The Secure Base: Why Consistency in Therapy Heals Attachment Wounds

There is something deeply reassuring about knowing that, no matter what unfolds in the in-between, there is a place - an anchor in time - where you will be met. Same day, same hour. A space where the work is held, where the self is held. In therapy, this is not incidental; it is a key aspect of the work.

For those with attachment wounds, the world has often been unreliable. Care was inconsistent, love was conditional, or the presence of another perhaps physically there, but emotionally absent may have left a hollow kind of ache, a confusion about what it means to be with another. To be met. It is here that the therapeutic space offers what the world did not: a secure base.

The Secure Base and Attachment Healing

Mary Ainsworth's work on attachment gave us a language for the experience of safety and its absence. Her Strange Situation experiments revealed the invisible threads between child and caregiver, how security fosters exploration, and how its absence breeds either desperate clinging or cool, distant self-sufficiency. Those who had a secure base - a caregiver who was consistent and attuned - ventured out into the world with confidence, knowing they could return to safety when needed. Those who did not developed defences and adaptations: anxious seeking, avoidance, or a chaotic blend of both.

Ainsworth's research was with infants, but the impact extends into adulthood. What happens when the early base was inconsistent? The world becomes uncertain, relationships unpredictable. A longing for connection coexists with an equally strong fear of it. Deep down, there lingers a question: Will you be there when I reach for you?

Consistency, Communication & Clarity as Repair

This is why, when possible, I and many other practitioners believe that therapy works best when it takes place at the same time each week. Not because of the schedule itself, but because of what that regularity represents. It provides a steady rhythm - metronomic, like a heartbeat. And often, it is that rhythm that was missing. The absence of a predictable, attuned presence in early life can leave an imprint - a need to reach, to chase, to anticipate loss before it comes.

So in therapy, we work to repair, not repeat. The holding structure is not about clinging - it is about knowing. Knowing that the space exists. Knowing that the work is held. Knowing that presence is not something to be grasped for, but something that simply is. And when that knowing is in place, something shifts. The therapy itself can be more creative, more expansive, more fluid. Because security does not limit us - it frees us. When we trust in the foundation, we explore more, risk more, step further into the unknown.

And yes, there are breaks. Therapists go away. Clients go away. Life interrupts. But these separations are not ruptures. They are held, acknowledged, talked about. We ask: How will you hold yourself in this space between? Because therapy is not just about what happens in the room, it is about what is carried beyond it.

At a minimum, six consecutive sessions are necessary to begin building the therapeutic relationship (or alliance, as it is known). Research suggests that real, measurable change starts to take root somewhere between 16 and 18 consecutive sessions. Without that commitment, the work risks remaining at the surface, never quite settling into the deep structures where transformation occurs.

The Therapist as a Temporary Secure Base

Therapy is not about creating dependency; it is about offering what was missing so that, in time, the client can internalise it. Just as Ainsworth's securely attached children used their caregiver as a home base before moving confidently into the world, the therapeutic relationship becomes a safe structure within which the client learns to relate differently - to themselves, to others.

The goal is not for the therapist to be the permanent base, but rather to instil the sense that a secure base can exist at all. That relationships can be reliable. That consistency is not a trick, a precursor to abandonment. That in the steady rhythm of showing up, something shifts.

Holding the Work

Inconsistent attendancy to therapy is a mirror of the very wounds it seeks to heal. A client with attachment trauma needs containment - a place where the unfinished pieces of their story are safely stored until they return. If therapy is irregular, that container weakens. The work becoming fragmented, and so too the therapeutic alliance which is foundational to trust in the process.

By keeping therapy as regular as possible, the therapist holds not just the space, but the history of what has unfolded within it. They become the keeper of the client's unfolding narrative, the one who remembers what was said three sessions ago when it felt unimportant but now holds new weight. This kind of holding is what allows healing to deepen.

Final Thoughts

The work of healing attachment wounds is not necessarily about grand breakthroughs; more likely about repetition. Showing up, again and again, until the body learns to believe what the mind cannot yet grasp: that relational safety is possible. That relationships can be steady. That the past does not have to define the present.

The secure base is not a concept. It is a felt experience. And in the quiet, steady rhythm of regular therapy - when it is possible, and when it is held with intention, something foundational is rebuilt which can become internalised as a learned secure attachment. Not just trust in another, but trust in self and in

life itself.