Mr Adrian Harris

A conversation with Adrian Harris

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  I was drawn to psychotherapy because I’ve always been fascinated by how relationships shape us — how we learn to reach for others, how we protect ourselves when connection feels risky, and how deeply we are affected by the bonds we grow up in and the ones we build as adults. In my early work across mental health and community settings, I saw again and again that people’s struggles were rarely about “symptoms” alone; they were about disconnection, unmet needs, attachment injuries, and the longing to feel understood.
  
  What kept pulling me toward this profession was witnessing the profound change that can happen when people feel emotionally safe enough to explore their inner world and their relational patterns. Supporting individuals, couples, and families to make sense of their cycles, soften their defences, and move toward each other with more clarity and compassion felt deeply meaningful. Over time, it became clear that this was the work I wanted to dedicate myself to — helping people heal, reconnect, and build relationships that feel secure, responsive, and alive.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  My professional development has been shaped by philosophical approaches that centre human connection, emotional experience, and the fundamental need for secure relationships. Attachment theory has been a core influence, offering a compassionate lens for understanding how people learn to protect themselves, how they seek closeness, and how early relational experiences shape adult patterns. I’m also strongly influenced by relational and experiential philosophies that view emotion as a source of meaning and transformation. These perspectives align closely with EFT and EFIT, grounding my work in the belief that people heal through safe connection, emotional engagement, and the reorganisation of their internal and relational worlds.

• What methods do you use?

  I primarily work from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT). These approaches centre emotion and attachment as the core drivers of human experience, helping people understand their patterns, access deeper emotional truths, and create more secure ways of relating to themselves and others.
  
  Alongside EFT and EFIT, I integrate trauma-informed practice, relational neuroscience, and attachment based frameworks to ensure therapy is paced, safe, and responsive to each person’s nervous system. My work is experiential, collaborative, and grounded in the belief that people heal through emotional engagement, attuned connection, and the reorganisation of old patterns that no longer serve them.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  Clients often begin to feel progress when they notice a shift in their emotional experience — when something that once felt overwhelming starts to feel more understandable, or when they can slow down enough to recognise what’s happening inside them. In EFT and EFIT, this often shows up as moments of increased clarity, softening, or connection: understanding their patterns, feeling more compassion for themselves, or experiencing a different kind of interaction with a partner or loved one. Progress is usually felt not as a dramatic change, but as a growing sense of safety, coherence, and possibility.