informed work
17:47 Understanding our own patterns
18:00 Normalising attachment defences
20:35 Dilemma: seeing clients out of context
21:08 Contracting and professional boundaries
24:55 Re-contracting at endings
25:07 Optima retreat update
26:30 Season One 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.

This bonus episode of Attach Together feels different from our usual conversations.

Kiah, who edits the podcast and works alongside Darren and the Optima team, joins not as a clinical host, but as a parent of two young children. After listening back to previous episodes, she brings a question many parents may quietly recognise:

Am I getting this wrong?

Together, Kiah and Darren explore attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships, and therapy through the everyday realities of parenting: screen time, guilt, tiredness, dinner-time battles, social media pressure, and the hope that repair may matter more than perfection.

Attachment parenting repair means noticing when something has gone wrong between parent and child, and finding a way back into connection.

The episode returns to the idea of “good enough” parenting. Children do not need perfect attunement all the time. They need enough moments of being seen, soothed, enjoyed and returned to.

For counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and therapy trainees, this conversation also asks something important: when we talk about attachment-informed practice, does our language help parents feel more reflective, or more ashamed?

Kiah and Darren reflect on:

• why attachment theory can feel overwhelming for parents
• the difference between repair and perfection
• how parents may repeat, reject or overcorrect from their own childhoods
• screen time, smartphones and guilt
• the “perfect parent” image on social media
• the ABC model: antecedent, behaviour and consequence
• why therapists may over-analyse their own parenting
• how small moments of play and repair build safety over time

Attachment parenting repair is the process of returning to connection after a difficult or misattuned moment. It may involve apology, humour, touch, explanation, play, or simply coming back with warmth.

No. Attachment theory does not ask parents to be perfect. Repair after rupture is part of how children learn that relationships can survive difficulty.

A parent’s attachment style may shape how they respond to crying, closeness, conflict, independence or overwhelm. Becoming aware of those patterns can make parenting more conscious.

01:02 Good enough parenting
02:33 Attunement, rupture and repair
07:46 Wondering about attachment style
10:24 Screen time and parenting pressure
13:21 Social media and external authority
21:20 Brain development, play and connection
28:50 Repairing difficult parenting moments
32:15 Do therapists over-analyse parenting?
36:06 The ABC model of behaviour
38:15 Dinnertime struggles
41:40 Changing antecedents and consequences

• Winnicott’s idea of the “good enough” mother
• Kate Silverton, There’s No Such Thing as Naughty
• Kate Silverton, Still No Such Thing as Naughty
• ABC model: antecedent, behaviour and consequence
• Optima Level 5 and Level 7 Diplomas in attachment-based psychotherapy

A CPD certificate link is available in the show notes. You may also use this episode for personal reflection, supervision or CPD learning.

CPD Certificate

In this episode, Georgina Sturmer and Darren look at creativity through the lens of attachment theory, asking how play, metaphor and objects can open up the work without overwhelming the client.

Creative work is much broader than drawing or painting. A game of Uno, a collection of stones, visual cards, nesting dolls or a shared metaphor may give a client another way to show us something about their internal world.

Creative approaches in therapy use play, imagery, metaphor, sensory experience or physical objects to support emotional exploration and communication.

For some clients, talking can feel pressured. They may worry about saying the wrong thing, getting their story right or naming an emotion accurately. Creative work can sometimes soften that pressure and bring us closer to felt experience.

• Creativity beyond pens, paper and paint
• Play, the inner child and pre-verbal experience
• Using games to support connection
• Stones, visual cards and sand tray work
• Shame and the fear of getting creativity “wrong”
• Avoidant attachment and creative work
• Drawing with the non-dominant hand
• Noticing rather than interpreting
• Nesting dolls and attachment metaphors
• Creative approaches in online therapy
• The swimming pool metaphor
• Creativity in supervision
• Therapist enthusiasm, pacing and relational safety

A client’s response to creativity can tell us something about the process between us.

Some clients may engage quickly. Others may become hesitant, embarrassed or self-critical. For clients with more avoidant attachment tendencies, creative work may initially feel unfamiliar or exposing.

The task is not to push through that hesitation.

It is to notice it.

Creative work can be useful when a client feels stuck, struggles to find language or seems unsure how to use the therapy space. But the intervention should remain in service of the client, rather than the therapist’s enthusiasm for a particular approach.

Creative approaches in therapy use play, metaphor, images, sensory materials or objects to help clients explore emotional and relational experiences.

It can offer another route into attachment trauma, attachment styles and relationships, particularly when direct emotional language feels difficult.

No. Adults may also find play, metaphor and sensory work helpful, especially when experiences feel difficult to explain verbally.

Yes. Therapists can use drawings, objects, visual metaphors and shared imagery in online therapy as well as face-to-face work.

00:00 Welcome to Season Two
00:55 Creativity in the therapy room
01:31 What is a creative approach?
04:09 Stones and visualising the client’s world
06:47 Choosing a creative intervention
09:05 Sand tray and sensory experience
09:48 Attachment styles and creativity
10:58 The wardrobe drawing exercise
13:51 Nesting dolls in therapy
16:59 Creative work online
18:56 Castles, bridges and defensive strategies
20:06 Creativity in supervision
21:34 Keeping the client at the centre

For more conversations about attachment theory, attachment styles, attachment trauma, attachment-informed therapy and relationships, subscribe to Attached Together

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Attachment theory helps us understand how attachment styles shape relationships, particularly when conflict enters the therapy or counselling room. In this episode of Attach Together, Jo is joined by relationship counsellor Jane Brown to explore affect regulation in couples therapy and what happens when two activated attachment systems meet.

Affect regulation is the capacity to notice, evaluate and manage emotional experience and its expression without becoming overwhelmed.

For couples, difficulties with affect regulation can quickly become a familiar dance. One partner pursues connection. The other withdraws. Both may be dysregulated, both are protecting something, and the argument in front of the therapist is rarely only about the bins, the phone or who forgot what.

Jo and Jane reflect on how attachment trauma and early relational experiences can shape these cycles, and why slowing the process down is often more useful than searching for an immediate solution.

• The pursuer–distancer dynamic through attachment theory
• Why both partners may be dysregulated during conflict
• The therapist's own affect regulation and the urge to fix
• Somatic awareness and connection check-ins
• Rupture, repair and co-regulation in relationships
• Helping each partner take responsibility for self-regulation
• Connection rituals, positive safe words and playful experiences
• The window of tolerance and psychoeducation
• Working with escalation in online couples therapy
• Remaining a secure base for both partners

Jane shares practical interventions she uses in affect regulation in couples therapy, including asking couples to rate connection, noticing what greater connection would look like in the room, and creating a planned safe-word strategy for moments when either partner moves outside their window of tolerance.

The conversation also considers the therapist's position. How do we observe the couple's dance without stepping onto the dance floor ourselves? And what happens when our own wish to make a difference pulls us towards fixing, directing or inadvertently siding with one partner?

What is affect regulation in couples therapy?
It is the process of helping partners manage emotional activation so they can remain connected, communicate and respond rather than simply react.

How do attachment styles affect couple conflict?
Attachment styles can shape protective strategies such as pursuing, proximity-seeking, withdrawing or avoiding. These strategies can then trigger the other partner's attachment system.

Why is co-regulation important in relationships?
Co-regulation offers an experience of safety with another person. Over time, repeated experiences of connection and repair can support greater trust and relational security.

00:00 Welcome and introduction
01:32 What is affect regulation?
02:53 The pursuer–distancer dynamic
04:41 The therapist's place in the couple's dance
08:09 Connection check-ins with couples
12:50 Why the argument is rarely the whole story
15:01 Psychoeducation and the window of tolerance
17:07 Contracting around affect regulation
18:55 Connection rituals
19:25 Responsibility for self-regulation
21:07 Using a positive safe word
22:53 Play, fun and date-night rituals
24:52 Closing the day together
27:49 The therapist's urge to fix
30:06 Managing escalation in online couples therapy
32:51 Becoming more directive with couples

Gottman-informed ideas around play and connection
Imago-informed listening
Positive safe-word strategies

Attachment rupture and repair sits at the heart of attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships and therapy. But what happens when a client feels misunderstood, rejected or even judged by their therapist?

In this episode of Attached Together, attachment-based psychotherapist Uruj Anjum is joined by Gav, an attachment-based and IFS-trained therapist, to explore why ruptures are not a sign that therapy has failed. In fact, when they are recognised and repaired, they can become some of the most meaningful moments in the therapeutic relationship.

A missed detail. A difficult question. A cancelled session. A boundary that feels like rejection.

These moments may seem small, but for a client with a history of abandonment, criticism or emotional disconnection, they can reactivate much older attachment wounds.

Together, Uruj and Gav discuss how therapists can notice these shifts, stay present when things feel uncomfortable, and respond without becoming defensive or rushing to make everything feel better.

Attachment rupture and repair is the process of recognising a break in emotional connection and working together to restore safety, trust and understanding.

You will hear why secure attachment is not built through perfect attunement, but through repeated experiences of disconnection followed by repair. The conversation also explores how clients may internalise shame when conflict has never been safely resolved, and how therapy can offer a different experience: one in which hurt can be expressed without the relationship ending.

The episode includes a powerful ethical dilemma:

What do you say when a client tells you, “I felt judged by you last week”?

Gav considers how therapists can hold two truths at once: that they may not have intended to judge the client, while also taking the client’s experience seriously.

• Why rupture is inevitable in meaningful therapeutic relationships
• How attachment styles shape responses to boundaries and misunderstanding
• The link between unrepaired conflict, shame and self-blame
• How to recognise withdrawal, anger and disconnection in the room
• Why therapist defensiveness can deepen a rupture
• How supervision and personal therapy support relational work
• How attachment rupture and repair can contribute to earned secure attachment

Does a rupture mean therapy has gone wrong?
No. Ruptures are a natural part of close relationships. What matters is whether they can be recognised and explored.

How does attachment affect rupture in therapy?
A client’s attachment history may shape how they experience mistakes, boundaries, absences and changes in the therapist’s tone or availability.

How can a therapist begin repair?
By noticing the shift, regulating their own response, acknowledging the client’s experience and becoming curious about what happened between them.

00:16 Introduction
02:04 Gav’s background
03:10 Why rupture and repair matters
04:07 How secure attachment develops
06:42 Rupture in the therapeutic relationship
08:58 Why ruptures are inevitable
12:55 What repair looks like
14:16 When repair is a new experience
16:47 Working with shame
18:47 Supporting the therapist
20:46 Earned secure attachment
23:06 “I felt judged by you”
26:05 Final reflections

FREE CPD Certificate & Reflection Pack

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.

In this episode of Attach Together, Joanne Kay is joined by Lyn Coombs and Alison Cunningham to explore what therapists need to understand when working with parents of neurodivergent children.

Attachment-informed therapy for neurodivergent parents is an approach that offers relational safety, curiosity and non-judgement while helping parents explore their own emotional needs, attachment responses and experiences of caregiving.

The conversation considers how parents can become highly attuned to sensory, emotional and behavioural cues that others may not notice. This attunement can become a strength, but it may also leave parents feeling as though they are constantly anticipating difficulties, managing risk or “firefighting”.

• Why believing a parent’s experience is clinically important
• How societal judgement can become internalised as shame
• The difference between loving a child and enjoying every part of parenting
• Why parents may grieve expectations without rejecting their child
• How neurodivergent parenting can affect partners, siblings and wider relationships
• Why talking about the child may be a necessary starting point in therapy
• How therapists can notice body language, dysregulation and unspoken emotion
• The importance of allowing anger, guilt, pride, grief and love to coexist
• How attachment-informed therapy for neurodivergent parents can provide a secure, accepting base

Lyn Coombs is an attachment-based and person-centred counsellor specialising in bereavement, domestic abuse and work with parents of neurodivergent children and carers.

Alison Cunningham is an integrative counsellor who works with young people, including those with care experience, and with neurodivergent people.

Therapy can offer a place where parents do not need to minimise, edit or justify their experiences. It can help them identify their own feelings, needs and attachment responses while remaining compassionate towards their child.

Yes. Love, pride, grief, frustration and exhaustion can exist at the same time. Conflicting emotions do not make someone a bad parent.

Talking about the child may help the parent process experiences they have not previously felt safe enough to express. As trust develops, their own feelings and needs may become more accessible.

00:00 Introduction to Attach Together
01:07 Meet Lyn Coombs and Alison Cunningham
02:27 Why parents need to be believed
04:43 Societal judgement and parenting blame
05:44 ADHD medication and the “marbles” analogy
07:43 Parenting styles, attachment and research
09:56 External pressures and parental guilt
11:31 Isolation and the shrinking village
13:00 Rethinking secure attachment in neurodivergent families
15:38 Parental self-doubt and intense attunement
18:00 Clinical dilemma: keeping therapy focused on the parent
19:30 Creating space for mixed emotions
22:30 Reading what is not being said
23:38 Shame, anger, grief and love
25:23 Effects on partners and siblings
26:13 Closing reflections

FREE CPD Certificate & Reflection Pack

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 do attachment styles and relationships influence EMDR and trauma therapy? In this episode, Jo Oxley and attachment and relationship therapist Jo Bealey explore EMDR and attachment therapy through the lens of relational safety — particularly what may be happening when trauma processing becomes “stuck”.

EMDR and attachment therapy can be understood as the integration of trauma processing with attention to the attachment strategies, internal working models and relational expectations that a client brings into the therapeutic relationship.

Clients with preoccupied attachment may need to explain and stay connected while processing, while those with avoidant tendencies may prefer less disclosure — raising questions about relational safety, self-reliance and the urge to “just get it done”.

Jo O and Jo B also consider the therapist.

What happens when processing stops and the therapist begins to wonder: Have I done something wrong? Have I chosen the wrong target? Should I rescue the process?

Rather than seeing stuckness simply as a problem to overcome, an attachment-informed approach invites curiosity about what it may be communicating.

• How attachment styles can shape the experience of EMDR
• Core beliefs as possible expressions of internal working models
• Why relational safety may be important before trauma processing
• Anxious/preoccupied and avoidant strategies during EMDR
• What “stuck” processing might communicate
• Therapist attachment responses, shame and the impulse to rescue
• Grief, loss and developing a more coherent story
• Using supervision to explore what is being co-created
• Building a secure relational base when safety has rarely been experienced

00:16 Welcome to Attached Together
01:44 EMDR through an attachment lens
04:17 Core beliefs and internal working models
06:27 Avoidant attachment and “just processing it”
09:11 Creating relational safety
12:27 When processing opens other memories
14:48 Attachment wounds, grief and mourning
18:08 The therapist’s attachment style
19:25 What happens when EMDR gets stuck?
25:12 What stuckness may be communicating

How can attachment affect EMDR?
Attachment strategies may influence how safe a client feels processing difficult material alongside another person, how much they need to talk, and how they experience closeness, dependence and vulnerability.

Why might EMDR processing become stuck?
Jo invites practitioners to consider stuckness as communication: might the client feel unsafe, overwhelmed or uncomfortable? What is happening relationally as well as within the processing?

Why does the therapist’s attachment matter?
A therapist’s own attachment strategies may influence how they respond to uncertainty — including impulses to rescue, withdraw, blame themselves or move the work forwards.

A CPD certificate is available for time spent listening to the episode. Visit the Optima Attachment website:

UK Listeners ➡️ www.optimaattachment.co.uk

AUS Listeners ➡️ www.optimaattachment.com.au

For practitioners interested in developing their attachment-informed practice further, Optima delivers Level 5 and Level 7 Diplomas in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy.

Attachment and adoption in therapy requires an understanding of attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships and the ways early separation may emerge within counselling. In this episode of Attached Together, Georgina speaks with attachment-focused psychotherapist Jane about working therapeutically with adults impacted by adoption.

Jane trained alongside Georgina on the Optima Level 5 course and now works in private practice, predominantly with adults affected by adoption. She brings both clinical knowledge and lived experience as an adoptee.

Jane and Georgina explore:

• How adoption practices have changed over time
• Why there is no single adoptee attachment style
• Anxious, avoidant and disorganised attachment strategies
• Identity, belonging and genetic mirroring
• Grief, anger and the pressure to feel “lucky”
• Push-pull dynamics in the therapy relationship
• Body-based regulation and “adoption overwhelm”
• The importance of carefully managed breaks and endings
• Therapist self-awareness, competence and supervision

Adoption is not one experience. Some adult adoptees may fear abandonment and seek reassurance, while others may protect themselves through emotional distance, self-sufficiency or withdrawal. Attachment and adoption in therapy therefore requires curiosity rather than assumptions.

The conversation also considers how missing family stories, early disruption and the absence of genetic mirroring may affect identity. Because some experiences originate before language, clients may communicate them through bodily states, metaphors or relational patterns rather than a clear narrative.

Adoption trauma refers to the emotional or relational impact that separation, loss, disrupted caregiving and identity uncertainty may have on an adopted person. Not every adoptee will use this term, so therapists should follow the client’s language.

Early separation, neglect, trauma or changes of caregiver may influence how a person approaches trust, closeness and dependency. Some adoptees may seek connection intensely, while others may rely on compulsive self-reliance.

Adoption may emerge through difficulties with trust, identity, belonging, control, grief, anger or endings. It may also appear through push-pull dynamics between therapist and client.

Use the client’s preferred terminology, avoid assumptions, build relational safety, notice attachment dynamics and plan carefully for absences and endings.

00:00 Introduction
01:51 The changing history of adoption
05:11 Attachment strategies in adult adoptees
07:15 Identity and genetic mirroring
09:35 Adoption-informed therapy
10:19 Language, grief and the “lucky” narrative
13:29 Push-pull dynamics in therapy
15:20 Building a secure therapeutic base
15:41 Body-based work and adoption overwhelm
17:49 Breaks and therapeutic endings
19:58 Competence, supervision and self-awareness
21:08 Final reflections and CPD information

FREE CPD Certificate & Reflection Pack

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.

Attachment and burnout in therapy raises an uncomfortable question: why can therapists be so good at noticing distress in other people, yet struggle to recognise when they’re becoming depleted themselves?

In this episode of The Attachment in Practice Podcast, Wendy Widdrington is joined by counsellor, couple therapist and supervisor Phil Pinchin to explore attachment theory, attachment styles, relationships and therapy through the lens of therapist burnout.

And there’s a personal reason for the conversation.

After Wendy and Phil spent months researching attachment and burnout as part of their Level 7 work, Phil gently wondered whether Wendy herself might be experiencing some burnout.

Her internal response was essentially: Absolutely not. I’m coping very well, thank you.

So why can burnout be so difficult to recognise — and even harder to admit?

• What burnout can actually look like in therapists
• Attachment styles and different responses to stress
• Why “I’m fine” can sometimes deserve another question
• People-pleasing, striving and self-reliance
• Losing the energy or “spark” that normally makes us feel like ourselves
• Finding your personal “stress signature”
• Wendy’s “work-joy ratio” question
• Why supervision can protect against professional isolation
• Creating enough safety to have courageous conversations about burnout

What is your stress signature?

How would somebody who knows you well recognise that you were becoming stressed?

Would you become quieter? More irritable? Work longer? Worry more about clients? Withdraw? Stop doing the things that normally restore you?

Attachment-informed therapy isn’t only about understanding our clients. Sometimes the attachment lens can help us become more curious about ourselves.

Can attachment styles affect therapist burnout?
Attachment strategies may influence how we respond to stress and whether we seek support, over-function or withdraw. Wendy and Phil discuss research suggesting an association between anxious attachment and burnout, while noting that findings around avoidant attachment were less clear and need further research.

How can supervision help with burnout?
Supervision offers space to notice changes in workload, energy, boundaries and our relationship with the work — particularly changes that may be difficult to see on our own.

00:00 – Introducing Phil and attachment & burnout
01:28 – Researching burnout through an attachment lens
05:58 – What is burnout?
07:37 – Why admitting burnout can feel difficult
08:51 – Burnout as a process
10:10 – When enthusiasm tips into imbalance
11:34 – Feeling frazzled and losing our spark
15:05 – Reflection, supervision and connection
16:06 – Attachment in supervision
17:42 – Anxious and avoidant attachment defences
19:55 – The work-joy ratio
22:08 – Supervision and professional isolation
25:16 – Recognising our own warning signs
27:15 – People-pleasing, striving and asking for help
30:03 – Earned security and self-understanding
32:45 – Willpower, self-reliance and pushing through
34:48 – Courageous conversations

📄 A CPD Reflection Pack accompanies this episode for counsellors, psychotherapists, supervisors and trainees who want to take the discussion into reflection, supervision or their CPD record.