When people hear the words relationship therapy, they often picture couples sitting on a couch, arguing about communication or intimacy. But relationship therapy is not just for couples, and it’s not only about romantic relationships. In fact, some of the most powerful relationship work happens when you’re single.
Why? Because every relationship in your life, romantic, familial, friendships, work dynamics, and most importantly, the relationship you have with yourself, follows patterns. Those patterns don’t magically disappear when you’re not partnered.
Relationship therapy is about understanding how you connect, protect yourself, attach, pull away, people-please, shut down, or overgive. It’s about learning how to feel safe, seen, and grounded in all relationships, starting with the one you have with yourself.
Here are seven signs a relationship therapist says you may need relationship therapy, even if you’re single.
1. You Keep Repeating the Same Relationship Patterns
Different faces. Same story.
Maybe you always end up feeling unappreciated. Maybe you attract emotionally unavailable people. Maybe relationships start intensely and then burn out, or you pull away the moment things feel serious. Even outside of romance, you might notice similar struggles with friends, family members, or coworkers.
These patterns don’t come from bad luck; they come from learned relational dynamics. Relationship therapy helps you slow down and understand why these cycles keep repeating, where they started, and how to create new, healthier patterns.
When you change the pattern, the relationship outcomes change too.
2. You Struggle With Boundaries (Too Rigid or Too Loose)
Do you often say yes when you mean no? Feel responsible for other people’s emotions? Or on the flip side, keep everyone at arm’s length and struggle to let people in?
Boundary issues are relationship issues.
Healthy boundaries aren’t about walls; they’re about clarity. Relationship therapy helps you explore why boundaries feel unsafe, guilt-inducing, or unnecessary and teaches you how to create limits that protect connection instead of destroying it.
This skill alone can radically transform family relationships, friendships, and your sense of self-respect.
3. Conflict Feels Overwhelming or Terrifying
If conflict makes your nervous system go into overdrive, fight, flight, freeze, or shut down, there’s likely a deeper story underneath.
Some people grew up in environments where conflict meant danger, rejection, or emotional withdrawal. Others learned that their needs didn’t matter or that expressing feelings caused chaos.
Relationship therapy helps you understand your conflict response and learn how to stay emotionally present, grounded, and self-connected even when things feel uncomfortable. This is crucial not only for romantic relationships but also for parenting, friendships, and workplace dynamics.
4. You Feel Disconnected From Yourself
This one is subtle but powerful.
If you struggle to identify your needs, feelings, or desires… if you constantly look to others for validation… or if your self-worth rises and falls based on how others treat you, this is a relationship issue with yourself.
Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life.
Relationship therapy often involves reconnecting with your inner world, developing self-trust, and learning how to be emotionally available to yourself. When this relationship strengthens, external relationships naturally shift.
5. You Feel Lonely Even When You’re Not Alone
Loneliness isn’t always about being alone; it’s often about feeling unseen or emotionally disconnected.
You might have friends, family, or even past relationships, yet still feel like no one truly understands you. This kind of loneliness often comes from learned emotional self-protection or unmet attachment needs.
Relationship therapy helps uncover what blocks genuine emotional connection and teaches you how to experience closeness without losing yourself. This is especially important for people who pride themselves on independence but secretly crave deeper connection.
6. Your Past Still Shows Up in the Present
Old wounds don’t stay in the past; they show up in how we react, attach, trust, and love.
Childhood experiences, previous relationships, family dynamics, and unresolved emotional injuries shape how safe we feel with others. You may intellectually know the past is over, yet emotionally respond as if you’re still there.
Relationship therapy helps integrate those experiences instead of letting them run the show. It allows you to respond from the present rather than react from old survival patterns.
7. You Want Healthier Relationships but Don’t Know Where to Start
Sometimes the sign is simple: you want more.
More emotional intimacy. More balance. More self-respect. More secure relationships. More peace.
Relationship therapy isn’t only for when things fall apart; it’s for people who want to understand themselves better and build intentional, emotionally healthy connections.
Being single can actually be the best time to do this work. Without the pressure of a current romantic relationship, you have space to reflect, heal, and grow so that when you do enter new relationships, you do so from awareness rather than habit.
Relationship Therapy Is Really About Self-Relationship
At its core, relationship therapy is about learning how to be in relationships with others and with yourself.
When you understand your emotional patterns, attachment style, boundaries, and needs, relationships stop feeling confusing and exhausting. You begin to choose differently. Communicate differently. Show up differently.
And everything changes from there.
If you’re willing to pause, reflect, and truly think about it, relationship therapy can transform not only how you relate to others but how you relate to yourself.
Because every relationship starts there.
Stop Repeating the Same Relationship Mistakes With Relationship Therapy in Los Angeles, CA
If you’re ready to understand your patterns and build healthier connections—starting with yourself—relationship therapy in Los Angeles, CA can help. You don’t have to keep repeating the same cycles or feeling stuck in relationships that don’t serve you. At Therapy Ties, we specialize in helping individuals break free from old patterns and create the emotionally healthy relationships they deserve. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
- Schedule a free 15-minute consultation to explore relationship therapy in Los Angeles, CA, and see if it’s right for you.
- Meet with a relationship therapist to understand how your patterns, boundaries, and attachment style affect all your relationships.
- Begin breaking cycles, strengthening your relationship with yourself, and building healthier connections through intentional growth.
Additional Services Offered at Therapy Ties in Los Angeles, CA
At Therapy Ties, I help individuals and couples understand how relationship patterns, boundaries, and attachment styles create disconnection, reactivity, and emotional distance. By building self-awareness and learning to stay grounded during conflict, clients begin to communicate authentically and create healthier connections. Alongside relationship therapy in Los Angeles, CA, I offer individual therapy, couples therapy, and anger management for clients in Woodland Hills, West Hills, Agoura Hills, Encino, Tarzana, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood, and throughout the greater Valley—providing a compassionate space to strengthen your relationship with yourself and transform how you show up in all relationships.
About The Author
Hi, I’m Liron, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of Therapy Ties in Woodland Hills. I specialize in helping individuals and couples break repetitive relationship cycles and develop stronger boundaries so they can create emotionally healthy connections. My approach is relational and grounded in understanding how attachment patterns and past experiences influence the way we relate, protect ourselves, and respond to conflict today.
I integrate Humanistic therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy, Gestalt, and Family Systems to create a space where clients can identify their patterns, strengthen emotional awareness, and learn to stay grounded when relationships feel challenging. I hold a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy from Phillips Graduate Institute and a BA in Psychology from UCLA. As a CAMS III–certified anger management specialist, I also support clients in managing intense emotions and shifting reactive behaviors that block genuine connection.
Fluent in both Hebrew and English, I work with clients throughout the Valley who are ready to understand themselves more deeply and transform how they show up in relationships. If you’re seeking to heal old patterns and build more secure, authentic connections, I’m here to support that journey.
