A relational and somatic approach to attachment, anxiety and relationships
Additionally, the hardest thing about relationships is knowing one thing and feeling something different, attachment therapist Brisbane would note.
However, you know your partner loves you. When they seem distant, something inside you immediately worries.
There is a longing for closeness.
However, when someone gets too close, another part of you wants to pull away.
You tell yourself you don’t need reassurance, while quietly wanting to know that everything is okay.
Or perhaps you’ve become so used to taking care of yourself that depending on another person feels almost impossible.
In my work as an attachment therapist in Brisbane, I’m interested in these patterns not as evidence that something is wrong with you, but as ways you may have learned to navigate closeness, vulnerability and relationship.
The question becomes less “What’s wrong with me?” and more:
“What have I learned to expect when I need another person?”
What is attachment therapy?
Attachment therapy explores how our earlier relationships can influence the way we experience closeness, trust, conflict, separation and emotional safety as adults.
From our earliest relationships, we’re learning.
What happens when I’m upset?
Does someone notice?
Can I need somebody?
What happens when I get angry?
Can I say no?
If I disappoint someone, will they still be there?
We don’t usually learn the answers because somebody explains them to us.
We learn them through experience.
Over thousands of ordinary interactions, we develop expectations about ourselves and other people: • people will generally be there when I need them • I need to work hard to keep people close • my feelings are too much • other people’s emotions are my responsibility • I shouldn’t need anyone • conflict means I might lose the relationship.
Years later, the circumstances may have changed completely.
But sometimes the expectation remains.
What can insecure attachment look like in adults?
Attachment difficulties don’t always look dramatic.
They often appear in very ordinary moments.
A message isn’t answered.
Someone’s tone changes.
Your partner wants some space.
You sense disappointment on someone’s face.
And suddenly something in you changes.
You might recognize • fear of abandonment • relationship anxiety • needing reassurance but struggling to believe it • people pleasing • difficulty trusting • withdrawing during conflict • fear of intimacy • becoming highly sensitive to another person’s mood • difficulty asking for what you need.
Sometimes we move towards people when we feel threatened.
Sometimes we move away.
And sometimes, confusingly, we do both.
Anxious and avoidant attachment
Someone looking for Anxious Attachment Therapy Brisbane may recognise this: becoming particularly sensitive to signs that connection is changing.
A delayed message can become:
Have I done something wrong?
Are they angry with me?
Are they leaving?
The body may already be responding before we’ve made sense of what is happening.
For those seeking Avoidant Attachment Therapy Brisbane, the movement can be different.
Closeness itself may begin to feel uncomfortable. Emotional conversations can feel overwhelming. Depending on someone may feel risky, and independence can become incredibly important.
Neither response needs to be understood as a character flaw.
I’m much more interested in how it developed.
Perhaps keeping people close once required considerable effort.
Perhaps relying on people wasn’t particularly reliable.
Perhaps vulnerability wasn’t welcomed.
Perhaps becoming self-sufficient was actually a very intelligent adaptation to the relationships available to you.
Attachment isn’t just in your head
This is where Somatic Attachment Therapy Brisbane becomes particularly relevant to my approach.
Attachment isn’t simply a belief about relationships.
We experience relationship through our bodies.
Someone becomes distant and your stomach drops.
Conflict begins and your chest tightens.
Someone raises their voice and your shoulders brace.
Your partner wants to talk and suddenly you desperately need to leave the room.
Sometimes the body has already responded before the thinking mind has caught up.
So rather than only asking “Why do I do this?”, we can become curious about • what happens in your body • what feeling appears • what you imagine might happen next • whether you move towards or away from the other person • what you actually need in that moment.
Those few seconds can contain an enormous amount of information.
A Gestalt approach to attachment
My Gestalt Attachment Therapy Brisbane approach is strongly influenced by Gestalt therapy, which understands us as fundamentally relational.
We don’t develop in isolation.
We become who we are through contact with other people and the world around us.
Martin Buber described two different qualities of relationship as I-It and I-Thou. In an I-Thou encounter, the other person isn’t simply an object to manage, please, fear or control. There is the possibility of genuinely meeting another person while remaining ourselves.
I think attachment difficulties can sometimes make that meeting incredibly difficult.
Instead of simply being with another person, we may find ourselves monitoring them.
Are they okay?
Am I okay?
Have I upset them?
Do they still want me?
Or we protect ourselves by staying slightly removed.
Therapy gives us somewhere to become curious about this as it actually happens.
The relationship in therapy matters
This is probably one of the things I value most about attachment work.
We’re talking about relationships while also being in one.
You may notice yourself worrying about disappointing me.
Perhaps you automatically tell me you’re fine.
Maybe you wonder whether I’m judging you.
You might find asking me for something surprisingly uncomfortable.
There may even be moments when you’re annoyed with me or something I say doesn’t land well.
I don’t necessarily see those moments as therapy going wrong.
Sometimes they are the therapy.
If your experience has taught you that disagreement leads to rejection, being able to say “That didn’t feel right” and discovering the relationship can survive it can become something quite meaningful.
Not because therapy becomes some perfect relationship.
It won’t.
But because we get an opportunity to notice old patterns while they’re alive in the room between us.
Attachment isn’t about blaming your parents
Attachment work often brings us back to childhood, but I don’t think therapy needs to become an exercise in blaming parents.
Parents have histories too.
Someone can have loved you deeply and still have been emotionally unavailable.
A parent can genuinely have done the best they knew how to do and something important can still have been missing.
Both can be true.
What matters therapeutically isn’t putting someone on trial.
It’s understanding what you learned from those relationships and whether those lessons are still shaping your life now.
You are more than an attachment style
There’s a huge amount of attachment content online now.
You may already have taken a quiz and decided you’re anxious, avoidant, fearful-avoidant or secure.
Those ideas can be useful.
But human beings don’t fit particularly neatly into four boxes.
You might feel secure with friends and anxious with romantic partners.
You might enjoy intimacy until conflict appears.
You may be independent in most areas of your life but feel terrified when somebody you love withdraws.
So I’m usually less interested in:
“Which attachment style are you?”
and more interested in:
“What happens to you when connection feels uncertain?”
That’s a much more personal question.
How I work with attachment
My approach to attachment therapy in Brisbane is relational, somatic and Gestalt-informed.
Depending on what is useful for you, our work may include • Gestalt therapy • somatic awareness • mindfulness • parts and inner-child work • relational therapy • TRE • the Safe and Sound Protocol.
But techniques aren’t really the center of it.
You are.
We slow things down enough to notice what actually happens when closeness, conflict, vulnerability or uncertainty appears.
Over time, there may be more room for choice.
To need someone without losing yourself.
To say no without assuming the relationship will disappear.
To experience conflict without immediately preparing for rejection.
To let someone come closer without needing to escape.
To remain connected to yourself while you’re connected to somebody else.
For me, that’s much closer to what attachment work is really about.
Attachment Therapist Brisbane
I offer attachment therapy in Brisbane for adults experiencing anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, relationship anxiety, fear of abandonment, people pleasing, difficulty trusting, fear of intimacy, childhood attachment wounds and recurring relationship patterns.
You don’t need to know your attachment style before coming to therapy.
We can begin with what is happening in your life and relationships now.
Book a Free 30-Minute Consultation
If you’re looking for an attachment therapist in Brisbane, I offer a free 30-minute consultation.
It’s simply an opportunity to tell me a little about what’s happening, ask questions about how I work, and get a sense of whether working together feels right.
You don’t need to arrive with everything figured out.
We can begin there.