The Therapist’s Journey
The Enduring Influence of Our Own Attachment Histories
Recorded Saturday 28 February 2026
A live webinar with Linda Cundy and Jane Ryan (Chair)
CPD Credits: 4 hours
Attachment theory has a long history in helping us to think creatively about our clients. And, just as their histories shaped their lives by providing the relational environment in which their personalities took shape, the same is true for us as practitioners.
This event is an opportunity for psychotherapists and counsellors to reflect on our own attachment stories, to explore the traces of early relational experiences that influence our work as we set about creating a secure and fulfilling career. It will provide a space to think about the unique sensitivities, strengths or vulnerabilities that our early relational history brings to our work – whether we’re anxious, avoidant or somewhat disorganised with our clients.
READ MORE...Holding the significance of those first attachments in mind, Linda will consider what predisposes someone to becoming a psychotherapist – what sensibilities equip us for that career; how we choose a suitable therapeutic modality, experience the professional community upon which we all rely, and how we source support. She will consider the boundaries between professional and private life, and how our past attachments influence the way we handle these. Not least, she will explore what happens when our personal lives intrude into the work (for example because of pregnancy, illness or bereavement) and how our attachment styles determine the balance between self-care and the needs of clients.
The basics of attachment theory will be outlined but the richness of individual experience and personal meaning will be central to this day.
Access to the Talks On Demand runs for 365 days from the date of purchase.
FULL PROGRAMME
Introductions
Attachment Themes
As an introduction to the day, this session with consider the relational environment and social context of early lives. Linda will discuss intergenerational narratives, core patterns of attachment, adaptations and defences. We will explore the centrality of loss, mourning and trauma in shaping our relational world.
Discussion and Q&A
Opportunities and Earned Security
Linda will here talk about the role of new attachment figures in shifting our internal working model of self-and-other, and the possibility of acquiring a sense of relational security despite adverse childhood experiences. We will think about who becomes a therapist, and what this choice might convey about that person’s relational development as they set out on this most impossible of professions.
Discussion and Q&A
The Therapist’s Journey
Taking these themes into greater detail, Linda will consider the influence of attachment history on therapeutic practice. She will look at ways in which this conveys advantages, challenges or areas of potential development for the therapist. The unique aspects of therapeutic modalities, and how we choose from these will be considered, as will the ways we create therapeutic settings and hold the frame – often quite individually and as an expression of the therapist’s sense of self in relation to the work. Successes and failures in therapy, and what they mean to the therapist will be discussed in terms of attachment style.
Discussion and Q&A
Attachment and Professional Identity
This session will be an opportunity to think about professional role models and inner critics – how we find and hold our place with self-belief. The function and importance of the supervisory relationship will be considered. Finally, we will explore how, with the right support and appropriate training we can each flourish as a psychotherapist.
End
PRE-EVENT DISCUSSION
SPEAKER
Linda Cundy is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor with a private practice in North London. Trained as a counsellor in the 1980s, Linda worked for a number of years for mental health services until retraining at the Bowlby Centre in the 1990s. She is also an independent trainer and conference speaker, nationally and internationally, specialising in attachment and clinical practice. Linda has curated, edited, and contributed to six books to date and is Series Editor for the Psychotherapy Matters books published by Karnac in association with UKCP.
SUGGESTED READING
- Cundy, L. (Ed) (2018). Anxiously Attached: Understanding and Working with Preoccupied Attachment. London: Routledge.
- Cundy, L. (Ed) (2019). Attachment and the Defence Against Intimacy: Understanding and Working with Avoidant Attachment, Self-Hatred and Shame. London: Routledge.
- Gerson, B. (Ed) (2001). The Therapist as a Person: Life Crises, Life Choices, Life Experiences and their Effects on Treatment. London: Routledge.
- Kahr, B. (2019). How to Flourish as a Psychotherapist. Bicester, Oxfordshire: Phoenix.