How is Imago Relationship Therapy Different?
• Imago therapy usually takes fewer sessions to get to the core patterns and roots that fuel most conflict and disconnection in your relationship. The roots of conflict can undermine marriage counselling if you do not become conscious of them and learn how to work with them. Problem-solving the incident won’t usually address the root of the conflict. If it manages to reduce the ‘symptom’ or the current ‘fight’, the same pattern and underlying problem will pop up again in a different way.
See some of the differences in how the Imago therapist works with you in a session.
• Imago Relationship Therapy believes that individuals are wounded in relationship that results in trigger points and frozen needs, and that healing of both the individual and the relationship happen in learning how to create emotionally safe connection.
• Imago therapy empowers couples and individuals with tools, skills and principles that they can learn and use on their own, thereby reducing dependence on a therapist.
• Imago therapy helps normalize and make sense of most of the distress that happens between spouses / partners, and the understanding can help open more creative approaches that honour both partner’s needs and concerns. Conflicts make sense. Most people don’t need a diagnosis of a ‘mental disorder’ simply because they have a distressful marriage or relationship. Imago therapy does not pathologize your distress or disconnection.
• Imago therapy dialogue and other tools promote connection and emotional intimacy without losing one’s self in the process. You learn how to respect differences, the fact that your partner is not you, yet still grow and deepen connection.
• Imago therapy increases compassion, even when you don’t like what your spouse or partner does, and provides more internal motivation for successful change.
• Imago therapy helps couples respect the needs and concerns of both partners, and opens up more possibilities for win-win approaches to conflict. Many times, it helps simply dissolve a conflict.
• Imago therapy works if youwork to use the tools, skills and information you learn. I have seen couples take a marriage or relationship on the brink of break-up, and transform it into something stronger and more fulfilling than ever. I have seen couples take an essentially good relationship and find a way through the places they get stuck. I have seen couples with no complaints about their relationship use the tools to move into a level of connection, intimacy and personal healing and growth beyond anything they could imagine. I have also seen couples who had minor distresses that could have been repaired, but they chose not to make the effort to implement what they learned and eventually ended their relationship.
• The principles can be applied to any relationship, even though you may slightly modify some of the tools.
I have used the tools and principles of Imago Relationship Therapy for over 25 years in my own relationship and it works. It has given me a much more effective approach to working with frustrations, misunderstandings, and unintentional ways that we hurt each other. And, it has helped us continue to learn new things about each other even after knowing each other for 40 years. I have also used it for tense or frustrating situations with other people.
What does the word “Imago” mean?
Imago is the Latin word for ‘image‘. Several schools of psychology have used the same word in different ways. Imago Relationship Therapy means it as the unique image of familiar love that each of us develops over time, beginning at birth. Think of it as an image or a template of familiar love . . . how someone who loves us will be with us. . . . both in the positive aspects of that love and the negative.
Does your partner sometimes seem like the worst (or the best) of your growing up? Find out why. http://bit.ly/1ZP1bjm
CLICK TO TWEET
So essentially as human beings, we take in what love (and disapproval) feels like, looks like and sounds like from our parents and other adults who are significant in our life. For example, images of familiar love may include fun-loving and free spirited, emotionally unavailable, preoccupied or stressed, ignoring, critical, or interested and encouraging parents or caregivers. Or the image might be of loving, fun parents / parental figures as long as you do what they want and think like they think. If you don’t, you are punished, shamed, or discounted. Your ‘imago’ will be unique to you, based on your experience of people in adult roles growing up, as well as other relationships in your life.
As children, we begin to make meaning — we tell ourselves stories — about those looks, tone of voice, fun, debates, affection, disapproval, criticism, etc. For example, we might tell ourselves, “I’m loved”, “I have to take care of everybody else and ignore my own needs”, “I can depend on people who care about me”, “no matter what I do, it will never be good enough”. If I have a story that gives those words and behaviours meaning, I know how to act and how I need to be in my family and relationships to get love and approval, and how to protect myself. We hold on to our stories, usually without realizing that they are stories. We make them THE truth, even if they are not the intent of our parents, and in turn our spouse.
For example, Joe had very loving parents who thought he was absolutely wonderful. They told him often that they were proud of him, they encouraged him telling him he could do and be anything he wanted and that they would support him. Joe felt very loved and cared for. However, sometimes Joe would get 4 A’s and 1 B. His loving parents would ask him about the B, if he was having trouble with anything in particular in the class. His parents went to his sporting events and Dad would give him a suggestion on his playing. However, the ‘meaning’ or ‘story’ that Joe’s brain made up was “no matter what I do, it will never be good enough unless it is perfect.” So he worked very hard to be perfect and became very sensitive to anyone’s effort to give him a suggestion.
So why does this matter in marriage or love relationships?
Because this ‘imago’ — the images along with the meaning we give them — show up in our spouse. Our story starts playing like a movie that has just been on pause until a ‘trigger’ hits the play button. So when Mary says to her husband, Joe, “Love could you fold the towels THIS way so they will fit better in the linen cupboard?”, Joe hears, “no matter what I do, it’s never good enough” and stomps off saying “fine, do it yourself.”
At the same time, Joe got a lot of affection growing up, so having touch, affection, snuggling on the couch, hugs, kisses, all play the movie that he is loved and valued.
Mary did not grow up in an affectionate family. Her family showed love by helping each other, doing things for each other, encouraging each other. So her low level of affection plays a movie for Joe that says things like: “she loves the dog more than she loves me” or “now she’s mad at me” when in fact, that is not true. Or when Joe does not offer to help Mary on a project because he believes she is capable and can do anything she puts her mind to, he thinks he is showing love, but her movie plays “if he loved me and wanted to support me, he would offer to help me with this.”
Because of these ‘images’ and stories of meaning that we have created to make sense of our world and how we need to be in it, we learn quickly how to get approval and how protect ourselves from disapproval, disconnection, anger, and more. For example we might learn not to share our thoughts or ideas if they are different from the person we love. Or we don’t try to help because it won’t be good enough anyway. Or we withdraw to avoid conflict. Or we keep asking what’s wrong if our spouse is quiet for a while. Our self-protection behaviours become like a coat of armour that we put on to protect ourselves around those negative stories that the words or actions of our spouse trigger.
When we put on our armour, we almost always trigger the self-protective armour
of our partner. So if Susie withdraws from her partner, her partner may play his or her movie of “unless I do it your way, you will disconnect from me.”
These patterns of triggering and self-protection are most often at the core of most conflict.
The Imago and who we are attracted to:
The good and bad news is that subconsciously, we tend to look for someone who is a close-enough-copy of our imago — our image of familiar love — both in the positives and the negatives. So for example, we might subconsciously look for someone who is loving, generous, but who sometimes withdraws for seemingly no reason — just like Mom and/or Dad.
Recent Comments