Studying Relationship Help is catching on, according to Dr. Robert Epstein, writing in “Scientific American MIND”.   The article gives an overview of the field of research into love, attraction, and what makes relationships really strong.

He starts by writing about “Soul gazing”, a simple exercise where students who didn’t particularly know each other just spent a while looking into each other’s eyes.  The result was a conclusive increase in how much they liked each other- just from the eye contact!  Dr. Epstein went on to build a range of exercises which his students used to successfully improve their connection with their partners. 

What really spoke to me about this work was how Dr. Epstein looked at the cycle of divorce and marriage breakdown in the world, and argue that so much of it was because couples just didn’t get any effective relationship help or marriage advice.  He makes comparisons with arranged marriages, and as a scientist puts forwards the simple argument that if we all learned a little more about how to build great relationships, then we would open up the possibility of more healthy marriages.

His concluding paragraph sums this up.  ”We can achieve that kind of love by learning about and practicing techniques that build love over time. And when our love is fading, we can use such techniques to rebuild that love. The alternative—leaving it to chance—makes little sense.”

The big question then is “What kind of relationship help would be right for me?”   Dr Epstein lists research into 10 major factors which influence the success of a relationship – which vary from taking roller-coaster rides (in Imago we call that high energy fun) to sharing secrets (which in Imago is often the focus of dialogue).

There probably isn’t one magic bullet for turning a dull relationships into a great one, and we certainly don’t offer one in Imago.  The relationship help we feel is most important is putting you in charge, and providing a range of approaches which you can use to build  many of those 10 factors which researchers show are so important.