Friendship Therapy: When and How Counselling Can Help Platonic Relationships

When Emma came to therapy, she apologised for what she described as a "trivial" problem. "I know people usually come for relationship issues," she said, "but this is just... a friend. Is that even worth talking about?"

Over the next months, we explored how this "just a friend" situation—a toxic 15-year friendship that left her feeling drained, criticised, and unvalued—had shaped her self-esteem, her patterns in all relationships, and even her career choices. By the time we finished, she'd recognised that this friendship was one of the most significant relationships in her life.

And one of the most damaging.

Friendship difficulties rarely get the attention romantic relationships do. There are no "friendship counsellors" advertised explicitly. Breakups with friends are dismissed as "just drifting apart." Toxic friendships are minimised: "At least it's not a partner; you can just avoid them."

But friendships profoundly affect our wellbeing. And therapy absolutely can—and should—address friendship issues.

This guide explores how therapy helps with friendship difficulties, what types of friendship problems benefit from counselling, and how to work through platonic relationship challenges with professional support.

Why Friendship Issues Deserve Therapeutic Attention

Friendships Are Core Relationships

Research consistently shows:

• Close friendships predict life satisfaction as strongly as romantic relationships
• Loneliness and social isolation impact physical health (comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes daily)
• Toxic friendships create chronic stress, affecting mental and physical health
• Friendship quality in adolescence predicts mental health in adulthood

Expert Insight: "We've medicalised romantic relationships—there's couples therapy, relationship counselling, breakup support. But friendships are treated as less serious, despite being equally formative and often longer-lasting." — Dr Miriam Kirmayer, friendship researcher and psychologist

Common Friendship Issues That Bring People to Therapy

Toxic friendships: One-sided dynamics, constant criticism, manipulation, emotional draining

Friendship breakups: Painful endings without the cultural scripts that exist for romantic breakups

Difficulty making friends: Social anxiety, past rejections, not knowing how to initiate connection

Maintaining friendships: Life changes (parenthood, relocation, career shifts) creating distance

Boundary issues: Friends overstepping, not respecting limits, becoming overly dependent

Betrayal: Trust broken through gossiping, lying, or choosing others over you

Jealousy and competition: Friends undermining your success or constantly comparing

Outgrowing friendships: Realising you've changed but the friendship hasn't

Loneliness despite having friends: Surface connections without depth or authenticity

How Therapy Helps with Friendship Issues

1. Validating That It Matters

Simply having a therapist take your friendship concerns seriously is healing. You're not being "dramatic" or "oversensitive." These relationships matter.

2. Understanding Patterns

Friendship difficulties often reveal patterns:

• Repeatedly choosing friends who don't value you
• Difficulty setting boundaries, leading to resentment
• Attracting or tolerating toxic dynamics
• Avoiding conflict, causing passive-aggressive communication
• Self-sacrificing to maintain connection

Therapy helps identify these patterns and explore their origins—often in early attachment experiences or family dynamics.

3. Developing Insight Into Your Role

Friendship problems are rarely entirely the other person's fault. Therapy helps you examine:

• What you bring to friendships
• How you might inadvertently contribute to dynamics
• What you actually need and want from friends
• Where your boundaries need strengthening

This isn't about blame—it's about agency and growth.

4. Building Communication Skills

Many friendship issues stem from poor communication:

• Not expressing needs clearly
• Avoiding difficult conversations
• Passive-aggressiveness instead of directness
• Over-apologising or over-explaining

Therapy provides a safe space to practice saying hard things, setting boundaries, and communicating authentically.

5. Processing Grief and Loss

Friendship endings hurt—sometimes more than romantic breakups, because they're not culturally recognised. Therapy provides space to:

• Grieve the loss
• Process feelings of rejection, abandonment, or betrayal
• Make meaning of the relationship and its ending
• Forgive yourself for whatever role you played

6. Addressing Underlying Issues

Friendship problems often connect to:

• Attachment styles: Anxious attachment leading to clinginess; avoidant attachment creating distance
• Self-esteem: Tolerating poor treatment because you don't believe you deserve better
• Past trauma: Difficulty trusting, hypervigilance to rejection
• Social anxiety: Fear of judgment inhibiting authentic connection

Therapy addresses these roots, not just surface friendship troubles.

Types of Friendship Issues Therapy Can Address

Toxic Friendships

Signs of toxicity:

• Constant criticism disguised as "just being honest"
• One-sided: you provide support, they take without reciprocating
• Jealousy of your successes or other friendships
• Gaslighting: denying events, making you doubt yourself
• Drama and chaos: always in crisis, draining your energy
• Boundary violations: not respecting your "no"

How therapy helps:

• Recognising toxicity (it's often normalised)
• Understanding why you've tolerated it
• Developing strategies to exit or establish boundaries
• Processing guilt about ending the friendship
• Healing from emotional damage

A client's experience: "I realised I'd been making excuses for her behaviour for ten years. In therapy, I finally saw it clearly: I was afraid if I stood up for myself, I'd lose her. But I'd already lost myself."

Friendship Breakups

Why they're uniquely painful:

• No cultural scripts (no "friendship divorce," no formal ending)
• Often ambiguous: slow fade rather than clear break
• Mutual friends may not understand
• Shared history and inside jokes become painful reminders

How therapy helps:

• Creating space to fully feel and express the pain
• Processing complicated emotions: relief, guilt, anger, sadness
• Examining what the friendship meant and what was lost
• Identifying what you want differently in future friendships
• Moving forward without bitterness

Difficulty Making Friends as an Adult

Common struggles:

• "Everyone already has established friend groups"
• Work-home-work routine leaves no space for socialising
• Social anxiety or awkwardness
• Not knowing where to meet potential friends
• Difficulty moving from acquaintance to genuine friendship

How therapy helps:

• Identifying barriers (practical, emotional, psychological)
• Addressing social anxiety or fear of rejection
• Building social skills and confidence
• Creating action plans for meeting people
• Challenging negative beliefs ("I'm too boring/weird/old to make friends")

Loneliness Despite Having Friends

The hidden epidemic: Many people have social connections but feel deeply alone—surface friendships without intimacy, vulnerability, or genuine understanding.

How therapy helps:

• Exploring what's missing from current friendships
• Identifying fears around deeper connection (vulnerability, judgment, rejection)
• Developing capacity for authentic relating
• Practicing emotional openness in therapeutic relationship first
• Strategising how to deepen existing friendships or find new ones

Boundary Issues in Friendships

Common boundary problems:

• Friends treating you as therapist (emotional dumping without reciprocity)
• Oversharing or prying into your private life
• Last-minute demands on your time
• Borrowing money/possessions without returning
• Making you feel guilty for saying no

How therapy helps:

• Clarifying what boundaries you need
• Understanding why boundaries feel difficult (people-pleasing, guilt, fear of abandonment)
• Practicing saying no without over-explaining
• Managing anxiety and guilt that arise when setting limits
• Accepting that some friends won't respect boundaries (and deciding what to do about that)

Jealousy and Competition in Friendships

Signs:

• Friends minimising your achievements
• Competitive comments disguised as jokes
• Gossiping about you
• Copying you or trying to outdo you
• Celebrating your failures

How therapy helps:

• Validating that this hurts
• Exploring whether the friendship can be salvaged
• Understanding whether you're contributing to competitive dynamics
• Developing confidence that doesn't require external validation
• Learning to surround yourself with friends who genuinely celebrate you

Therapy Approaches for Friendship Issues

Person-Centred Therapy

How it helps: Provides non-judgmental space to explore feelings about friendships, develop self-awareness, and reconnect with your needs and values

Best for: Processing painful friendship experiences, building self-worth independent of others' validation

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)

How it helps: Identifies unhelpful thought patterns (e.g., "If I set boundaries, everyone will leave me") and develops practical skills for communication and social situations

Best for: Social anxiety, negative beliefs about friendships, specific behavioural changes

Psychodynamic Therapy

How it helps: Explores how early relationships (particularly with parents and siblings) shape current friendship patterns

Best for: Repetitive patterns across multiple friendships, understanding deep-rooted dynamics

Attachment-Based Therapy

How it helps: Examines how your attachment style (anxious, avoidant, secure) shows up in friendships

Best for: Clinginess or distance in friendships, fear of abandonment, difficulty trusting

Transactional Analysis

How it helps: Looks at communication patterns and "games" people play in friendships

Best for: Understanding repeating dynamics, improving communication, recognising unhealthy patterns

What to Expect When Bringing Friendship Issues to Therapy

First Sessions

Your therapist will:

• Ask about the specific friendship difficulty
• Explore your broader friendship history
• Identify patterns across relationships
• Clarify what you want to change or understand

Ongoing Work

Sessions might involve:

• Examining specific friendship interactions in detail
• Exploring your feelings (anger, hurt, loneliness, fear)
• Identifying your needs, values, and boundaries
• Practicing difficult conversations
• Processing grief over lost friendships
• Building skills for healthier relationships

Outcomes

With therapy, many people:

• Exit toxic friendships with clarity and confidence
• Repair valuable friendships by communicating more effectively
• Develop healthier friendship patterns
• Build stronger boundaries
• Reduce loneliness by deepening connections
• Make peace with friendship endings
• Attract and maintain more authentic friendships

Practical Exercises and Approaches

Friendship Audit

Your therapist might guide you through evaluating current friendships:

• Which friendships energise you vs. drain you?
• Are friendships reciprocal or one-sided?
• Do friends respect your boundaries?
• Can you be authentic, or do you perform?
• What do you actually want from friendships?

Role-Playing Difficult Conversations

Practicing with your therapist helps prepare for:

• Expressing hurt feelings
• Setting boundaries
• Saying no without guilt
• Ending friendships with grace

Rewriting Your Friendship Story

Exploring questions like:

• What did you learn about friendship growing up?
• What messages did you receive about loyalty, conflict, or needs?
• How have those beliefs shaped your current friendships?
• What new beliefs would serve you better?

When to Seek Therapy for Friendship Issues

Consider therapy if:

• A friendship is causing significant distress
• You keep repeating the same friendship patterns
• You're struggling to make or maintain friendships
• A friendship breakup is affecting your daily life
• You're tolerating toxic behavior and don't know how to stop
• You feel deeply lonely despite having friends
• Friendship issues are triggering anxiety or depression

Finding a Therapist for Friendship Issues

What to Look For

• Relational focus: Therapists emphasising relationship dynamics, attachment, or interpersonal patterns
• Humanistic approaches: Person-centred, Gestalt, or integrative therapists often work well with friendship issues
• Life transitions expertise: If friendship difficulties connect to major changes (parenthood, relocation, career shift)

Questions to Ask

"Do you work with people on friendship difficulties?"

"What's your approach to relationship issues beyond romantic partnerships?"

"Have you helped clients with [specific issue: toxic friendships, friendship breakups, social anxiety]?"

Most therapists will be experienced with friendship issues, even if they don't advertise it explicitly—relational dynamics are central to most therapeutic work.

Self-Help Alongside Therapy

Books:

• Friendships Don't Just Happen by Shasta Nelson
• Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends by Dr Marisa Franco
• The Friendship Cure by Kate Leaver

Practices:

• Friendship journal: Track patterns, feelings, and insights
• Boundaries practice: Start small—say no to minor requests, notice what happens
• Vulnerability experiments: Share something slightly more personal than usual; see how it feels

Complementary support:

• Friendship coaching: Practical strategies for making friends
• Social skills groups: Practice in supportive environment
• Support groups: Connect with others navigating friendship difficulties

Cultural Context: Why Friendships Are Devalued

Society prioritises romantic relationships and family:

• "Just a friend" implies lesser importance
• No legal recognition (unlike marriage)
• Workplaces grant leave for partner's illness, rarely for friend's
• Milestone life events (weddings, babies) celebrate romantic bonds

This cultural hierarchy makes people hesitate to "waste" therapy time on friendships. But therapists understand: all significant relationships deserve attention.

Final Thoughts

Friendships shape who we are. They provide support, joy, meaning, and belonging—or they drain, hurt, and diminish us.

When friendships cause pain, confusion, or loneliness, therapy offers a space to understand what's happening, heal from damage, and build the skills for healthier connections.

You don't need to minimise friendship struggles or apologise for bringing them to therapy. These relationships matter. Your pain matters. Your desire for genuine, reciprocal, nourishing friendships matters.

If you're in London and struggling with friendship issues—toxic dynamics, painful endings, difficulty connecting, or patterns you can't seem to break—therapy can help. I offer a free 15-minute consultation to discuss whether working together might support you in building the friendships you truly want and deserve.

Sometimes the relationships we overlook are the ones most worth exploring. Friendships are not "just" anything—they're fundamental to a life well-lived.