Repetitive Patterns in Anxiety, Relationships, and Self-Criticism

When Problems Keep Returning

Many people arrive in therapy having already tried to understand what is wrong.

They have named the anxiety. identified attachment styles, and they have read about trauma.

Yet the underlying patterns remain.

These difficulties often reflect three interconnected fears:

  • Fear of emotion

  • Fear of closeness

  • Fear of being yourself

You may recognise one of these patterns, or aspects of all three.

Fear of Emotion

Some people live with persistent tension or overwhelm. Others feel flat, numb, or disconnected.

Common experiences include:

  • Anxiety that feels disproportionate

  • Exhaustion without clear cause

  • A sense that something internal is blocked

Anxiety is often not the primary problem. It is a response to emotion perceived as unsafe.

When feelings are avoided long enough, they may present as:

  • Chronic anxiety

  • Shutdown or emotional numbness

  • Low mood

Therapy focuses on increasing tolerance for emotion so anxiety no longer needs to regulate it.

Fear of Closeness

You may want connection but feel yourself withdrawing when it becomes intimate. Or you may feel preoccupied with reassurance, distance, or abandonment.

Patterns often repeat across relationships:

  • Pulling away when someone gets close

  • Testing or withdrawing under stress

  • Clinging or fearing rejection

These responses usually developed when closeness once felt unpredictable, intrusive, or unsafe. They are protective strategies that persisted beyond their original context.

When past experience is differentiated from present reality, closeness becomes less threatening and more flexible.

Fear of Being Yourself

Some people experience a persistent internal critic.

This may appear as:

  • Harsh self-evaluation

  • Perfectionism

  • Self-sabotage when things improve

  • Feeling fundamentally inadequate

When authenticity previously led to criticism, rejection, or pressure, distancing from yourself became protective.

Over time this can lead to:

  • Confusion about identity

  • Chronic self-doubt

  • Difficulty accessing desire or direction

Therapy works to reduce internal self-attack and increase tolerance for self-experience.

How These Patterns Interact

Fear of emotion, fear of closeness, and fear of self often reinforce each other.

For example:

  • Avoiding anger may maintain relationship distance.

  • Fear of closeness may strengthen self-criticism.

  • Self-attack may increase anxiety and emotional avoidance.

The goal of therapy is about differentiation.

When you can experience feelings safely, relate without reflexive protection, and tolerate your own internal world, repetitive cycles begin to shift.

What Therapy Focuses On

Work typically involves:

  • Identifying anxiety patterns

  • Recognising protective defences

  • Gradually increasing emotional capacity

  • Differentiating past threat from present reality

Change occurs through regulation and integration.

Fees and Practical Information

£65 per 50-minute online session
Flexible morning, afternoon and night time appointments
UK-based online therapy

Next Steps

If this reflects your experience, you can book an initial consultation.

The consultation allows us to assess fit, clarify goals, and determine whether this approach is appropriate for you.

Book a consultation

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FAQ: When Problems Keep Returning

  • Relationship self-sabotage often comes from unconscious fears of closeness, intimacy, or abandonment. In therapy, we look beneath the surface to uncover where these fears began and how they shape the present. With support, you can move from pushing people away to creating healthier, more secure connections.

  • Anxiety isn’t random.

    Persistent anxiety usually signals emotional conflict beneath the surface. Anxiety is often tied to feelings you’ve been avoiding for years. Therapy helps to uncover these hidden patterns, in turn, reducing anxiety while building the capacity to feel and manage your emotions more freely.

  • Harsh self-criticism often comes from an internalised voice, which is critical and punishing and turns you against yourself. Therapy helps to challenge this inner critic and strengthen your healthier, adaptive self, so you can begin relating to yourself without collapsing into shame.

    The harsh inner critic is usually the voice of past experiences, not your true self. Therapy helps loosen shame’s grip so you can relate to yourself with more confidence, without losing your drive.

  • When your history still lives on inside you, old coping strategies get triggered again and again. Therapy helps you recognise these cycles and finally step out of them. Breaking free from repetition into emotional freedom.

  • Yes. While surface-level coping strategies often provide temporary relief, psychodynamic therapy works at the emotional core. By addressing feelings and defences you are unaware of, even deeply rooted problems like chronic anxiety, shame, trauma, or relationship struggles can shift in lasting ways.. It’s hard work, but it’s where freedom begins.

  • Absolutely. Online therapy creates a focused, safe space to explore the issues holding you back, no matter where you are, while still going to the root of the problem.

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