From Anxious to Detached. The false beliefs of anxious attachment and how to heal.

I hear this often: people come to me feeling hurt and anxious because someone who was meant to love them, support them, and have their best interests at heart has not. Instead, they’re left feeling trampled on, like nothing they do is ever enough. No matter how much they empathise, accommodate, or bend themselves to keep the peace, they still go unseen for all they give.

Longing to set boundaries and to finally feel "good enough" they want to stop overthinking how to craft the perfect, articulate explanation of their wants and needs, or how they’ve been hurt.

So often, I’m told they want to be more emotionally regulated. To regulate their nervous system. Anxiety, and especially anxious attachment, can be so de-railing. And exhausting.

Learning how to regulate your nervous system is crucial. Understanding why you become dysregulated and healing that, will prevent you from becoming dysregulated in the first place.

At the heart of this is a deep human need: the need for another person to reflect us back to ourselves. We long for signals that we are seen, connected, valued, whole, and worthy. When someone acknowledges our worth, when they truly appreciate us, we find reassurance and confirmation of who we are, that we are valuable, and worthwhile.

When foundational needs become false beliefs

While all humans have a deep need to be properly mirrored (accurate reflection) when we are in developmental stages, if we reach adulthood with the same degree of need from others and have an under developed sense of self, we will find that we’re constantly asking, “Do you approve of me? Am I enough for you?” Instead of feeling secure in our own worth, we wait for others to confirm it. This often leads to people-pleasing, self-doubt, and choosing partners who highlight all the ways in which you feel inadequate. Other people’s moods and behaviour greatly affect your mental and emotional state. You might believe that the only reason you are loved is because you’re easy to be with or because you offer healing or solutions to other peoples problems. Deep down you might grapple with feelings of unworthiness, questioning your right to be loved or for good things to happen for you. This mindset can create a dependency on others for validation and self worth, perpetuating a cycle where your sense of self and value is tied to other people’s response to you.

Finding healing

In therapeutic terms, this is called having an external locus of evaluation- when a person depends on others to tell them who they are, whether they’re good enough, and whether their feelings, choices, or actions are valid. They look outside themselves: to parents, partners, peers, teachers, social media, or society for approval, validation, and direction. This can create vulnerability: if the external feedback is negative or inconsistent, the person may feel anxious, inadequate, or disconnected from their true self.

By contrast, an internal locus of evaluation means a person trusts their own inner sense of worth, judgment, and experience. They may still value feedback, but ultimately their compass comes from within.

Yes, we need to work on our anxious attachment and locus of evaluation. We also need to choose differently. We need to choose ourselves as the captain of our sense of worth. And we need to choose people who have a positive impact on our lives, instead of people who degrade our sense of self.

We can heal this through getting the proper mirroring (accurate reflection) , empathy and attunement from a therapeutic practitioner, which gets right to the heart of the problem. When a counsellor reflects back a client’s feelings, experiences, and strengths with accuracy and warmth, it gives the individual a reliable “mirror” of who they are. Unlike the distorted or conditional reflections they may have received from others when they were developing and then repeated in adulthood, the counsellor’s reflection is accepting and non-judgmental. Over time, the individual internalises these reflections, learning to see themselves more clearly and eventually becoming their own mirror.

Empathy means the counsellor doesn’t just listen to words, but actively feels with the individual, communicating “I get you, you make sense.” This consistent experience of being understood and accepted helps soothe the nervous system, reduces shame, and creates safety. In that safety, we begin to trust our own inner experience, rather than doubting or dismissing ourselves.

Those who depend on others for worth begin to borrow the counsellor’s steady, accepting presence. With repeated empathic mirroring, they slowly develop an internal locus of evaluation: the ability to value their own feelings, needs, and judgments without requiring constant external approval. In other words, a therapeutic relationship offers a secure relational space where the client learns: “I can trust myself. I am enough.”