Rupture and Repair

Therapy is a bridge.

Not always a neat one, not a sleek steel number with clean lines and stable ground. Often, it’s more like one of those dodgy rope bridges you see in adventure films (or if you’re from Northern Ireland and grew up in the 80s and 90s, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge of old that you could genuinely have fallen off!). There are gaps. Bits sway. There’s fog, and you’re not always sure your therapist is still on the other side, or whether you even want to keep walking toward them. Sometimes you want to turn back. Sometimes you want to cut the ropes.

This is rupture.

Rupture is when something doesn’t feel safe anymore. A look. A missed appointment. A tone that felt sharp or dismissive. A moment you shared that wasn’t held quite the way you’d hoped, or a misunderstanding that leaves you feeling like they’ve not seen you at all. In therapy, ruptures happen. Not because your therapist is bad or doesn’t care (although if you do feel chronically unheard, that’s worth examining), but because therapy is a relationship, and all real relationships wobble.

Edward Tronick and Beatrice Beebe gave us a brilliant image of this process in infant-parent relationships: the "rupture and repair" cycle. Through micro-moments of misattunement—mum misreading a cue, baby turning away—followed by reattunement—mum catching the cue again, offering a smile, a coo, a reconnection—the child learns something life-altering: we can lose connection and find our way back. The dance isn’t flawless—it’s resilient. Tronick’s work reminds us that even good-enough parenting only gets it right about 30% (!!!) of the time. It’s the repair that counts.

In adult therapy, Dan Siegel talks about this, too. He explains that secure attachment isn’t about perfection, but about the coherence of the narrative. When we can acknowledge ruptures, make sense of them, and integrate them, we’re no longer at their mercy. We move from chaos toward connection. Often I might say to a client “Hmm.. I can tell by your expression that what I just said has not landed well - I am sorry. Tell me what you heard and how it felt. What would have been a more accurate reflection?” In the moment I am seeking to acknowledge that I’ve got something wrong, that I have impacted them in a way I probably didn’t intend to, and I want to put it right as soon as I can. 

And let me be clear: this isn’t just theory—it’s personal. There’s a part of me—I call her Disappearing Woman (following on from Big Fat Grandma post)—who would prefer to smile and nod and quietly ghost the entire situation. She fears that conflict equals rejection. She would rather skip to the next therapist (or friend, or relationship) than face the risk of not being understood. I love her for that. She’s trying to protect me. But what she does in the end is isolate me, because no relationship exists without wobbles! If it seems that way, someone is doing a great cover-up job of their feelings. As an aside, Big Fat Grandma hates rupture. She’d rather bake through it. “Let’s just have a tray of cookies and pretend none of this happened, shall we?” she whispers. Bless her cinnamon-scented heart—she wants me to feel safe, but she’s not great with mess. Therapy invites me to sit in the mess a little longer.

So here’s the truth, if you need it today: therapy that includes rupture and repair is real  therapy. It’s not broken—it’s alive. If you’re noticing a wobble with your therapist, maybe that’s an invitation, not a red flag. An invitation to risk being honest. To say, “That felt hard,” or “I wasn’t sure you were with me,” and see what happens next. There are some therapy platforms that offer instant changes of therapist if you don’t like the one you have. I feel sad about that, because the beauty of a ‘real’ relationship with your therapist, is that it will mirror the relationships you have in real life, allowing you to meet a kind, emotionally regulated, on-your-side other who will stick with the ups and downs until your internal world is safe enough to countenance change. You’ll find someone who will be honest with you about the ruptures and work to repair them. This is crucial to secure attachment and secure relationships. 

The bridges we build in therapy are not perfect. But with each rupture repaired, we start to believe in bridges again. We start to trust that we don’t have to cross alone.

Can you think of a time in your life—maybe in therapy, maybe elsewhere—where something wobbled and was mended? Or maybe there’s a Disappearing Woman in you too, who’s quietly packed a bag at the first sign of discomfort. What might she need to stay, just a little longer?