Who Holds the Therapist? A reflective workshop on attachment, burnout and the therapist’s own secure base

Tutors: Darren Sharpe & Jo Oxley

In this reflective workshop, Darren and Jo invite therapists to turn the lens gently inward and consider what happens when the person doing the holding is not sufficiently held.

The session explores the hidden emotional load of therapeutic work: the demand to be present, steady, attuned, flexible and often regulated enough for two people. Rather than treating burnout as a sudden collapse, the workshop looks at how depletion can build gradually through tiredness, reduced curiosity, self-doubt, over-preparation, withdrawal, decision fatigue or professional isolation.

Darren and Jo place burnout within both an ethical and attachment-informed frame. They explore how anxious attachment strategies may show up in therapists as over-responsibility, rumination, hypervigilance to rupture and difficulty switching off. They also consider how avoidant strategies may appear as withdrawal, emotional distancing, self-reliance, isolation or appearing competent while becoming less internally reachable.

The workshop includes gentle reflective exercises to help practitioners notice their own early warning signs, including what happens in the body before depletion becomes visible in practice. Participants are invited to consider how they protect themselves when work intensifies, whether they move towards, move away, over-function or quietly disappear.

The final part of the session focuses on restoring the therapist’s secure base. Darren and Jo offer simple anchors around being held rather than only helpful, interrupting professional isolation, using transition rituals, and naming our attachment default under strain.

This is not a therapy session or a space for deep disclosure. It is a professional reflective space for therapists who want to notice more clearly what happens to them when the work becomes emotionally demanding.

Key clinical themes

• The emotional and relational load of being the secure base
• Burnout as accumulation, not just collapse
• Care of self as part of ethical practice
• How anxious attachment strategies may lead to over-functioning
• How avoidant attachment strategies may lead to withdrawal or distance
• Noticing early signs of depletion in thoughts, behaviour and the body
• Understanding how therapists protect themselves under strain
• The importance of supervision, support and professional connection
• Transition rituals to help release emotional residue between sessions
• Strengthening the therapist’s own secure base

This recording is suitable for therapists, counsellors and helping professionals who want to reflect on sustainability, attachment patterns and what it means to be properly held in the work.