In my experience, there have been three different points to this:
1. Do you want women in order to fill a gap in your life? Or do you want them because you think they would add to the great single life you already have? If its the former, its time to fix the latter. Using women to "solve life's problems" not only creates co-dependence in relationships, but its also like trying to drown out your sorrows/worries via any other type of avoidance type behavior. Its a temporary band aide to a more serious problem (typically low-self esteem). <---I would handle this one first.
In other words, ask yourself this: Am I happy? If the answer is no, figure it out why. And if you think the answer is because you lack women or any other external thing in your life, you're incorrect. In fact, its almost certainly a self-esteem issue. A lot of Psychology would argue that happiness and self-esteem are one and the same (this is not to be confused with actual fulfillment! That is an entirely different topic). I would cite, but I'm too lazy to find articles right now. Sorry!
An example might be: I'm not happybecause I don't have women in my life. <----On the surface, it seems that the solution to your problem would be to acquire women. But if you think about it more carefully, you'll discover that this is only partially true. Sure, if you had women at your disposal always at every single point in your life, I guess it hypothetically would solve your problem. But this is unrealistic. Even experts have dry spells every once in a while. And as soon as that happens, you'll go back to feeling like shit and therefore become needy around women (or whatever else it is that you might think will "make you happy").
So the more effective approach would probably be to address the mindset itself. So lets look at that: You believe that women will make you happy which by definition also means having more women would by your belief system, raise your value as a human being (Remember, happiness=self esteem. And self esteem=how you value your own worth as a person. So therefore, if you think something will make you "happy" that also means you think it will raise your "value" as a person). But that's certainly not objectively true. Ex. There are plenty of scientists, philosophers, artists and so fourth who have contributed to society in many ways and would be considered by most to be much "higher value" than any PUA. And yet, they probably didn't get laid nearly as much. And there are plenty of people who get laid all the time who for the most part, contribute nothing of value to society and to those around them. Given these counterexamples and new found information, your thought process would necessarily wrong. Once you begin to understand this, the issue becomes a Philosophical one. You'll find yourself asking "what does it mean to be a "valuable" person? In fact, my "counterexamples" only work if we accept the paradigm that someone who is of "high value" is someone who contributes to society in positive ways. But that's not necessarily true.
Finding an objective answer to the question is a very deep Philosophical issue. Probably not something you will figure out on own. And from the standpoint of increasing self-esteem, its also irrelevant. To increase self-esteem, you must switch your belief of "needing" something external to something internal (preferably something you already have.) An example of this might be that instead of viewing those who have women as high value, (external thing) you view people who have a relentless drive to succeed in whatever they wish to accomplish. (an internal quality). Once you've successfully implemented this mindset change, you'll find that your neediness towards women (and any other external thing) will be greatly reduced. Instead, you'll find yourself much more "needy" in your want to cultivate whatever quality you deemed to make someone "valuable". The good thing about this is that a quality or characteristic can always be cultivated. Whereas, an external result cannot. So viewing an internal quality as high value can keep you happy forever (assuming you make the effort to cultivate it). As we've already discovered, this is not true with external things (we can't count on always having women or always being rich).
Keep in mind that this is a thought process you'll have to go over many times before you emotionally start to feel its effect. As soon as you start feeling needy, you have to think yourself through all of it again...and again and again. Meditating over this stuff is also very helpful. Its like weightlifting. You can't just do it once and expect to get big. Its a daily activity.
You can apply the same process to any other external reason you might have for low self-worth. Ex. I I'm not because I'm not in shape. Or I'm not because I'm not rich.
I know this seems kinda abstract and complicated, but its similar to what they'll teach you in therapy. I just hope I wrote it in a way that makes sense. haha
2. Like Ray said, you just need more reference points. When I first started, I was really needy/creepy on dates because i felt they were very scarce. As I started getting more dates, I got less needy because I realized there is no limit to the number of dates I can get. And also, I realized most girls are (for the most part) the same in a lot of ways. So I stopped seeing each individual one as "special". So I stopped caring so much. And my overall attractiveness went up. However, I'm still relatively needy around higher quality girls because they're not as abundant to me. Once I start consistently getting dates with high quality girls, the same process is likely to occur.
3. This one is kind of a double edged sword, so be careful with this one: Be curious about the women. Stop trying to just get laid. Make sure you like her personality at least a little bit before you do anything. Have some sort of standards. Even for hookups. Because if you don't, you're automatically putting yourself in a chasing mindset. Cause in your head, she's already been qualified. Whereas in her mind, you're still being evaluated. This will likely reflect in your behavior.
On the other hand, DON'T OVERDO THIS. This is not an excuse not to pull the trigger. In other words, if you're catching yourself thinking things like "Oh, she's not that cute" or "Wow, this girl's a bitch" etc. even when you know deep down that you're attracted to her, then you don't get to use this mindset. Because its become an excuse instead of a tool.
Alternatively, you can also shift from being interested in the girl to being interested in the process. So instead of having the goal of getting laid, you have a goal of figuring out what will get you laid. There's a subtle difference. In the former, you're looking at that specific women. Because in that given moment, she's your best shot at getting laid. Whereas the latter doesn't focus on any specific women at all. It merely uses the one in front of you as a reference point to help figure out what effect it has on women in general.
As for therapists, I wouldn't say they're useless, but know who your therapist is and what he specializes in.
Ex. I have a therapist and he did a GREAT job of helping me get over anxiety/depression issues. This is because in his type of therapy, that's the #1 issue he encounters, so he's very experienced, and its also what his type of therapy is primarily designed for. But once I brought up issues which he doesn't "specialize" in (ex. how to create habits and motivate myself), his advice stopped being so useful. So do your research before you commit to someone.
