Therapy before or after a break up?
Therapy can be helpful before or after a break up or if you are starting to feel a breakdown in communication in your significant relationships. You might think “what is the point of therapy now if I have already left the person?”. The purpose it serves is to to help you process an ending. Some relationships can have difficult endings and we may need some time out to process and reflect on what happened.
The relationship you have with your primary carer helps lay a foundation for future relationships..
We all have basic attachment needs:
Emotional safety –feeling held by another
To feel we matter – Our sense of self value
To be understood and accepted
We also have basic attachment fears:
Abandonment and rejection
Not being heard or understood
Not being good enough, low self-value
To meet our attachment needs and not be triggered by our attachment fears we need to feel that the other person we are attaching to is:
Accessible - The other person is accessible physically and emotionally available.
Responsive - They can respond to our needs and reassure us to affirm that we matter to them.
Engaged - They can engage and communicate with us and are tuned into us which helps build stability and security.
If these needs are not met, we can start acting out or internalising our feelings. We may start demanding more attention or needing constant reassurance from our close relationships or have strong defences in place not allowing anyone to get too close to protect ourselves from the feelings of abandonment or rejection.
The relationship we need to work on is the one with ourselves and to make sure we are listening to and meeting our own needs as much as possible and building foundations of safety within us. This will help us respond from a secure place with others and be clear in communicating our needs.
