We all need to be held in mind by others, especially by our caregivers early in life, at a time before we have words- or the capacity to think about ourselves on our own. Being held in someone else’s mind makes us feel seen and understood, thought about, relevant, and represented. Being held in someone else’s body is essential for the infant on the most basic level, yet being held in mind is also what helps us feel that we’re real—as a person who can be thought about. 

Sometimes caregivers are too preoccupied to hold a child in mind. Sometimes a parent understands only the language of physicality and tends to the infant on a practical, concrete level, without a mindful awareness of who the infant is, how he or she must feel, what the infant needs. This form of neglect is not obvious at first glance, because the child’s physical needs are being met, but its effects often emerge later, when the child does not feel real, important, or represented in the imagination of the other—at times when the other is not physically present. A difficulty with object constancy may arise, and separations may feel annihilating rather than bearable.

As therapists, we often attend to the physical aspects of the space we provide—the office, the ambience, the setting, the position of the couch or chair. But we don’t always think about how our clients need us to hold them in mind from session to session. Remembering who they are and what they’ve said after a separation, letting them know they’ve been thought about even when they were not present—these are not small things. Hearing the therapist’s voice, seeing that look of recognition, being reminded of something meaningful from the previous session—these are ways of holding continuity. We show the client that we have not forgotten them, that we are paying attention, that they exist for us outside the frame of the hour as much as within it. In a quiet way, this builds a sense of psychic permanence: You are still here in my mind, even when you’re  not in the room.

But in order to hold another in mind, the other must be separate from us. There has to be a distinct person to think about; otherwise, it becomes enmeshment rather than holding. Being merged with someone is different from allowing them to exist as a separate presence and letting our own mind reflect on who they are, what they’ve shared, what they might need. We recognize the other because they are an other. That small but essential distance preserves our capacity to think, to see, and to hold without suffocating—without collapsing into them or pulling them into us.

We all know how good it feels to be thought of—unless, in our primary relationships, we have been held in mind in ways that felt unsafe or misattuned. In those cases, the experience of being represented in another’s mind as something steady and benevolent may need to develop slowly, as a kind of emotional achievement. Most of all, when we remember what others have told us, think about them when we’re apart, imagine what they might be feeling or needing—these are quiet but profound gifts. To hold someone in mind is, in a very real sense, to help them feel that they exist.

The post Being Held in Someone Else’s Mind appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Guest Post By Michal Goldman

Relationships are built through many small moments of connection, and they are also shaped by many small moments of disconnection. These moments of disconnection are often subtle. Someone says something and does not feel fully understood. A comment gets overlooked. An emotional bid is met with distraction. These experiences are known as ruptures, and they are a normal part of being in a relationship with another person.

A rupture happens when there is a break in emotional connection. Although ruptures can sometimes be big, most ruptures are small enough that neither person pays too much attention. They can show up as a feeling of distance, a flicker of disappointment, or a sense of being unseen in response to something that happened between the two people. Rupture will happen just by virtue of the fact that a relationship is made up of two imperfect human beings.  What happens next is what is important for the security of the relationship.

Repair is the process of addressing that moment of disconnection and restoring closeness. This might involve clarifying what was meant, acknowledging an impact, offering an apology, or simply slowing down to reattune to the other person. Over time, these cycles of rupture and repair shape how safe and trusting a relationship feels.

One way to picture this is through the image of a string. Imagine two people holding opposite ends of a string that represents their emotional connection. As small ruptures occur, tiny tears form in the string. When those tears are ignored, the string becomes increasingly frayed and the people holding it feel more distant from one another. When a rupture is repaired, it is like tying a knot in the string. The knot shortens the string slightly and brings the two people closer together. With each repair, the connection becomes stronger and more secure.

This process begins early in life. When a baby cries, there is a rupture marked by distress and discomfort. When a caregiver responds by soothing, feeding, or holding the baby, a repair occurs. Over many repetitions, the baby learns that distress leads to connection and that their needs matter. This does not require perfect responsiveness. It requires enough moments of repair over time to create a sense of safety and trust. These early experiences shape how people come to understand relationships throughout their lives.

Rupture and repair continue to play a central role in all relationships as adults. Imagine the example of a couple.  One partner shared that they had a difficult day at work, and the other responded briefly while looking at their phone. The partner who shared may feel dismissed or alone, even if that was not the intention. If there is no acknowledgment about what happened, that feeling often lingers. A repair might happen when the distracted partner says they realized they were not fully present and they want to hear more, or when the first partner says they felt a bit unseen earlier and needed reassurance (and the other partner responds). These moments of repair communicate care and responsiveness, and they build trust over time.

To start building more repair into relationships, it can be helpful to gently name small moments that sting rather than minimizing them or letting them pile up. Speaking from one’s own experience and inviting reconnection creates space for repair and strengthens emotional closeness.

Rupture and repair also occur in the therapeutic relationship. At times, a client may feel misunderstood or feel that something important was missed. When a client brings this into the room and the therapist responds with openness and curiosity, a repair takes place. This experience can be deeply meaningful, especially for people who are used to their feelings being dismissed or ignored. Over time, experiencing a secure, responsive relationship in therapy can help people feel more confident and secure in their relationships outside the therapy room.

All relationships move through moments of connection and disconnection. Security and closeness are built through the repeated experience of finding one another again after those moments of distance. When people learn that relationships can stretch, repair, and come back together, connection begins to feel sturdier and more reliable. This is how trust grows, one small repair at a time.

Michal Goldman, LCSW, is a couples therapist in NY specializing in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and discernment counseling.  Learn more about her work at michalgoldmanlcsw.org.

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Many of us now understand the self not as a single, unified identity, but as a system of parts or sub-selves that can be in conflict or in harmony. The idea that a person has only one unified self is no longer universally accepted (even if most of the time our sense of self can feel undivided). In Internal Family Systems (IFS), for example, we think in terms of a system of selves, where different parts have different roles: some protect, some carry pain, for example. 

Our overall sense of self is formed through our past experiences. Some of these experiences involve what we learn about ourselves from accurate mirroring by others, where they reflect back to us who we are in a way that feels true. When others respond to our cues and spontaneous gestures with accurate feedback, this helps us feel seen and connected to our true self, the person we experience ourselves to be from the inside out, the part of us that feels real, alive, genuine.

Other parts of us develop through internalization, imitation, identification. We adapt to the people around us, absorb aspects of their personalities, feelings, and behaviors, and make parts of their emotional world our own.

Then there is of course also Winnicott’s false self, in contrast to the true self, where what we show the outside world is not coming from our inner truth, but is an accommodation to caregivers or others who did not make room for our spontaneous, alive expressions. This self is a persona of sorts. 

And then there are introjections. 

These are parts of us we absorbed from others (perhaps to align ourselves with their point of view, or as a repository for the own unwanted parts) that feel foreign, unwanted, or disturbing inside, and that don’t feel like “us” deep down. An example would be when a person who was criticized repeatedly by their parents now carries a harsh, critical voice inside. This voice often feels like someone else’s, even though it lives within oneself.

But today I want to make sure to mention the alien self, based on distorted mirroring. 

Fonagy and Target in the mentalization literature describe the alien self as developing when someone reflects back to us not our real emotional signals, but something that does not fit who we are.

For example, when a child tries to separate or become autonomous, a parent may experience this as aggression or rejection. The child then receives the message:

“You are bad.”

“You are hurting me.”

“You are aggressive.”

Over time, the child may start to believe this. Yet on the inside, it does not feel true.

So the person grows up with a painful dissonance:

On the inside: “I feel independent, alive, and well-intentioned.”

Internally also: “I am mean. I hurt people.”

This creates deep confusion and shame.

The alien self forces a person into a painful choice: either sacrifice their inner truth, or sacrifice the feedback they received from important caregivers.

Because this dissonance is so hard to tolerate, the psyche may try to rid itself of the alien self using projective identification, in which we symbolically evacuate our unwanted identity into another person and then behaviorally provoke them into enacting it.  This temporarily relieves the inner conflict, because once again the alien self feels alien, as if it has been gotten rid of, or no longer belongs to us, yet at a high relational cost. This recreates the original injury and disrupts intimacy.

How do we heal if what feel like parts of us inside are not aligned with who we really are, or do not really belong to “us”?

The goal is not to erase parts of ourselves, but to differentiate what is truly ours from what was imposed on us, especially when those impositions involved distortions between our true intentions and the other’s perceptions or reactions.

We can have compassion for introjected parts, because after all on some level they have become a part of us, but it is perhaps a bigger dilemma to cope with the alien self– because it’s not based on something true.  It is very hard to have compassion for something that never felt real. Healing means learning to trust our inner experiences again, rather than living inside someone else’s distorted mirror.

We are allowed to define ourselves from the inside out, and sometimes this means finding a new mirror to look into for feedback. 

The post The Alien Self: When Who You’re Told You Are Isn’t True appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

I remember a teacher in graduate school telling us something that’s stayed with me ever since: people’s problems are their solutions.

This may seem counterintuitive. After all, people come to therapy with “symptoms”, with patterns that make them suffer, with things they desperately want to get rid of. Anxiety. Avoidance. Perfectionism. Emotional numbing. Control. Depression. You name it.

These are the problems, right?

And yet, so often, when we look more closely, we begin to see that these “problems” are actually the best solutions a person once had to a deeper pain. They are defense mechanisms. Ways of surviving. Ways of coping the best they could with what was available at the time.

In that sense, our symptoms are not signs of failure. They are signs of ingenuity, of adaptation in the face of internal or external adversity.

And yet here’s the paradox I see in my therapy room every day: Our solutions eventually become our problems even though we feel we need them.

The very strategies that once kept us safe begin, over time, to cost us. When we avoid taking risks to protect ourselves from being hurt, we also avoid being known. When we play it safe, we also play it lonely. When we appear confident and self-sufficient while feeling vulnerable underneath, we keep others at a distance. When we mask our anxiety or insecurity, when we act as if everything’s fine when it’s not, we may look strong on the outside—but inside, something starts to feel empty or off. And what often emerges is a profound relational loneliness or disconnection from self.

Tragically, the strategies we’ve used to manage pain can end up recreating the very experiences we were trying to escape: rejection, invisibility, not being met, not being understood. The need to adapt all over again.

So people come to therapy saying they want to change. And they do. But there’s almost always another part of them that’s afraid to change. Afraid that giving up their symptoms—giving up the familiar ways they’ve learned to cope—will be more painful, more dangerous, than holding on to them. Because as much as these patterns hurt, they also feel like home.

And yet, alongside fear, there is something else: a longing to grow, to transform, to finally solve what’s underneath.

So here’s the thing. When we listen deeply enough, the underlying problem is rarely the symptom itself. It’s something more basic, more human:

Loneliness. A hunger for connection. Not feeling accepted as one’s true self. Trying to be who other people want you to be, even when it doesn’t resonate inside.

At the core of so many of us is a primitive, primal need: to be recognized by another mind.

We need to feel that someone holds us in their thoughts. That we are represented in someone else’s inner world. That they’re trying to understand us, to make sense of our experience, even when it’s messy or hard to put into words. This is not about being merged, it’s about being accessed.

We want to be known.

Everyone is trying to connect in their own way. Even when those ways look or are problematic. Even when they present as the symptoms.

And here’s the paradox: our problems are our solutions—and our solutions are now our problems.

Healing isn’t about ripping defenses away. It’s about helping people see them, honor them, and slowly discover that they may no longer be the only way. It’s about helping someone take healthy risks, to acknowledge their needs, to let themselves be a little more real with another person. To experiment with showing up differently and seeing what happens.

Therapy, at its heart, is an invitation into this paradox: to see how what hurts also helped, to respect the ways we survived, and to slowly discover new ways of being that allow for more aliveness, more closeness, more truth.

Not by forcing change. But by understanding the benefits and costs of staying the same.

And when people feel seen in their struggle, when even their “problems” make sense but are also challenged, something begins to transform. And in that space, growth and expansion become possible.

The post When Our Problems Are Really Our Solutions appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Lately, I’ve noticed something in my sessions; that often, just after the moment a client and I discover a new pattern they have (or insight about themselves), the client immediately asks: “Okay, well then what should I do about it??”

To me, this question often makes it seem as if the client hasn’t even taken in the insight, or has barely registered or thought about what this means for them, when the instinct to ask how to “fix it” has already taken over.

This is understandable. We live in a culture that idolizes action steps, hacks, and five-point plans. And yet, in therapy, especially relational, emotionally based work, the insistence on “doing” can get in the way of the deeper shift that’s already beginning to unfold.

Because the truth is: Not everything needs something to be “done” about it. Sometimes, insight works quietly on its own, organically, to create change, assuming we give it the space it deserves.

The Myth of Immediate Fixing

There’s a psychological principle, having to do with procedural learning (i.e. experiential learning of skills or expectations that then become automatic), that anything automatic or rote becomes harder the moment we think about it. If a person tries to narrate every movement while riding a bike, they wobble. If I pause in the middle of spelling a word I usually spell effortlessly, and start analyzing each letter, suddenly I’m not as sure.

So many of our relational behaviors—deflecting compliments, pulling away when someone gets close, minimizing our excitement, pleasing or accommodating others to avoid conflict—are like that. They happen automatically, seamlessly, outside of awareness.

But the minute we observe them, talk about them, or name them while they’re happening, something shifts. The pattern becomes less smooth. Something about our ability to engage in the automatic behavior or pattern gets messed up.

Not in a bad way—in a transformational way.

Awareness and language interrupt repetition.

This is why, when I gently ask a client as we’re exploring something familiar, “Is it happening for you right now, as we’re talking about it?”, there’s often a pause.

For example, as a client talks about how they tend to shut down when they feel vulnerable, I might say “Is it happening for you right now, in this moment?”

Or, when a client describes not being able to trust people not to hurt them, I might ask “Are you feeling that right now towards me as we’re talking about it?”

When the answer to my question is yes, clients often stop in their tracks. There’s something powerful about noticing something automatic that’s happening in a relationship, as it’s happening.

And in this moment of surprise or awareness, suddenly, something about the pattern we’re talking about is no longer running quite as efficiently. It gets clumsy. Slower. More visible as we notice it while it’s happening.

And that is how changing these experiences begins.

Why Talking Is Doing

Clients often worry that talking isn’t enough.

That if they’re not taking concrete steps, nothing is happening.

But talking—really talking—is not passive.

It’s active interruption.

It’s active observation.

It’s active relational recalibration.

When someone brings an unconscious relational pattern into the light in real time, while sitting with another human being who is attuned, present, and not reacting in the old familiar way, the relational template itself begins to reorganize.

This is not theoretical. It’s neurobiological, emotional, and experiential.

Once something is observed, it is no longer the same thing.

The whole system reorganizes around the new awareness.

And so when clients ask what to do about issues they identify, I tell them to notice it some more, to keep talking about it, to let the changes happen on their own.

The Pressure to Fix Comes From Pain

So why do we rush to “What should I do about it?”

Because sitting with awareness—without immediately fixing something—can feel:

• Shameful
• Exposed
• Vulnerable
• Uncertain
• Out of control
• Too real

When we discover a part of ourselves we don’t like or don’t understand, we may want to make it disappear.

Fixing becomes a defense: If I can fix it immediately, maybe I don’t have to feel it. If I have a plan, maybe I don’t have to face this part of myself I’m uncomfortable acknowledging.

If I know exactly what to do, maybe I won’t have to need anyone.

But this rush to action often reinforces the very pattern we’re trying to change. Under pressure, we default to what’s comfortable, automatic, and familiar—even if that automatic behavior is exactly what’s keeping us stuck.

Why We Need Another Person in the Moment of Insight

Most relational patterns were formed in relationship.

Which means many of them can only truly heal in relationship.

A lot of clients think they can figure out their patterns privately and then come back to tell me what they’ve solved. But being mirrored while the pattern is happening—being seen, not shamed, and not abandoned in that moment—is what softens the old wiring.

We heal through:

• Being witnessed
• Being accompanied
• Being understood
• Being gently interrupted in the old dance
• Feeling someone stay instead of react
• Experiencing a new relational outcome

Awareness + relationship = transformation.

No lists of steps needed.

So What Should You Do?

When insight arises, instead of rushing to action, try this:

Pause.

Notice.

Feel.

Let it be witnessed.

Let it breathe.

Let the pattern get shaky on its own.

Let the old choreography lose its rhythm.

Let something new and clumsy emerge.

Real change happens not because you forced it, but because you stayed present long enough for the old pattern to unwind.

The post When Clients Ask “What Should I Do About It?” appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

For some us, when we were little, we felt unseen, irrelevant, excluded, or unimportant. We may have wanted to prove ourselves to those around us- and maybe even to have defied those who saw us as small or insignificant.

This dynamic might have been there if we had older siblings who shut us out, or who received privileges we didn’t get, or if we longed to be part of the adults’ world but instead felt pushed aside (common in firstborn children).

As adults, such early longings often get carried into our ambitions. We work hard, we achieve, we create, we push ourselves forward. But underneath all of the admiration we get, or success we achieve, there may still be that unconscious vibe of “I’ll show you.” 

This drive often carries an edge— perhaps of competitiveness, defiance, even a hint of aggression. Which makes sense. When we’ve felt overlooked, part of us may want to fight our way into visibility. And yet, once that edge shows up, guilt often follows. We may start to feel uneasy about our ambition or drive, as though there’s something “bad” hidden inside it.

And that’s when self-sabotage may creep in. 

Sometimes we may want to write, perform, create, get promoted. Yet just as we’re about to step forward, we shrink ourselves back. Or undo our success. (I know I do this sometimes!) 

And this might at times be because some unconscious part of us fears being exposed—not only as talented, but as competitive, rebellious, or aggressive. As if people might see us saying: “See, you were wrong about me. Look at me now.”

This is an understandable conflict. We all have aggressive and competitive impulses, and we like vindication when we feel wronged, especially if we grew up without enough recognition. But when those impulses get buried because we feel guilty about them, or ambivalent about what they may do to our relationships, so too our vitality, our drive, our voice can get buried alongside them.

Healing doesn’t mean erasing these parts of us—it means integrating them. Seeing that the child who longed to be seen is still alive inside, fueling our ambition. That the “edge” isn’t shameful—it’s the spark that gives passion its power.

And sometimes, when we imagine it differently, we might even realize that the people who once overlooked us might not be angry if we shine. Or outperform their expectations. They might actually be proud.

The post Proving the World Wrong With Our Success appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Sometimes we overcompensate for our insecurities in how we present ourselves to others. We try to hide how needy, shy, embarrassed, fearful, or uncomfortable we feel by putting up a guard or masking. We may feel shy, for example, but look standoffish to others. Sometimes when we mask, we go too far. We hide our feelings and end up coming across as snobby, superior, or simply hard to read. Others get a very different impression of how we’re feeling than what’s actually true. Other times, we’re just not naturally expressive by nature, leaving others to project onto us what they imagine we’re thinking or feeling, or to overlook us altogether. We might not be aware we’re doing this, leading us to feel surprised by others’ reactions to us. We think others can see how soft we are deep down—how caring, lonely, in need of friendship, or wanting to extend ourselves, we feel—but what people actually see is a lack of approachability.

Some of us also have trouble accurately perceiving how we’re coming across to other people, even if we try to present ourselves in a specific way. We get reactions or feedback that don’t match how we feel inside, leaving us puzzled or feeling out of sync with our environment and with the responses we get from others. What a lonely thing indeed. Some of us have trouble looking like we want people to approach us—and then we feel lonely when they don’t—without realizing the part we’re playing in it.

Some therapists are afraid to give clients honest feedback about how they’re coming across—whether it’s as distant, reserved, critical, judgmental, or cold. But I find that my clients often crave this kind of honest feedback. Without others giving us accurate information about how we’re being read by them, based on our body language or demeanor, we end up being clueless when we’d benefit from being clued in.

One of my clients shared how lonely she feels, how hard it is for her to make friends. With me, she seemed so reserved and unapproachable—often avoiding eye contact, sitting with her hands folded across her chest, looking at me with what felt like a blank stare. I could see how others might find her intimidating or think she simply wanted space. But really, she was feeling so alone and wanted so much to show up in a more inviting way.

Another client would often push me away just when I tried to get close to her in a session, perhaps by revealing a feeling I had, giving her a sincere compliment, or sharing how moved I was by her story. At those moments she would change the subject or wave away my bids for intimacy. I was able to show her that this was what she was doing in her marriage as well. She hadn’t realized how much she had been pushing her husband away, when all she wanted was to connect with him.

Some clients minimize their experiences, talking about their pain as if narrating an impersonal story, or describing their experiences as if talking about someone else going through a situation that’s “no big deal”, and then feeling surprised when others can’t see how much they’re hurting or act dismissive or disinterested.

I try to point these things out in a kind way, and I appreciate when others do the same for me. For those of us who experienced a lack of accurate mirroring in childhood by caregivers who read us inaccurately due to their own projections onto us, or who simply did not pay enough attention to read us at all, the need for feedback from others can be acute, although sometimes it can feel so hard to ask for it. We don’t know what others have in their minds about us unless they tell us, and others don’t know what we have in our minds about or towards them unless we convey this in some way. The only way to read and be read in relationships is through indirect communications of what we experience internally, using language or nonverbal cues such as tone of voice or facial expression, that create links between people to bridge the privacy of their separate minds.

Reading people can be challenging even under the best circumstances, but when there’s a lot of ambiguity, a lack of clear signaling in how we come across, or a paucity of words to explain our experiences, it makes things so much harder. It can also be hard when we don’t get the feedback we need to understand how others are perceiving us. Situations involving less social cues, such as talking on the phone, can be challenging for those of us with social anxiety because we have even less information to go on than in in-person interactions. But the truth is, that for some of us, the natural lack of full information found in relational experiences can be hard to navigate in general. Learning to tolerate the exposure of showing others how we really feel—including when we feel vulnerable—helps us bridge this gap, as does asking others for feedback and clarifying how we really feel when there are disconnects between others and us.

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The post Sometimes Others Can Find Us Hard to Read appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

Our first relationships with caregivers are sometimes overwhelming to the psyche by virtue of the vulnerability we bring to these relationships. When development goes well, we are tended to in ways that are “enough but not too much”. When it doesn’t go well, failures of integration can occur.

From the very beginning of life, our earliest bond carries a kind of double current. A mother soothes—her touch, her gaze, her steady presence regulating the infant into safety. At the same time, she awakens—the rhythms of nursing, the play of sound and eye contact, the spark of vitality that makes the infant’s world come alive.

In biological terms, one stream is built from calming systems—oxytocin, serotonin, the body’s natural opioids—chemistries of comfort and containment. The other is built from stimulating systems—dopamine and its pathways of alertness, seeking, and pleasure. One quiets, the other excites. And in the maternal relationship, they merge  together.

This is what makes maternal love so intoxicating. It doesn’t just keep us alive—it makes life feel worth living. The infant learns, at the deepest level, that closeness can both settle and thrill. And because of the powerful combination of dependency on the mother for survival needs, mixed together with the intensity of the pleasures evoked by her ministrations, the maternal relationship is as seductive as it comes.

But this fusion is also what makes this relationship dangerous in the unconscious. To be enveloped in that much power—the safety and the stimulation and the pleasure all at once—creates not only bliss, but also dread. For a baby, the mother is both the one who comforts and the one who can overwhelm. Psychoanalysts often describe how the psyche protects itself against this primitive intensity by splitting the experience. It’s as if the mind says: I can bear soothing, or I can bear stimulation—but not both together.

Some carry this split into adulthood. Think of how often relationships fall into one camp or the other: some partners feel steady but flat, others thrilling but unstable. Many of us struggle to find both qualities in the same person. On an unconscious level, allowing them to coexist might feel too close to that original power of the mother—too close to the risk of being engulfed once again.

Yet the deepest, most transformative relationships are the ones that reunite what was split. To be with someone who can both soothe and enliven us—who can be a harbor and a spark—is profoundly healing. It restores us to that early fusion, but in a way that we can now survive as adults.

Perhaps this is why love so often feels both terrifying and alluring. What we are searching for is not simply a partner who calms us or excites us, but one who can hold both currents at once.

The post The Double Current of Love appeared first on Goldstein Therapy.

The good mother seduces her baby in the most loving way: through her care, her presence, her playful ministrations—peek-a-boo games, gentle stroking, warm eye contact, soothing touch. She regulates the baby’s stimulation in a way that makes excitement feel safe. For sensitive infants, the stimulation can sometimes become too much—they need to turn away. And a mother who is attuned, who can find just the right rhythm, will know when to pause, when to re-engage, when to wait. This is the beginning of a shared rhythm—the dance of “hide-and-seek,” “lost-and-found,” the mutual pull of attention and affection.

Some babies need more of this dance. Some need less. But the ones who get the right kind of rhythm—one attuned to their inner world—are given a template for pleasure in mutual engagement, for the joy of being sought, found, and seen.

As adults, many of us long to refind that experience—or to have it for the first time. We want to feel that someone will chase after us, reach out for us, try to find us when we pull away. Sometimes we withdraw, not because we don’t care, but because we’re afraid the other won’t join the dance with us. We might unconsciously play hard to get—not out of manipulation, but to protect ourselves from the unbearable feeling of being too much, or worse, not enough to want to be found.

Underneath, we may be hoping: Please come after me. Prove that you want me. Show me I matter enough to pull me back in when I’ve turned away.

These wishes often go unspoken. Sometimes we’re not even aware of them. They can feel young, even childish, and that can be embarrassing. But they are not uncommon. In fact, wanting to be pursued is a common way of coping with the fear of rejection, and of expressing the wish to be desired—not just physically, but emotionally and existentially.

Sometimes this dynamic shows up in therapy, too. Clients will come in and tell me they can’t say certain things unless I pull it out of them. They want me to guess. They want me to chase their truth, to prove I care enough to pursue it. Sometimes it feels playful, like a game. Other times, it feels like a challenge or a test. But it always speaks to an unmet need—for someone to reach inside, to pull them out, to prove that what’s inside of them is worth knowing, worth staying for.

There’s often a wish to be penetrated—not physically, but emotionally. To be known deeply. To feel that our enigmatic inner world is a mystery worth uncovering.

When the wish to be run after is hidden or disowned, it can backfire. We may pull away, hoping to be pursued—but if the other doesn’t chase us, we feel rejected. Or the person we long to engage becomes confused, sensing distance or coldness. They may interpret our withdrawal as disinterest or dismissal, when really, we’re silently asking: Will you come find me?

These longings are young and primitive. They stir feelings of play, desire, excitement, vulnerability. And they’re not inherently problematic. What’s important is learning how to express these dynamics in ways that invite mutual enjoyment and connection, rather than becoming power struggles, tests, or emotional traps.

When both people can engage in the dance—pursuing and being pursued, hiding and being found, pulling and being pulled—it becomes an arena for discovery. There’s room for surprise, for mystery, for that charged feeling of intensity that makes us feel alive, creative, and emotionally awake.

This is the ebb and flow that fuels adult love: the rhythm of charge and rest, expansion and contraction, closeness and space. When we find someone who can match our rhythm—or learn it with us—relationships become more than just safe havens. They become sources of vitality, drawing out parts of ourselves we didn’t know we could access on our own.

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So here’s the thing about avoidant attachment: it’s a style of coping with vulnerability or distress that masks or minimizes one’s need for connection, soothing, or support.

Looking like you have it all together, if you’re avoidant, people may not realize just how scared or stressed you actually feel. You may not even realize it yourself, if you’re used to picking yourself up by the bootstraps and marching on when things get tough. Or telling yourself “it’s not so bad” when “it” really actually is pretty bad. Feelings that make sense logically to you may feel okay, but the ones that don’t make sense…well, you might feel baffled by those, or surprised to find that feelings don’t always match the objective situation that triggers them. For example, what if you feel sad on one of the happiest days of your life, like at your child’s wedding? What if you don’t feel sad when someone close to you dies? You may feel anxious if this happens to you.

And the avoidant clients are the ones who typically ask me how therapy is going to fix things on a practical level? When I tell them that we’re going to talk about things together, and that this will help, they don’t really see the point. Talking without practical solutions to make feelings go away? This is most baffling to the avoidant.

Well here’s the thing, if you’ve learned to turn away from knowing what you feel, or from sharing your vulnerable feelings with other people, another self-help book or practical strategy probably won’t help you get into a relationship, feel closer to people you love, or cope with your anxiety or your stress-caused stomachaches or headaches.

But here’s what will: a relationship experience where being vulnerable becomes safe, where you let yourself take the risk of trusting someone else emotionally, where you tell yourself the truth about how much things in your life have actually affected you. Self-sufficient practical solutions aren’t the kind of therapy you need. That might actually reinforce the very problem you need help with, which is how to take emotional risks in relationships, and to align your inner experiences with what you show and say on the outside. A relational therapist can help you do this by encouraging you to get attached, to talk and share instead of “doing” something to fix your external reality, and by pointing out when you’re using detachment or self-sufficiency to be your own therapist.

We learn to be avoidant or dismissive when the people in our life reinforce us for being strong or self-sufficient, or offer practical suggestions instead of focusing on our inner experiences and reflecting them back. Some of us get rejected when we act needy or get the message that we should “get over it” and “move on” when we feel sad, hurt, out of control, or scared. Sometimes we develop an avoidant style because we saw a parent who was dysregulated get overtaken by their emotions or neediness and we didn’t want to replicate that problem in ourselves. We may have taught ourselves to shut down, detach, or use self-reassurance to cope with feeling needy, worried, or distraught.

Sometimes we make a virtue out of a necessity. When instead of being validated, affirmed, or soothed when we needed it the most, we were pushed away or left unresponded to, we may have taught ourselves to buck up. Soon we feel superior or at least virtuous for being “strong”… and society doesn’t help when it comes to reinforcing this view. Dependency is seen as weakness, vulnerability as giving power away. We lose sight of our early needs and shelve them far away from consciousness.

And yet, we’re all wired to need attachment relationships, to need others to comfort and hold things for us, and to experience feelings that don’t always make sense on paper. These are the things that make relationships interesting and intimate, and these are the things that keep us regulated and soothed. If this is a challenge for you, it might be time to go back to basics and to let yourself get close and connected in a relationship where you’re not the one taking care of someone or being in control. Sounds scary? Doesn’t have to be!

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