Relationship help
Free help page How Imago works Newsletter

Couples Workshops
Find a workshop More about workshops What's it like to attend an Imago workshop?
Counseling
Find a couples therapist About Couples therapy

Home

Sitemap

Connections February 2011

Return to Archive

February 2011

Somebody Hold Me

By Tony Victor, D.Min., LCPC

Something quite amazing happened this week. Becky was on the floor playing with the grandkids while I was sitting on the couch enjoying a visit with their parents. Suddenly, a balloon popped. Twenty-five month old Maggie immediately stopped playing and slowly stood up silent for a few seconds. Then, raising her arms in the air, she softly said, "Somebody hold me." Becky had been watching her and was aware that the balloon had startled her. She reached out and wrapped her loving arms around Maggie, held her up for a few moments as any loving grandmother would do, then she set her back down and Maggie went back to playing.

When I realized what I had just observed I was astounded. The balloon popping frightened this little 2-year-old girl. Yet she wasn’t overwhelmed with the flood of fear, which might have been demonstrated with screaming and uncontrollable crying. Instead, she was able to recognize her need in reaction to the balloon popping, regulate that need, and put it into words by way of a request, "Somebody hold me."

The Couples Weekend Workshop

By Cyma Shapiro

(Or how to stop childhood patterns, find happiness, and restructure the relationship loop)

I love my husband. But, for the past 15 years, we’ve done a dance of wills, and had innumerable power struggles and issues. Despite a handful of therapists, we haven’t gotten it right. In many ways, we’ve just “missed” each other, always going down separate paths. Until this past weekend.

I’m not one to share the intimate details of my life, but since I feel “saved,” I think my story might serve someone else well. Here goes: this past weekend, we attended an Imago Workshop originally created by Harville Hendrix. I won’t lie – it was a last ditch effort, not before divorce, but before we began the old, tired conversation of what we would do next/differently/in the future, to repair/rebuild/start a better relationship. Trust me, we’d gotten weary of this; we both felt that life was passing by too fast to always hit this brick wall. Right about now, our heads constantly hurt and we were hurt – there was a lot of anger and pain in our lives. One thousand dollars at one time would stave off months of unsuccessful therapy. If it worked, we would set ourselves on another course; if it failed, I’m not sure what we would do.