Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT), developed
by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. of the Institute for Relationship Therapy
in New York, is a paradigm shift in the understanding of marriage
and marital therapy. IRT is a short term therapy that combines
insight and practical skills. Couples learn to become safe and
intentional, to recognize and repair the wounds of the past, and
to restructure frustration and 'incompatibility' as opportunities
to reclaim their whole self.
Some of IRT's basic assumptions are the following:
Our original state is one of wholeness,
joy, connection, curiosity, spontaneity, and passion.
Over/under-parenting and the process of socialization, creates
wounding at various stages of childhood development as essential
developmental impulses are blocked. The child unconsciously determines
the impulse, rather than the parent, to be 'unacceptable' and
creates patterned behavior to adapt to the wounding. This is our
'character structure.'
Partner selection is the result of the unconscious desire to complete
or correct what was unfinished in childhood. We select a partner
who carries both the positive and negative characteristics of
our caretakers (the 'Imago'), and who was wounded in the same
area, but adapted in a complementary way.
The adaptation patterns of one partner triggers the wound and
survival pattern of the other, creating a cycle of reactivity.
Pattern relates to pattern, rather than person relating to person.
Developmentally specific nurturing of each partner helps heal
the childhood wound. And paradoxically, our partner will need
the very thing that will stretch us out of our own pattern and
help us reclaim aspects of our self.
The more primitive part of the brain stores emotion and memory
related to perceived threats to survival. It is atemporal and
ignores our rational explanations about its fear. While insight
is important, consistent corrective experience is need to change
survival patterns.
This therapy helps couples access and integrate those unconscious
developmental needs triggered in relational conflict, and become
increasingly conscious and intentional in their own behavior in
order to create safety for their partner. Frustration and hurt
become pathways to create a 'conscious relationship' that is characterized
by real love, intimacy, passion, connection, joy and other inherent
qualities of our original self.
Healing in Therapy Related to Quality of Relationship
Research has consistently shown that
the effectiveness of therapy is more closely related to the relational
qualities between therapist and client, particularly affective
and cognitive empathy, than to any particular technique. We take
in and contain the experience and feelings of the other, and at
the same time, act as a differentiated, yet connected self. Cognitive
and affective empathy validates a part of the person's self that
has long ago been invalidated, rejected, or abandoned by childhood
caretakers, and in the resulting pain, by the self. It is kept
unconscious because it is locked in self hatred. However, through
continued empathic holding and communication, a person can stay
for a period in a previously inaccessible area with the help of
the other. As the person is 'held' empathetically, s/he gains
access to and can begin to incorporate the 'intolerable' part
of the self, discovering within it the 'potential' self that has
not yet been realized. Traditionally, the therapeutic relationship
has been the primary experience of this kind of empathy and safety.
IRT empowers couples to learn and use these skills to create safety
and healing in their own relationship, and to foster the process
of differentiation while remaining deeply connected.
Basic Tool is Couple's Dialogue
The basic tool of Imago Relationship
Therapy is a specific form of couple's dialogue that teaches couples
to contain their partner, to mirror precisely, to validate (cognitive
empathy) the other's experience, and to empathize affectively.
Through various processes based on that structure, couples can
access childhood wounding and hold the seemingly 'intolerable'
aspects of the partner so that s/he can begin to reclaim the imprisoned
'potential' self .
Re-Imaging the Partner
Just as importantly, couples use their
knowledge of the childhood wounds to both empower them to become
increasingly intentional in the relationship and to discover very
specific ways to nurture and reverse the developmental arrest.
The image of the partner is transformed from "someone who
won't give me what I want or need, etc." to "a person
who was wounded, and who can recover their inherent self as I,
the partner, create the necessary safety. " The partner can
then provide the corrective experience that is needed for healing,
and in doing that, stretch out of his/her own character structure.
The attitude toward the partner shifts from criticism and blame
to compassion, hope, and a commitment to assist the partner in
healing, and to reclaim one's fullest self. In this way, emotional
safety is created and deepened. Far from being just another communication
tool, the skills provide a structure for safe, effective, healing
and lasting change. In a revolutionary way, IRT shifts the power
of the healing relationship traditionally reserved for the therapist/client
relationship into the hands of the couple.
