Anxious Attachment Therapy for Singles in NYC

Anxious attachment is usually discussed as something that happens inside a relationship — the fear of abandonment, the need for reassurance, the hyperawareness of a partner’s mood. But for many people, the pattern is present whether or not they’re currently partnered. It shows up as pre-emptive anxiety about dating, a tendency to build an entire relationship in your head after one good date, or a quiet sense that you’re “too much” before anyone has actually said so.

As a New York State Licensed Psychoanalyst, I work with individuals — not just couples — who want to understand their attachment patterns before those patterns play out again in a new relationship. This is different from couples therapy, which addresses an existing partnership’s dynamics; this work is about the pattern itself, independent of who you’re with or whether you’re with anyone at all.

Signs of Anxious Attachment Outside of a Relationship

• Pre-dating anxiety: Feeling anxious about the prospect of dating before you’ve even met anyone.
• Fast attachment: Becoming emotionally invested very quickly, sometimes before there’s much information to go on.
• Rehearsing worst-case scenarios: Imagining rejection or abandonment before there’s any evidence of it.
• Avoiding dating altogether: Staying single in part to avoid the intensity of the anxiety that closeness triggers.
• Self-monitoring: Constantly assessing whether you’re “too much” or “not enough” in early interactions.
• Difficulty tolerating uncertainty: Needing to know where things stand almost immediately.

A Self Psychology Perspective on Why This Work Doesn’t Require a Relationship

Attachment style isn’t produced by a relationship — it’s a template formed earlier, usually in childhood, that a relationship activates. From a Self Psychology perspective, anxious attachment often reflects a self that never fully internalized the steadying, mirroring presence of an early selfobject — so the nervous system keeps searching outward, in real time, for a partner to provide that stability instead. That means the anxiety, the vigilance, and the self-doubt are already present in you; a partner simply gives them somewhere to land. Waiting until you’re in a relationship to address this often means doing the work under pressure, with real stakes, while also trying to manage the relationship itself. Working on it individually gives you room to understand the pattern, and begin building that steadiness internally, without a live relationship complicating the process.

How Therapy Helps

We look at where the pattern originated, how it shows up in dating and in other relationships — friendships, family, work — and what a more secure internal foundation would actually feel like. Alongside that exploratory work, I also draw on Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills for distress tolerance and emotion regulation, which can be useful for managing the anxiety spikes that come with dating — the urge to text immediately after a date, or to spiral over an unanswered message — while the deeper pattern is being addressed. The goal isn’t to suppress the anxiety but to understand what it’s protecting you from, so it has less control over how you approach connection. If this resonates, I invite you to reach out.