Gordon Neufeld’s beautiful words offer a simple but profound truth about human development:
“To foster independence we must first invite dependence… We liberate children not by making them work for our love but by letting them rest in it.”
Most parents instinctively feel the wisdom in this, even if the world around them sometimes encourages the opposite. But what’s perhaps even more powerful is this: the very same principles that help children grow are the ones that help adults heal.
Children don’t age out of attachment needs. They simply learn, often unconsciously, how to adapt to the absence of secure connection. Those adaptations- avoidance, over-functioning, clinginess, shutdown, perfectionism, emotional caretaking- walk into the therapy room years later wearing grown-up clothes.
So as much as Neufeld is speaking about parenting, he’s also describing the quiet heart of our work as therapists: helping adults become safe enough to rest, and in resting, to grow.
Let’s explore how the wisdom of attachment in childhood links directly to what we see and hold in therapy.
Attachment Needs Don’t Disappear — They Go Underground
A child who isn’t invited to depend learns to stop asking. A child whose need for closeness is dismissed learns to silence their longing. A child who has to behave perfectly to stay in someone’s good graces learns to work for love.
And those early survival strategies can look very “independent” from the outside. Adults often tell us in therapy:
- “I don’t need anyone.”
- “I just get on with things.”
- “I never cry.”
- “I hate being a burden.”
- “I feel guilty resting.”
- “I don’t know how to let people in.”
So often, what they call strength is actually adaptation.
What they call independence is in fact self-protection.
Neufeld’s point can be flipped for adults:
To foster genuine independence in adulthood, we must first create safety for dependence.
In the therapy room, this means making room for parts of the client that were never welcomed before – the child who needed holding, the teenager who needed guidance, the adult who still aches for closeness but is terrified of it.
Healing begins not with pushing them to “be strong,” but by giving them somewhere safe to lay down the armour.
Belonging First, Becoming Second – For Children And Adults
Neufeld says:
“To promote individuation we must provide a sense of belonging and unity.”
And this truth follows us into adulthood.
A person can only discover who they are when they feel safe enough to stop performing.
In therapy, belonging looks like:
- being understood without being judged
- having consistent boundaries
- being held emotionally even when they’re messy
- knowing the therapist won’t withdraw if things get hard
- feeling “claimed” in the relational sense – cared for, not merely analysed
When clients feel safe, they begin to risk authenticity.
They stop giving the “polite version.”
They stop second-guessing what the therapist wants to hear.
They begin to show the parts that feel needy, angry, ashamed, protective, or lost.
This is individuation in real time.
Secure attachment gives the courage to separate – not only from caregivers, but from self-sacrificing patterns, trauma responses, and outdated ways of coping.
How Dependence in Therapy Creates Emotional Freedom
Neufeld writes:
“We help a child let go by providing more contact and connection than he himself is seeking.”
Therapists don’t hug (usually!), but the principle is deeply transferable.
Clients often approach therapy cautiously, dipping a toe in, filled with anxiety:
- “I don’t want to take up space.”
- “I shouldn’t need this much support.”
- “You must think I’m ridiculous for feeling this way.”
Therapeutic connection asks us to do the emotional equivalent of offering a warmer hug:
- holding steady when they wobble
- softening our tone when they express shame
- pacing with them when they fear closeness
- staying committed even when they back away
- making space for their dependency needs without making them feel weak
Adults don’t ask for more closeness because many don’t know they’re allowed to.
So therapy becomes a place where they learn- slowly-that need isn’t a flaw. It’s human.
And paradoxically, the more safely a client can depend on the therapeutic relationship, the more internal strength and autonomy they develop.
Dependence is the road to independence, even at 45, 60, or 72.
Separation and the Fear of Loss – A Universal Human Theme
Neufeld emphasises supporting children through separations like bedtime or the school gate. In psychotherapy, separation shows up as:
- fear of abandonment
- pre-emptive distancing
- difficulty trusting consistency
- grief over unmet needs
- panic when people pull away
- emotional shutdown after conflict
Clients are often re-living separation distress they once had to manage alone.
The therapist’s role is to help them feel held across separations:
- across the days between sessions
- across silences or pauses
- across ruptures
- across difference
- across endings
Therapeutically, “bridging the separation” might sound like:
- “I’ll hold this in mind for us and we’ll pick it up next week.”
- “It makes sense that goodbyes are hard. I’m still here.”
- “Even when you leave the room, the work continues inside you.”
Just as children need emotional continuity to feel safe, adults need relational continuity to heal. Therapy provides a consistent thread where earlier connections broke.
Letting Clients ‘Rest’ – The Heart of Trauma Healing
Neufeld’s line –
“We liberate children… by letting them rest in our love” –
applies beautifully to psychotherapy.
Most clients haven’t rested in years. Some have never rested at all. They’ve been:
- scanning for danger
- pleasing others
- over-functioning
- bracing for rejection
- outrunning trauma
- performing competence
- holding everyone else together
Rest doesn’t necessarily mean sleep. It means:
not having to earn acceptance.
not needing to hide parts of themselves.
not being afraid that their needs will push someone away.
When clients experience emotional rest in therapy, their nervous system finally gets the message:
“I am safe enough to stop surviving and start living.”
That’s when the deeper work begins—not from force, but from relief.
Practical Ways Therapists Invite Dependence That Leads to Growth
Here are everyday therapeutic equivalents of Neufeld’s attachment principles:
1. Providing more attunement than the client asks for
Clients often present an intellectualised version of themselves. We offer emotional presence that says, “More of you is welcome.”
2. Softening shame with warmth
Therapy models the secure base: “You don’t have to be perfect here.”
3. Staying steady when clients test the relationship
Withdrawal, silence, over-disclosure, lateness—these are often proximity-seeking behaviours. Our consistency repairs old relational wounds.
4. Bridging between sessions
Simple, thoughtful language creates continuity:
“We’ll carry this together next time.”
5. Claiming the client relationally
Not in a possessive sense, but with an attuned stance that communicates,
“You matter here. I’m invested in your healing.”
6. Helping them rest emotionally before pushing insight
Insight without safety is destabilising. Safety first, exploration second.
Why Attachment-Based Therapeutic Work Matters
Everything Neufeld describes about childhood attachment lays the blueprint for adult relational functioning. Children who weren’t emotionally held grow into adults who hold too much themselves.
Therapy becomes the corrective emotional experience where the client can finally:
- depend safely
- express need without fear
- be comforted
- be seen with compassion
- be met with softness rather than threat
- let someone in
- learn to stay regulated in the presence of another
And from that place of safety, their capacity for healthier independence grows naturally.
Just like children, adults don’t outgrow their need for connection.
They outgrow the fear of it—when it is safe enough to do so.
In the End, the Paradox Remains: We Hold On So They Can Let Go
Whether we’re talking about a child learning to sleep alone or a 50-year-old client learning to trust again, the truth is the same:
We grow through safe connection.
We mature through being held.
We heal through dependence that doesn’t shame us.
We become ourselves when someone walks with us while we’re still becoming.
Neufeld wrote about children, but he might as well have been writing about therapy:
Hold on to clients so they can learn to hold themselves.
Stay close so they can risk stepping away.
Offer safety so they no longer need protection.
Give more connection than they ask for so they learn they’re worthy of it.
In both parenting and therapy, the work is the same:
Create the conditions for rest, and maturation unfolds on its own.
And truly, that’s the quiet magic of attachment.
