Attachment-Based Therapy · Virtual · Six Provinces
Attachment-Based Therapy
If the same painful thing keeps happening in your closest relationships — and you can see it happening while it happens, and still cannot stop it — that is usually an attachment pattern rather than a character flaw. It was learned, which is what makes it workable.
Free 15–20 minute consultation · No referral needed · Sessions noon–9pm Pacific, seven days
What attachment actually refers to
Attachment is the working model you built, early and mostly outside of memory, for a single question: when I need someone, what happens? If the answer was usually that someone came, you tend to approach closeness without much strategy. If the answer was that someone came sometimes and not others, or came but arrived angry, or did not come at all, you built a strategy — and the strategy was intelligent at the time.
The difficulty is that the strategy outlives the situation. A child who learned to escalate in order to be noticed becomes an adult who cannot let a conversation end unresolved. A child who learned that needing things made the room worse becomes an adult who genuinely believes they do not need much. Both are old solutions still running long after the problem changed.
This is why insight alone so often fails here. People arrive able to describe their pattern in detail, having read about it for years, and the pattern is completely unchanged by the description. Attachment is held in the nervous system and in what your body does before you have decided anything, which is why the work has to reach further down than explanation.
The four patterns, described honestly
These names get used loosely online, often as identities or insults. In clinical use they describe what someone does under relational stress — not who they are, and not permanently.
Anxious, or preoccupied
Closeness feels necessary and unreliable at the same time. Distance reads as danger, so the response to a delayed reply is to pursue — text again, seek reassurance, keep the conversation open until it resolves. The reassurance works briefly and then wears off, which is the exhausting part. Underneath is usually a well-founded early experience of care that arrived unpredictably.
Avoidant, or dismissing
Independence feels safe and closeness feels like an obligation arriving. The response to intensity is to step back — to become reasonable, to go quiet, to find the relationship suddenly less appealing once it becomes secure. This one is often misread as not caring. Physiological studies of avoidant adults suggest something closer to the opposite: distress is present, and the strategy is to not show it. Many avoidant adults arrive in therapy genuinely puzzled by their own withdrawal.
Disorganised, or fearful-avoidant
Both strategies at once, in alternation — reaching for someone and needing them to leave, sometimes within the same hour. It tends to develop where the person who was the source of comfort was also the source of fear, so the nervous system holds two incompatible instructions. This pattern is the the one most closely associated with trauma, and trauma-specific work is usually the more appropriate starting point rather than relationship advice.
Secure
Not a personality type and not the absence of difficulty. Secure attachment is better described as a recovery time: conflict happens, distress happens, and repair is expected to be possible. It can be built later in life through relationships in which repair reliably happens, and a therapeutic relationship is one place that can occur.
One caution about the categories: most people are not one of these. It is common to be steady with friends, anxious with a partner, and avoidant with a parent — the pattern is a property of the relationship and the stress level, not a label to be assigned to yourself for life.
If you would rather sit with this on your own first, there is a free attachment workbook here — no email required, nothing to book. Plenty of people read for a while before they are ready to talk to anyone, and that is a reasonable order to do it in.
What the work involves here
There is no Canadian credential called attachment therapist — the phrase is unprotected, so anyone may use it. Rather than lean on the title, here is the specific training this work is built from and what each part is for.
EMDR, for the memories the pattern is anchored to
Attachment patterns are frequently anchored to specific early moments that still carry a physical charge. EMDR works on those directly rather than through discussion. Mohamad holds Advanced EMDR training through an EMDRIA-approved programme; Alison is EMDR-trained as well.
Internal Family Systems, for the part that runs the strategy
IFS treats the protective move — the withdrawal, the pursuit — as something a part of you is doing for a reason, rather than as a defect to be overridden. That reframe matters practically, because people rarely manage to shame themselves out of an attachment strategy. Mohamad holds IFS Levels 1 and 2.
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy, built on attachment directly
EFFT is one of the few mainstream models built explicitly on attachment theory rather than merely informed by it, and it works with the cycle between people rather than the faults of either one. Alison is EFFT-trained, and also works psychoanalytically and with inner-child approaches where the early material is the centre of the difficulty.
The Gottman Method, when it is happening between two people
Where the pattern is playing out in a current relationship, Gottman Method work gives both people something concrete to do with the cycle instead of relitigating it. Mohamad and Alison each hold Gottman Levels 1 and 2. Neither is a Certified Gottman Therapist — that is a separate Gottman Institute credential, and it is not claimed here.
Who you would be working with
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC is a Canadian Certified Counsellor and a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) — a registration that applies in Ontario. He holds Advanced EMDR, IFS Levels 1 and 2, Gottman Levels 1 and 2, and CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, and works in English or Arabic. He sees clients across all six provinces the practice serves.
Alison Shaji, RCC is a Registered Clinical Counsellor in British Columbia, and her training is the most directly attachment-oriented on the team — EFFT, psychoanalytic and inner-child work, alongside EMDR, Gottman, CBT and DBT. She works in English, Hindi or Malayalam. Her registration is provincial, so she is able to see British Columbia clients.
Which of them fits depends on where you live and what you are bringing, and that gets settled on the free consultation call rather than guessed at here.
What it costs
Individual sessions are $150 for fifty minutes. Couples sessions are $175. The first conversation is free — fifteen to twenty minutes, to work out whether this is a good fit, with no referral needed.
No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice. Extended health plans often do, and which designation your plan names matters — some list a Canadian Certified Counsellor, some a Registered Psychotherapist, some a Registered Clinical Counsellor. You receive an insurance-ready receipt immediately after each session. Full detail is on the fees page.
Sessions run seven days a week from noon to 9pm Pacific time. A small number of reduced-fee spots are held — if cost is the thing in the way, say so on the consultation call.
Common questions
What is attachment-based therapy?
It is therapy that treats your patterns in close relationships as the thing being worked on, rather than as background detail. Instead of only managing the symptom on the surface — the argument, the anxiety before a text comes back, the urge to withdraw — it looks at the relational pattern underneath it and where that pattern was learned. It is an orientation rather than a single technique, and here it is delivered through EMDR, Internal Family Systems, EFFT and the Gottman Method depending on what fits.
Is there such a thing as a certified attachment therapist?
Not in Canada, and it is worth being direct about that. There is no protected credential called attachment therapist, so anyone can use the phrase. What is worth asking any therapist instead is which specific trainings they hold and how those trainings engage attachment. Here that means Advanced EMDR through an EMDRIA-approved programme, IFS Levels 1 and 2, Gottman Levels 1 and 2, and EFFT — the last of which is built on attachment theory directly.
Can attachment patterns actually change in adulthood?
The clinical literature treats adult attachment as changeable rather than fixed, which is the premise the work rests on. What that looks like in practice varies a great deal between people, and no therapist can tell you in advance how far or how fast it will move for you. What therapy offers is a relationship in which the pattern can show up and be worked with directly, which is difficult to arrange anywhere else.
I took an online attachment style quiz. Is that the same as an assessment?
No. Online quizzes are a reasonable starting vocabulary and a poor diagnosis. They tend to sort people into one of four boxes, whereas in practice most people show different patterns with different people and under different amounts of stress — steady with friends and anxious with a partner, for instance. Bring the quiz result if it was useful for putting words to something. It is a conversation opener, not a conclusion.
Do I need a partner to do this work?
No. A great deal of attachment work is done individually, and it does not require your partner to attend or even to agree with it. Couples work is available where both people want it, using the Gottman Method. If you are single, between relationships, or the person in the relationship who is willing to look at this, individual sessions are the ordinary route.
How much does it cost and is it covered?
Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions are $175, with a free fifteen to twenty minute consultation first. No provincial health plan in Canada covers counselling in private practice, but many extended health plans reimburse a Canadian Certified Counsellor, a Registered Psychotherapist or a Registered Clinical Counsellor — check which designation your plan names. You receive an insurance-ready receipt after each session.
If you need someone now
Therapy is not a crisis service. These are free and staffed around the clock:
- · 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 9-8-8 (24/7)
- · Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868
- · Hope for Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310 (24/7)
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.
Book a free 15-minute consultation
A short conversation to see whether this is the right fit — no pressure, no commitment, and a straight answer if something else would serve you better.
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