Couples Counselling
Recently I added to my long experience of working with couples by training in the 'Imago' method. This method, which I am now using, is a common sense way to help you refresh your love relationship; it is different from couple's counselling. Imago is the very best way to reopen communication and re-access the loving feelings you shared earlier. Imago (the word refers to the image we all have of our ideal partner) works in many different circumstances, ranging from when partners are reluctantly considering separation or divorce to couples who just want to enrich a love relationship. It is a down-to-earth way of doing marriage guidance or relationship counselling. Imago is a non-profit organisation popular in North America, Europe and South Africa. The ideas are based on the books by Harville Hendrix including "Getting the Love You Want". He utilises and combines the best methods from many different ways of working with couples.
I am an experienced counsellor who has recently adopted this method after further training because of it's effectiveness in helping couples with relationship difficulties. Imago work is not counselling or therapy; it is more like coaching and giving couples tools so that they can find their own way forward.
Probably the most difficult and complex thing we do in our lives is intimate long term relationship with another person - yet we never learn how to do it! We just expect it to happen. I have come to believe that when couples get into trouble, they frequently do not need counselling, with its implication that there is something wrong with them if they can't manage long term close relationship; they need the tools to communicate properly and the know-how to develop and enrich what happens between them. Imago offers these.
It is normal for relationships to get rocky at times and it is so easy to slip into withdrawn or blaming ways. At these times we all need help with proper communicating. At last there is a do-able way to communicate, to explore and accept ourselves and our partners in relationship without going into conflict and blame. Imago offers a method to look at difficulties and unmet relationship needs without getting reactive and hurt.
All relationships go wrong for periods and then it is normal to panic or get depressed and negative. At worse we can find ourselves being angry and abusive or being abused; some people have affairs or turn to addictions; some tend to withdraw and others become over emotional. This does not necessarily mean we have mental health problems or that we must separate or divorce. I do not believe that we have to compromise and settle for living "together but apart" when we have relationship problems. Imago offers us a way of working these things out and it recognises that intimate love relationships trigger extremely powerful feelings in all of us - both positive love feelings and negative feelings of depression and even hate. This is normal.
The Imago way of re-discovering ourselves and our partners in relationship can be great fun, exiting and such a wonderfully bonding thing to share. It is a fact that we are incapable of having the hot rush of romance for the whole of our lives. Romance is wonderful when it happens but many of us feel disappointed when that phase finishes. We need to find a longer term way of being with another person which includes a more lasting kind of true love and respect. Imago shows us how to be alive and whole as well as in relationship, so that we do not have to compromise or give up part of ourselves in order to be intimate and close.
I always want to say 'Wake up!' to couples. You owe it to yourselves and your children; there is a way you can get control of your relationship together. There is nothing in life that is more important!
(Note: By the word "couples" I mean people in intimate relationships regardless of gender or sexual orientation.)
Imago Relationship Therapy
(A longer article written for counsellors by Nick Willatt and published in the July 2007 edition of Therapy Today)
Why hasn't Imago Relationship Therapy taken off in the UK? It was specifically developed to address relationship issues; after twenty years there are over two thousand trained Imago therapists worldwide; it is proven to be extraordinarily effective.(1) Yet, inexplicably, there are only a handful Imago trained therapists in the UK.
I can vouch for its effectiveness. My wife and I have trained in Imago therapy and it has had a wonderfully dynamic effect upon our marriage as well as adding a transformative and powerful force to my couples counselling.
I will describe Imago (pronounced 'im ar go') relationship therapy but only have space to touch on the essence of it here. It is many things: a new kind of couple's therapy, a science of relationship, a way to manage ourselves in relationship and if you are drawn towards the spiritual side of things, it makes these connections as well.
Imago is unique in the way it was developed solely to address relationships and connection between people. Harville Hendrix, its originator believes, "We cannot live in isolation and we cannot heal alone." (2, p145) I will return to this later but will first give a brief description of the therapy in practice.
Imago utilises different therapies and surprisingly makes a cohesive whole. In its psychodynamic/attachment mode the theory uses personal history to explain feelings, behaviour and problems in relationships. Amongst other things it gives logical reasons why we choose mates that seem later to very accurately trigger our uncomfortable parts. It also explains our tendency to repeat negative relationship patterns. Hendrix, who writes in the form of self help books, (which may partly explain slow take up here in the UK) offers these understandings directly to couples, not to therapists for interpretations.
Very briefly, in this mode, Imago theory says that we are all wounded in childhood; none of us got all of our needs met in a timely way. This is more or less impossible even for the best of parents. Hence we are left with a yearning or longing to get these needs met in adult life - to be heard and understood, to be loved, protected more or whatever it was that we felt was in a large or small deficit. So we hold an "imago" - an internalised image of our ideal partners: someone who will meet all of these previously unmet needs.
This "imago" is largely unconscious; we are not completely in control of partner choice. Here is an example. The little girl, who longs for her busy mother to pay more attention to her, often clings to her or makes demands. Her mother of course may frequently reject this part of her - 'Don't do that, I'm busy, you are being selfish/intrusive/bad.' She soon learns that this need for attention is a bad part of herself; learns to feel ashamed of it, to hide it from mother and finally hide or split off much of it from herself. So she grows up with a conflicting identity "I am an independent woman"; but her split off, unconscious part, of which she has learned to feel ashamed, is still calling out for more connection and validation.
The "imago" or the perfect partner for whom she seeks will materialise in a man (heterosexual example) who feels like her mother, she can be independent around him, but with whom this time she senses, mainly unconsciously, she can get the closeness she did not get before. He has done the same - selected on the bases of split off and denied needs which he feels will be met by her. So they "fall" in love.
After their romantic phase is over this woman is likely to have internal conflict. If she denies or is shameful about her needs for connection and validation, then she cannot express them openly. She will probably end up disappointed and resenting her partner. "He is just not there for me any more". Also she does not want to think about these shameful needs so she focuses on expressing them as her partner's deficit - "You never ring me when you're running late, you are so selfish and thoughtless" As he is doing likewise with his unmet needs things may soon go wrong.
Hendrix is saying that we unconsciously seek people who embody our particular wound. We want to mend things by getting what was previously unavailable, in a situation which is similar to the one where we were painfully wounded as children. But, as many people have found, it is all too easy to repeat only the painful behaviour and get re-wounded in the same place.
However, Hendrix sees this as an opportunity; we have also picked the person who is uniquely placed to help us heal our wounds. He offers us a therapeutic way firstly to reveal our wounds through identifying the needs which show up when we relate intimately; and secondly to integrate these parts openly into our lives and our relationships.
Aside from helping us in this way with explanations about ourselves in relationship, Imago does therapy in two other ways: humanistic and behaviourist. In behaviourist mode it helps us, for example, identify "caring behaviours" (3) that we need from our partners. Examples in my work have been 'give me a hug before you go to work', 'make love with me in a certain way within the next fortnight' and 'talk to me once a week about how you are feeling underneath'. The partner is then invited to choose to do some of these. Imago recommends other simple behaviours: we give surprises to our partners, regularly tell them what we like about them in "appreciations" and so on. Hendrix sees both giving and receiving these, and other behaviours as pivotal in the personal healing process and in learning to long-term bond.(1)
This therapy always prioritises safety. Imago says that after the romance is over, we enter a threatening 'power struggle' to get our needs met. Giving and receiving loving behaviours helps re-create safety between us and pacifies reactivity and the "old brain" defensive systems. Only when we feel safe can we think clearly about ourselves and love and be loved.
However, by far the most important and central part of Imago therapeutic work is not behaviourist, very much the opposite, it derives from person centred therapy and utilises Carl Rogers' core conditions. Hendrix calls it "Intentional Dialogue". It is a way for couples to start communicating properly and get into emotional connection even if this has been long absent. It is structured communication where partners offer understanding, empathy and acceptance. The third core condition, congruence, can be problematical - expressing anger, frustration or sadness just when you feel like it often marks when things have gone wrong. So when they are concentrating on listening to their partner the structure of Intentional Dialogue helps people to put congruent feelings aside so that they can be communicated later.
In this Dialogue the couple face each other, not the therapist who concentrates on coaching them in the roles of Sender and Receiver in turns. The conditions are that the Sender uses "I" language. The therapist suggests rephrases if she (female here) strays from this. For example if the Sender says, "you always ignore me", the therapist would suggest a replacement, something like "When you seem to ignore me, I feel .." The sender is invited to repeat this 'sentence stem' and finish it. "You hate me when I am your passenger when you are driving" might be re-phrased to "I make up that you hate me as your passenger."
The Receiver is asked to put all reactivity aside for later and simply mirror back in short manageable blocks what the Sender is saying. He is coached to ask such things as "Have I got you right" and "Is there more about that?" until the sender feels completely heard and is finished.
The Receiver then summarises and tries to "validate" by showing understanding of the Sender's predicament. For example, "Given that you were scared of your mother's driving, I understand why you get upset when I drive." Incidentally, it is extraordinary how quickly Dialogue gets people talking about childhood. The receiver can then 'empathise'; he reports any feelings which he imagines the sender might feel. For example "I imagine that you feel frightened, ignored and out of control, when I drive."
Most couples in trouble feel defensive and unsafe for a great deal of the time. Intentional Dialogue, done properly, creates a new safety and "I" language helps. Imago assumes we always have a choice when we feel critical; we can choose to project our feelings onto our partner in "you" language - "You never ring me when you are late. You are so selfish!" or we can use "I" language to say our internal feelings - "I felt abandoned, sad and panicky when you didn't ring me". Intentional Dialogue challenges us to use "I" language and in doing so we are removing threats and accusations and we are thinking about ourselves.
Another reason for the couple feeling safer is Dialogue's inbuilt assumption that there is more than one reality. Someone saying "You got really angry" would have a suggested replacement: "It seemed to me that you were angry .." So there is my reality and your reality; dialogue stops us arguing about 'what actually happened.'
The purpose of intentional dialogue is to let couples move from disconnection and fusion to connection by acceptance and understanding of how the partner is different from the self. This is done by creating greater safety, deeper understanding and empathy, so that the partner can be seen for their real self rather than being an object of projected ideals or fears.(4,p25) In my experience it stops us seeing our partners' needs and behaviour as stupid just because they are not the same as ours; it makes us inquisitive about their motivations and helps us towards more generosity.
Intentional Dialogue is an extremely powerful and quick-acting tool and it is often a moving and bonding experience. Typically, one couple embraced at the end of the first session and agreed "We haven't talked to each other at this deep level for ten years".
How can this hotch potch of different therapies make a cohesive whole? The answer lies in the quote from Hendrix quoted above. "We cannot live in isolation and we cannot heal alone." He goes on "We are born into relationship. Our personalities are formed by relationship. And, we are healed in relationship." (2, p144/5) Close inspection of this reveals a huge paradigm shift which is difficult for some therapists to swallow. Hendrix is saying that the therapist's task is not therapeutic engagement with individuals in relationship; is not to do therapy as most of us know it. Our task is to create connection between individuals.
In rather the same way that Carl Rogers believed that the three core conditions were "necessary and sufficient" (5) to bring about change in individuals, Hendrix has deep faith that if the conditions of connection are right, then healing will follow. Healing is not the therapist's job but will come naturally from the couple being more deeply connected. ".. we are healed in relationship"
I have briefly spelt out these conditions of connection above: deepening understanding of our partners and ourselves with regular Intentional Dialogue, and giving and receiving through behaviours which respond to underlying needs. This is a journey of a lifetime for couples who are invited to work at home during and after the sessions have finished. The full course of action is spelt out in Hendrixs' books.
So an Imago therapist is using many therapeutic skills (The Imago organisation requires them to be trained and experienced therapists) but is actually more of a coach; he or she is offering the tools for couples to achieve ever closer emotional connection with the belief that this in itself will heal childhood wounds.
The Imago therapist has no agenda, is not trying to keep the couple together. Occasionally they part with a useful heightened understanding of how they do intimate relationships, but the vast majority of couples seem to end up finding a new, longer term way of loving and being connected.
For Harville Hendrix, and Helen Lakelly Hunt, his co author and partner, the experience of connection goes beyond human relationship. They say that when parts of us are wounded, denied and split off, "connection rupture" occurs, and we are disconnected from our spiritual core, .. Emptiness is attended by loneliness." (2, p80)
They site Walt Whitman who said "I contain multitudes" (3) extending the idea into our spiritual connection with the physical world. They say that connection is not something that can be destroyed, that when we make close connection with others again, "when our wholeness is supported ... we experience joy and, eventually, wonder and Oneness with Everything." (2, p74)
Hendrix's and LaKelly Hunt's work is also supported with a unifying ethical justification: 'connectedness with others is our natural and whole state of being'. The amalgamation of a variety of methods is consistent with this idea; these methods are chosen because they prioritise and promote connection between partners in relationship.
Bibliography
1. Imago and Research, Beeton T. A. PHD, 2006. (Posted on the Imago website, www.gettingtheloveyouwant.com)
2. Hendrix H. and LaKelly Hunt H., Receiving Love, Simon and Schuster UK, 2005.
3. Hendrix H. and LaKelly Hunt H., Getting the Love You Want, Pocket Books, Simon and Schuster UK, 1993
4. Sophie Slade. Imago Relationship Therapy Basic Clinical Training (Handbook) 2005
5. Rogers C. "The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change," Journal of Consulting Psychology, Vol. 21, 1957, pp. 95-103
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