I am not sure all of the background that goes into this obviously, but in a general way I can say that I think that people get a little hung up about issues of neediness, not necessarily because of their own individual history per se (though that seems the biggest link), but because there are social or cultural norms that tell us that neediness is somehow wrong or bad or weak or whatever. Not sure if that is the case here, but generally it is often the case.

One of the things that therapy does is reactivate dormant or incompleted tasks including attachment ones, where neediness is prominent. And to be expected. In fact it is mainly healthy and a good sign if someone feels some amount of this. We are all relational and intersubjective, hard wired to be so, and this relationality in therapy can work to produce affect regulation and a stronger more consolidated sense of self.

We live in a culture, most of us anyway, where some things are put down as being dependent, when it is actually an interdependence that is a more healthy, evolved state. To get there we often have to go through states of increased need and contact, depending on where and how we got derailed.

Not sure if this helps since it's more general, but just feels like it might.