How to Choose a Therapist

Therapists are as varied as the general population. When choosing a therapist, it's important to select the right one for you and to consider switching to somebody new if they turn out not to be a good fit. Here are some ideas to consider:

The right therapist may feel wrong at first.

Starting therapy, especially for the first time, can come with a ton of anxiety and discomfort. This can get in the way of determining right away if your new therapist is right for you. So unless there is a huge red flag from the outset, it is wise to spend two or three sessions settling in and getting used to the process before making a decision.

The right therapist should be practicing within their scope of competence.

Many therapists have spent time on extra training in a particular technique or in treating a particular population or presenting issue. The right therapist will assess whether they have the appropriate type of training and experience to help you reach your therapy goals and will refer you to somebody else if needed.

The right therapist should make it about you.

If you are leaving every therapy session having learned all about your therapist's life, they are not the right therapist for you. Many therapists will occasionally disclose a detail about their life here and there, but if you know their entire life story by the third session and they haven't learned much about you, that's a huge red flag!

The right therapist doesn't tell you what you want to hear.

Therapists are supposed to help you reach your therapy goals, not be your friend. If your therapist nods along and appears to be in agreement with everything you say, they may not be helping you grow. The right therapist will gently challenge you when needed.

The right therapist should listen.

All therapists have to interrupt you at times - that's just a part of the job. This can be for many reasons, such as time constraints, pausing to process something important or shifting the focus away from story-telling. However, if it feels like you can never get a complete sentence out, or your therapist never seems to be tracking what you share about your experiences, that's a problem.

The right therapist should model good boundaries.

Good therapists will respect your schedule and will start your session on time, at least most of the time. They won't answer calls during your session unless it is an emergency. They won't eat lunch during your session. They won't call you at 10pm. And they will expect the same respect from you in return. A therapist with loose boundaries is probably not the right therapist.

The right therapist can manage their own emotions.

Therapy can be very emotionally charged at times, but a good therapist regulates their own emotional responses in therapy sessions. Whilst a therapist may occasionally be visibly affected by your emotions and may even shed a tear alongside you, it should never feel like you are having to take care of them.

The right therapist should handle feedback appropriately.

Many of the issues we have talked about so far can potentially be corrected with a conversation, so tell your therapist about it first. A good therapist can take in your feedback and address it without becoming defensive and without invalidating you. If they are unable to hear your feedback and take corrective action, it might be time to consider finding a different therapist.

Attachment Styles and Relationships

What are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles are various ways of interacting with other people, which are heavily influenced by a person’s bond with a parent or other caregiver in childhood. Attachment theory comes from the research of psychiatrist and psychologist John Bowlby, who identified that isolation from caregivers in childhood is a traumatizing experience. Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, expanded on this idea, and her work with adults and couples is based on the discovery that the need for secure connection to others continues throughout life.

 Types of Attachment Styles

There are four different attachment styles. The first one is known as secure attachment and the remaining three are all variations of insecure attachment – anxious, avoidant and disorganized.

Secure Attachment

When a child’s needs are met by consistently reliable and available caregivers, they typically develop a secure attachment style. They learn when they're an infant that if they are hungry they will be fed, when their diaper is soiled it will be changed and that when they cry somebody will comfort them.

If this experience continues throughout childhood and there's somebody who is responsive to them, they typically become a securely attached adult who feels safe in the world, knowing that there are trustworthy people around them and that it is possible to get their needs met. This gives them a secure base with which to launch themselves into the world with confidence.  

People with a secure attachment style tend to be more resilient in relationships and better at regulating their own emotions. If they do not get an immediate response to their needs, they can usually tolerate it without becoming distressed because they trust that their needs will be met at some point.  

Insecure Attachment

When a child’s needs are not met due to an unavailable, inconsistent, abusive or neglectful parent, they typically develop one of the following types of insecure attachment styles or strategies, due to the uncertainty about whether their needs will be met. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an intentional refusal to meet a child’s needs on the part of the caregiver. There are many circumstances that can lead to a child’s need for a responsive caregiver not being consistently met by the parent, such as addiction, physical or mental illness, incarceration, or even a parent having long working hours or having to travel for work frequently.

Anxious Attachment Style

A person with an anxious attachment style seeks ongoing proof that they are loved, and that the other person is there for them. They tend to be clingy, jealous, controlling, fearful of betrayal, rejection or abandonment and highly emotionally expressive in relationships.

Avoidant Attachment Style

When a person has an avoidant attachment style, they tend to have difficulty being vulnerable in relationships. They push their emotions away and distract themselves with work or keeping busy, or they numb their feelings with substances. They do not trust others easily and will often be guarded in relationships or avoid being in a relationship in the first place. They are often highly independent, taking pride in not needing to depend on others and finding it particularly difficult to ask for help.

Disorganized Attachment Style

A person with a disorganized attachment style flips regularly between anxious and avoidant states, so essentially they are a blend of the other two types of insecure attachment style. Disorganized attachment style is associated with trauma or abuse in childhood. Often a child will have experienced a parent or caregiver as being intermittently available, or responding to their needs in an unpredictable or inconsistent way. They long for closeness and connection and will often get close to another person relatively quickly in a new relationship.

Unfortunately they also fear closeness, because they are unable to deal with the vulnerability of trusting another person. Having bonded with somebody, they often pull away or shut down, sometimes even sabotaging the relationship.

Attachment Styles and Compatibility

The attachment style of each partner in a romantic relationship can have a big influence on how the couple interacts, and will also play a role in predicting how compatible they will be.

The ideal pairing is two securely attached individuals. They will most likely navigate differences well and be able to regulate their emotions easily because they are emotionally available and emotionally responsive to each other.

Another common pairing is one anxious partner and one avoidant partner. This couple will definitely have some problems and challenges, but they will be able to meet each other’s needs at least some of the time. They often find themselves in the classic pursuer/withdrawer dynamic, with the anxious partner protesting their unmet needs through anger and complaints and the avoidant partner shutting down in response.

A pairing of two avoidant partners is unlikely to succeed and may not even get off the ground in the first place. They may find a way to bond that is based on something other than emotional availability, such as a shared hobby, but there is likely to be little meaningful emotional connection between the two.

Two anxious partners will also struggle, as each will be stuck in their own worries, unable to be emotionally present to reassure the other. This couple will be likely to trigger each other’s attachment fears, such as fear of rejection and abandonment, regularly.

A person with a disorganized attachment style probably faces the biggest challenge in romantic relationships. The partner they will be most drawn to at first is likely to be a person with an anxious attachment style, but that is not actually the best pairing for them. The initial attraction to an anxious person will become an issue once the bond has been well established. After that, the avoidant side of the disorganized attachment style will start to emerge and they will want more space. This will heighten anxiety in the anxious partner, who will begin to protest the disconnection with increased pursuing behavior. A person with a disorganized attachment style is better suited to a securely attached partner, but is likely to push too hard for connection at the beginning of a relationship, frantically trying to connect as quickly as possible and end up frustrated by a securely attached partner’s lack of urgency.  

Most people with an insecure attachment style can do well with a more securely attached mate, because over time they are likely to find reassurance in the stability and emotional availability of the secure partner.

 Can Attachment Styles Change?

Attachment styles are formed early in life and whilst they tend to be quite consistent over time, luckily, they can be influenced by a romantic partner. We can have corrective emotional experiences in relationships that increase our felt sense of secure attachment.

Additionally, people tend to deviate from their main attachment style with certain other individuals or in certain contexts. For instance, a person who is generally avoidant may have one person in their life that has never let them down and with whom they have always felt safe and secure. They may be able to open up emotionally with that one person in a way that they are unable to do with anyone else. Even securely attached people can go through a period of insecurity if their emotional needs go unanswered for too long, but they will typically return to their main attachment style once the temporary disruption is over.

The best thing a couple can do is to identify what each partner's attachment style is and where it comes from, by closely examining who was there for them when they were a child and who was unavailable or let them down. Once they have figured out their main attachment styles, they can think about how their attachment styles influence the way they interact in their relationship. If they have difficulty accessing and sharing their emotions and unmet needs with each other, a couples’ therapist who specializes in Emotionally Focused Therapy can help them increase their secure attachment to each other.

Saying Sorry the Right Way

Conflicts and disagreements happen. Things are said or done in the heat of the moment that may have seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but that perhaps in the cold light of day we wish we could take back.

Given that none of us has a time machine with which to undo our unfortunate behavior, the next best choice is a heartfelt apology. But sometimes that can feel like a daunting prospect.

Let’s start by taking a look at why apologies are so hard.

To apologize is to humble oneself by acknowledging our personal deficiencies or errors. The ego protests it and then our defenses rise to justify our actions and look for ways to avoid it.

When we feel our defenses rise, we often try to repair our relationship with the hurt party without taking full ownership of our behavior. We attempt to place some of the responsibility on the other person, by pointing the finger at their own misdeeds, or their lack of understanding about our intentions. Or sometimes we downplay the impact of our behavior on them with minimizing language such as “maybe”, or “a bit”. This tends to dilute the apology and can even cause further harm to the relationship. An apology is not an apology if it begins with any of these:

“I’m sorry that you…”

“I’m sorry, but…”

“I’m sorry if…”

“I’m sorry that I reacted to you doing [insert blaming comment here] …”

A key component of a genuine apology is to focus on the impact of your actions on the other person. Showing them that you understand how your words and actions affected them and that you have empathy for the hurt that they felt lets them know that they are seen and heard by you, which is important for repairing a connection with somebody after a rupture.

Apologies may lose meaning if the person apologizing keeps repeating the same hurtful patterns over and over. So it is important to reassure the person that you intend to work on yourself and avoid hurting them in the same way again.

True apologies sound like this:

“I’m sorry that I…”

“I can see how my words/actions have hurt you and I truly regret it.”

“Next time I will be more thoughtful about what I say/do.”

It is normal to have discomfort about apologizing. It can be a very vulnerable experience, especially when we don’t know how our apology will be received, or when we feel that we have been wronged too.

It may be helpful to remember that saying sorry is not the same as taking responsibility for the entire interaction. Each person only has to own their part, but it is each person’s decision whether or not to do so.

Never apologize when you’re still angry or upset with the other person! It is very unlikely that you will come across as genuine. It is ok to wait until you have reflected on your own words and actions and can really mean it. If your focus is still mostly on your own hurt feelings, that will probably show up when you attempt to apologize.

A genuine apology should not be contingent upon receiving an apology in return. If that’s what you are seeking, then you are not ready to apologize. Think about this first before approaching the other person. Will you get upset all over again if they don’t apologize too? Will you take back your apology the second they don’t respond as you expect? Then you’re not quite there yet.

Sometimes when you approach somebody to apologize to them, they might start going over the issue again, highlighting the parts that hurt them or pointing out things you said and did that perhaps you didn’t specifically mention when you apologized. Don’t worry, that’s normal! It can feel like the person is rejecting your apology and it can be very frustrating. You may feel like giving up or start defending yourself and pointing out their misdeeds. Try to be patient in this moment. The other person is just checking to make sure that you get it, so a few words of reassurance from you should help.

Lastly, you’re allowed to be human. Not all apologies go well, even with the best insight and intentions from both sides. If it gets derailed, just take some space and try again later.

How to Get Closure

Most of us have had difficult experiences in our lives that left us with a lot of unanswered questions. It might have been a breakup, an estrangement, perhaps a criminal act or another traumatic event. If you have been wronged, sometimes what you want most of all is a heartfelt apology.

You may find yourself longing to contact a specific person who you think can answer your questions, provide an apology, and give you the closure you long for. Not having closure can feel like torture. 

So is closure really as simple as getting answers to questions? In many cases, no. Closure is not just about getting information or an apology. In fact, explanations and apologies can often end up feeling strangely dissatisfying or lead you down a rabbit hole of obsession and rumination. Apologies can cause further harm if they are not handled right, and answered questions can sometimes just lead to more and more questions. 

Rather, closure is an emotional shift that lets us know we can draw a line under an experience and finally move on. Those who have felt closure usually describe it as a freeing experience, like a burden has been lifted and replaced with a feeling of relief. The unburdening can bring about healing and growth.  

The problem with viewing closure as a set of answers or an apology is that it relies entirely upon the actions of another. If the other person is unavailable, unapologetic, or otherwise uncooperative, your sense of closure is held to ransom. You give away your power to achieve closure when you view it as something that is in the hands of the other person, like a gift that they can either choose to give or to withhold.

Here's the good news. Closure is a gift that you can give to yourself. It is not dependent upon what somebody else does, because that feeling of closure is the culmination of a deeply personal journey of gradually letting go of the need for input from the other person and arriving at a place of acceptance. That comes from within. 

Achieving closure does not require condoning the actions of a wrongdoer, forgetting the past or tolerating being mistreated. However, it might mean expanding your definition of what it means to forgive. Many people think of forgiveness, like closure, as being dependent on another person. But you can choose to forgive the actions of another even when they have not expressed remorse or issued an apology. 

The benefit of forgiveness is that you choose not to carry the hurt around with you anymore, waiting for the other person to take action so that you can be free and feel better. It doesn’t mean that what happened was okay, but simply that you accept that it can’t be undone. Forgiveness is for you, not them. It means you decide to free yourself regardless of what they choose to do. 

Carrying hurt and resentment around does nothing to help you. If somebody put a heavy backpack full of rocks on your shoulders and asked you to carry it around forever for no reason whatsoever, would you agree to it? Or would you refuse to carry it, take it off and set it down? That’s what forgiveness is for. It frees you, not the other person.

Research findings suggest that expressive writing, especially when combined with therapy can help a person heal themselves without the intervention of the other party, by making meaning of what happened. 

A therapist can facilitate the closure process by working through unresolved emotions, thoughts, and conflicts associated with the event or relationship and finding ways to integrate the experience into your personal narrative in a way that allows for healing and growth.

So why wait another moment? Take off the backpack and be free.

From Conflict to Connection

Stuck in Conflict

When you are trying to express yourself to your partner, do you often end up feeling worse than when you started?

During a conversation or conflict with our partner, we often tend to focus on our surface emotions, thoughts and perceptions, but far less so on our deeper, core emotions and our unmet emotional needs.

Our communication comes out as critical, angry, or frustrated and our partner becomes angry and frustrated too, or just throws their hands up and walks away, leaving us all alone with our unmet needs. Nobody feels heard or understood and nobody wins.

Often, we are not even aware that there is another layer of emotion happening beneath the surface of communications like these, especially if we grew up in a family where emotional expression was not encouraged or modeled by our caregivers.

Many of us get stuck in a chronic attack/defend or mutual blame pattern with our loved one when we try to express our emotional needs and over time this can erode our secure connection to each other and create emotional distance.

Once a person is able to shift their awareness to their deeper emotions and unmet needs, it can be a game changer for connection and healing.

When I work with clients, I like to explain it as an “experience elevator”.

The magic happens when you take the elevator from the top floor (surface emotions) all the way down to access what’s in the basement (deeper emotions).

How can you tell which emotions are surface and which are deeper?

There are some clear differences between the two.

Surface Emotions

On the top floor, it feels safe. You can see everything from there, or at least you think you can. This is where the surface emotions exist. The most common ones are  anger and frustration. People feel safe when they express these surface emotions. They tend to come easily and quickly to us, often as a reaction to an external trigger. The feelings are observable to others and can change or escalate quickly. These emotions are typically more socially acceptable or easier to express than the deeper feelings that lie beneath.

They are often used as a way to defend ourselves from perceived or actual criticism  and we can use them to deflect blame and avoid vulnerability.

Unfortunately these surface emotions don’t help us get our needs met. In fact, they tend to push other people away.

Deeper Emotions

Deeper emotions, or primary emotions, are the core feelings that are often hidden beneath the surface. These emotions are more fundamental and relate to our basic needs and desires, such as the need for connection, safety, and acceptance. Primary emotions include feelings like sadness, fear, hurt, and loneliness.

Core emotions are much harder to express because they involve being much more vulnerable.

It is so much easier to approach our partner with anger or frustration, saying something like,

“You never listen!”

than to say,

“It really hurts when you tune me out. I feel the hurt like a pit in my stomach and I get so afraid that maybe I am not important to you”.

Our primary emotions tend not to be reactive or defensive in nature. Often they are more persistent and are related to our view of ourselves, which was most likely formed during childhood. For example, a child who was neglected will probably grow up feeling unsure about how valued and lovable they are. As an adult, they will be sensitive to this and may unconsciously look for evidence that they are not good enough or that they don’t matter to their partner.

Unmet Needs

Usually when a primary or deeper emotion is being experienced, it points to a core unmet need. In Emotionally Focused Therapy, we refer to these as attachment needs. These needs, when met, are the things that let us know we are safe, secure and loved in our relationship. Here are some of the most common attachment needs that people identify during  EFT couples therapy sessions:

·      To feel seen, heard and understood

·      To know they matter

·      To know they are good enough

·      To work as a team/partnership

·      To be respected

·      To have efforts acknowledged

Vulnerability Leads to Empathy

So why delve into deeper emotions and unmet attachment needs when they are so much harder and more vulnerable to acknowledge and express?

The big payoff to accessing and sharing primary emotion is empathy. Whilst surface emotions like anger tend to push the other person away, primary emotions typically do the opposite and draw the other person closer.

Your partner is more likely to understand what you are feeling and be motivated to help you feel better. Part of the vulnerability of expressing these emotions is that you don’t actually know for sure that the other person will respond well to you. They might be stuck in their own experience, lacking  the emotional capacity to hold space for your feelings right at that moment.  

Practical Steps for Accessing and Sharing Emotion

Understanding the distinction between surface and deeper emotions can be transformative in everyday life. Here are some practical steps to apply this knowledge:

Self-Reflection: Take time to reflect on your emotional responses. Ask yourself, “What am I really feeling beneath this anger or frustration? What unmet need drives this feeling?”

Connect with your Body: Tune in to the physical sensations that give clues about your deeper emotion. Is there heaviness in your chest? A knot in your stomach? Does your body suddenly feel colder or warmer? Pay attention to these signs and try to hear what your body is telling you about what emotion you are feeling.

Open Communication: In relationships, strive to communicate your deeper emotions. Instead of saying, “I’m angry,” try expressing, “I feel hurt because I need to feel valued.”

Empathy: When others express strong emotions, consider what deeper feelings might be driving their behavior. Try to respond with empathy and curiosity. Often this can defuse anger and shift the conversation dramatically, paving the way for reconnection.

Therapeutic Support: If navigating these emotional layers feels challenging, seeking support from an EFT therapist can be very helpful.

Recognizing and understanding the difference between surface or secondary emotions and deeper or primary emotions is a key concept in Emotionally Focused Therapy. By taking the elevator of our emotional experiences down to the basement, we can achieve greater self-awareness, improve our relationships, foster deeper emotional connection and create opportunities for mutual healing with our partner.