Tag Archives: Imago Therapy

Why Does This Feel Vaguely Familiar?

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Remember Mike and Genevieve from the last blog?  Here they are again talking about an idea developed by marriage and relationship therapists Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt.  They are the co-founders of Imago Relationship Therapy, and one of the foundations of this model is the idea that we carry an unconscious image or “imago”, that is an amalgamation of the positive and negative attributes of our parents or primary caregivers.  The story goes that we are unconsciously attracted to people who match up with the positives list in our “imago” and this is what pulls us into falling in love, only to find, as the rosy glow of early romance fades, that our lover also has a bunch of really annoying habits that match the negatives in our unconscious “imago”.

I like the saying “A theory is an idea in search of the truth”.  Imago theory and the idea of our partners being an “imago match” seems to hold up a lot of the time with the couples I work with.

Here are Mike and Genevieve talking about The Imago Match

Just Listen To Me For Once!

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There you are, once again, trying to talk sense to your partner and all they can do is argue back!  Or maybe its the other way around, they are trying to get something across to you, but you have already got your back up and you are only listening long enough to be able to formulate your defence or counter-attack.  Sound familiar?

Several bodies of research show that most conflicts that have a painful “charge” are only 10% about the present situation and 90% about some past wound that is causing pain now.  We don’t tend to act very logically or consciously in situations that carry an emotional  charge, and consequently we often make matters worse when we would like them to be better.

When there is tension in the air we really owe it to ourselves, our partner, our relationship, to slow down, make a really conscious effort to be constructive and if you are on the receiving end, make a big effort to really understand your partner.

Now this is not an easy thing to do by any means.  Below is a neat little video of a real life couple demonstrating Imago Therapies “Couples Dialogue”.  This video can also be found as part of a series on the Imago International website here

Regards Ben.

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