Attachment, intimacy and sexual connection are closely intertwined in couple relationships. Difficulties with sex rarely exist in isolation: they are often connected to wider patterns of closeness and distance, vulnerability, reassurance, rejection, desire and emotional safety. Understanding these patterns can help therapists move beyond seeing sexual difficulties as located within one individual or as a single problem to be solved.
This three-hour online seminar introduces a systemic and attachment-informed approach to understanding intimacy and sexual connection in couple therapy, psychosexual therapy and relationship therapy. We will explore how couples develop recurring relational patterns around sex and intimacy, including cycles of pursuing and withdrawing, initiating and rejecting, seeking reassurance, protecting oneself from vulnerability, and negotiating differences in desire.
Rather than treating attachment styles as fixed characteristics of individuals, the seminar will consider attachment relationally: how attachment responses emerge between partners and are influenced by relationship histories, family and cultural narratives, gender, sexuality, life stage and wider social contexts.
Through theory, clinical examples and reflective exercises, participants will develop ways of mapping patterns without blaming either partner, remaining curious about what sexual difficulties may communicate within a relationship, and identifying possibilities for therapeutic change. The seminar is suitable for psychosexual and relationship therapists, couple therapists, systemic psychotherapists and other practitioners working therapeutically with couples and intimate relationships.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the relationship between attachment, intimacy and sexual connection in couple relationships.
- Understand attachment systemically, moving beyond fixed individual attachment categories towards relational patterns and processes.
- Identify and map recurring couple cycles involving closeness, distance, sexual initiation, rejection, reassurance and vulnerability.
- Explore sexual difficulties without locating blame or pathology in one partner.
- Use systemic questions and relational reframing to develop new conversations about sex and intimacy with couples.
- Consider the influence of culture, gender, sexuality, family narratives and wider contexts on attachment and sexual relationships.
- Apply an attachment-informed systemic formulation to their own couple and psychosexual therapy practice.
Class schedule:
27 January 2027 | 9.30am–12.30pm | Online
- 9.30–9.40 | Welcome and orientation
Introducing a systemic lens on attachment, intimacy and sexual connection. - 9.40–10.10 | Attachment in couple relationships
Moving beyond individual attachment styles towards relational and contextual understandings of attachment. - 10.10–10.40 | Sex, intimacy and relational patterns
Exploring closeness and distance, vulnerability and protection, initiation and rejection, and differences in desire. - 10.40–10.50 | Break
- 10.50–11.25 | Mapping sexual and attachment cycles
Using systemic ideas to recognise recurring couple patterns without locating the problem in either partner. - 11.25–11.55 | Clinical application
Case material and practical approaches to questioning, reframing and opening alternative understandings. - 11.55–12.15 | Context, culture and difference
Considering gender, sexuality, culture, family narratives and wider social contexts in how intimacy and sexual connection are understood and negotiated. - 12.15–12.30 | Reflection and questions
Consolidating learning, questions and application to participants’ own practice.
About the Trainer
Hannah Sherbersky is an Associate Professor, family and systemic psychotherapist, couple therapist and experienced trainer and supervisor. She is Deputy Director of Clinical Training (CEDAR) at the University of Exeter, and Director of the Systemic Portfolio. She was also Chief Executive Officer of AFSP.
Hannah Sherbersky has extensive experience of teaching systemic psychotherapy, relationship work and therapeutic practice. Her clinical, teaching and research interests include couple relationships, intimacy, sexuality, relational patterns and the ways that wider family, cultural and social contexts shape intimate relationships. Her approach brings together systemic theory with an attachment-informed understanding of couple processes, while resisting explanations that reduce complex relational difficulties to individual traits or fixed attachment categories. She is co-author of a manualised Couple Therapy for Depression approach, The Exeter Model, which she trains and teaches about regularly.
Hannah has extensive experience of developing and delivering professional training for therapists and multidisciplinary practitioners. Her teaching combines accessible theory with clinical examples, experiential learning and practical tools that participants can take back into their work. Her doctoral research on inpatient settings further informed her interest in how relationships, identities and meanings are negotiated within wider relational and social systems.
