Imago Relationship Therapy is an integrated process
for working with couples, parents and children, business colleagues, and others
who seek to enhance the relationships they share.
Based on the ground-breaking work of Harville
Hendrix, Ph.D., author of "Getting the Love You Want", "Keeping the Love You
Find", and "Giving the Love That Heals", Imago therapy is a wonderfully
effective and safe approach to helping relationship partners grow into
understanding each other more fully and relating more honestly as they evolve
into greater wholeness as individuals within the relational context they share.
If you've felt like you've hit a dead end in your
relationship, if you've asked yourself whether you have really chosen the
right partner, if you've dreamed about love and happiness in your relationship
and instead you've succumbed to reality, then Imago Relationship Therapy
presents a new angle in looking at your relationship.
What is the theory behind
IRT?
The theory behind the method says that each of us
finds a partner who required that we reveal and reclaim our whole self. That
partner becomes the healer of past pains.
Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of "Getting the
Love You Want" and "Keeping the Love You Find", maintains that everyone can
creating a healing, loving relationship, often without ongoing therapy. The
refreshing discovery is that his method is not just an interesting theory, it
is a practical system with skills to practice and worksheets to assist you.
The basic assumption of this method says that a
committed relationship not only has a goal, but it has a mission. The mission
is to help each other heal the childhood "wounds" that absolutely everyone
carries within. Childhood wounds not only include obvious hurts, but all of our
childhood needs that were not filled. Each of us has wounds. You do not have to
have been abused or neglected to be wounded. Even a happy childhood carries
wounding. "Children," said Freud, "are creatures that are never satiated, and
there is no parent in the world who can react perfectly to the changing needs
of the children."
Dr Hendrix maintains not only that the origin of
our frustrations as adults is actually tied to unfulfilled needs or other hurts
in our childhoods, but that choosing our partner is a consequence of our
unconscious desire to heal or repair those wounds. Our unconscious seeks the
person who, on the surface, looks the least capable of giving us what we need
most, primarily because that person is very much like our parents or other
childhood caretakers.
Why am I not aware of these
desires?
Dr Hendrix says that none of us are aware of the
process because it occurs out of our "old brain", our unconscious.
To differentiate, what we call the "new brain"
includes the part of our brain that is conscious, that makes decisions, that
thinks, that organizes information, and creates ideas. The old brain guards our
existence and monitors our environment, inside and out, in order to ensure our
survival.
It recognizes only two conditions, "dander" and "safety". It is like a sensitive radar system that signals the alert. It's goal
is survival and it will not take unnecessary chances.
What is an Imago?
The old brain recognizes the sense of safety and security
from those people who took care of us and influenced us from the moment we were
born.
Every one of us carries within a picture or image
that is actually a combination of the positive and negative characteristics of
all these people and their attitudes towards us. This image is called the "Imago".
Romantic attraction, falling in love, depends very
much on a potential partner’s conformity to that image. The moment we meet
somebody the old brain has its own list and checks to see if the characteristics
of this person matches what we already know. If there is a fairly close match,
there is a chance for the relationship. The chance of "falling in love" grows
proportionately as the conformity of the partner to the unconscious image
increases.
Why does our unconscious look for and find the
person who, to the conscious mind, appears as if he or she least likely fits
our parents and yet is likely to be able to give us what we are looking for?
It is because the image that we hold inside
consists not only of the positive qualities of our caretakers, but also of the
negative that we have experienced. At first glance it looks like a trap: Why
would we go again to those places that hurt us?
In a logical, conscious choice of partner, we were
supposed to look for those who could compensate for what we did not receive
from our caretakers, certainly not for someone who would act just like them! For
example, if a person was wounded through parents who were not reliable and
trustworthy, you would think they would look for a partner that they can easily
trust. Someone who had a parent that was very over protective would look for a
partner who would allow them freedom.
This is not what happens. The process of choosing
our partner is governed far more by the unconscious.
Am I likely to choose an
incompatible partner?
According to Hendrix' theory, what looks like a
trap becomes a saving grace. When you learn new skills, it is precisely with
that partner who seems most incompatible and who seems to re-wound you over and
over again, that you both can learn to give your partner exactly what he or she
has yearned for since childhood.
This is part of the power of the method: by
learning what our and our partner's childhood wounds are, we can then re-image
our partner, learn target-specific things we can do and say, and can become
mutual healers.
Moreover, our selection of our partner is not only
meant to heal those wounds, but also to help us reclaim parts of ourselves that
seem "lost". We will also look for someone who completes what seems to be
missing in us.
Basically, we are born and live as energy
expressing itself. This energy is expressed in four basic ways; through our
thinking, sensing, feeling, and acting. Each one of these channels of
expression is equally legitimate and important. However, in the process of
socialization, when our parents, teachers, and other adults (or institutions)
gave us messages that told us who we were to be and how we were to act, some of
this natural expression of our energy was blocked.
Why do couples divorce,
according to IRT?
In the romantic phase, that time of falling in love
and "courting", each person enjoys what the other person has to offer.
Afterward, during the next phase of the
relationship, the power struggle, the difficulties started at exactly this
point. It is as if the unconscious hires a person who will demand that we use
those very aspects of ourselves that we have had to negate and lock away.
Falling in love is part of the trick of nature to connect two people who often
appear so incompatible.
The inevitable power
struggle
The romantic phase is meant to fade away because we
don't need it any more. It got us together with the perfect person who will
bring all our issues right to the surface.
Then comes the second stage, the painful one, the
power struggle. This is the stage when you feel like your partner does not, and
will not, give you what you want and need, or that your partner is hurting your
feelings or does not care about you. For some couples, the power struggle is
very intense, for others, relatively mild. But for everyone it is an inevitable
phase of the relationship.
One way people react to the power struggle is to
divorce. When it feels impossible to bear it anymore, this seems the only way
to survive. Another reaction we see more and more of is the murder or suicide
of one of the partners.
What many people do is just "cope". Often, these
people create what his called parallel relationships. Often, these couples will
spend more time with friends or the children than with each other. Many people
have this kind of relationship that looks good on the outside, but is basically
dead on the inside.
Another way people cope is by creating a "hot
marriage" in which there is a lot of fighting, making up, and great sex
afterwards. On the surface, people tell themselves the relationship is fine
because the passionate fights and reconciliations stimulate a lot of adrenalin
and other chemicals that give the sensation of feeling good.
How can I get the love I
crave?
Imago Relationship Therapy becomes a safe place
where you can begin a new level of your journey in discovering yourself and
your partner.
The work is done alone and with your partner. At
first glance the exercised in the manual, and even the skills you learn, seem
very artificial and awkward. But their structure turns out to be exactly what
creates safety. They work.
The work you do, together with the written
exercises in the manual, is built like a puzzle. At the end you understand why
you chose your partner, why you have the difficulties that you have, what you
really want to get from you partner and don't get all without necessarily
feeling the pieces of the puzzle coming together.
Each partner starts seeing the other's childhood
wounds and the work is done so that, at the end, each partner sees, in self and
other, the needs of the old brain to feel safe and some of the things that can
make that happen. As the sense of safety increases, there is less need for one
or both partners to seek methods of exiting the relationship.
How long does this process
take?
The process of IRT may continue for three or more
years.
Although it seems like a long time, creating the
relationship you long for and healing the wounds that fuel conflict take time.
It is not magic - it is a process and it's worth it!
Of course, the healing begins with these first
steps and each frustration becomes and opportunity to deepen that healing.
While in the beginning it can feel like a rollercoaster of frustration/pain,
and safety/love, the process gradually moves more and more into the area of
safety. You experience the process of co-creating the relationship of your
dreams.
