Bartholomew Kovacs (he/they)

Attachment is not a personality label. It is what your nervous system learned to expect from the people who mattered, usually before you could argue about it. Those expectations run underneath adult relationships and they do not respond to insight. I am a Certified Emotionally Focused Therapist, so attachment is not a lens I borrow occasionally, it is how the work is built. If you already understand your patterns and they keep running anyway, this is the level that was never reached.

I am a gay man and I work with gay men, individually and in couples. Much of what I see is not the crisis phase. It is men who came out years ago, built good lives, and still cannot stay close to anyone for long. Growing up managing what was safe to show teaches a skill that does not switch off when the danger passes. I am affirming of all relationship structures and not oriented toward any of them as the goal. Monogamous, open, dating, single: the work underneath is the same.

Most couples I see are not unreasonable people. They are thoughtful, capable, and they have tried. They have had the conversation about the dishes, the distance, the tone, the sex, and then had it again. Emotionally Focused Therapy works on the cycle underneath the argument rather than the argument itself, which is why it reaches what better communication does not. It also has one of the strongest research bases in the field: 70 to 75% of couples move from distress to recovery.

I am a gay man and I work with gay men, individually and in couples. Much of what I see is not the crisis phase. It is men who came out years ago, built good lives, and still cannot stay close to anyone for long. Growing up managing what was safe to show teaches a skill that does not switch off when the danger passes. I am affirming of all relationship structures and not oriented toward any of them as the goal. Monogamous, open, dating, single: the work underneath is the same.

I am certified in EFT through ICEEFT, which means supervised proof of competence rather than a weekend training. EFT works at the level of emotion and attachment rather than thoughts and behavior, which is why it reaches what insight and communication skills have not. Developed by Sue Johnson, it has one of the strongest research bases in psychotherapy: 70 to 75% of couples move from distress to recovery and the gains hold over time. I use it with couples and with individuals.

Depth work means going after what drives the pattern rather than managing its surface. Most people I see have already tried the surface. They have the language, the frameworks and the self-awareness, and the pattern continues anyway. That is not a failure of effort or intelligence. It usually means the thing organizing the behavior sits below the level insight can reach. Slower than coping skills, and it tends to change something that stays changed.

In practice this means tracking what happens in your body and in the room when something matters, rather than only what you think about it afterward. Attachment theory predicts that the moves which look like distance, defensiveness or over-functioning are usually protection, organized around a question most people never say out loud: am I safe with you when I actually need something. Working at that level is slower than analyzing the behavior, and it reaches what analyzing does not.