Winter 1998
Imago Relationship Therapy: Our Uniqueness

Of late, there has been considerable media attention on the growing importance of maintaining the sacred tapestry of marriage and family. Although churches have long been involved, the new trend involves the local, state, and federal governments to recognize the social and financial implications of divorce. As a consequence, lawmakers are mandating policies such as premarital counseling, covenant marriages, and even high school marriage education courses. As the shift in society slowly moves toward prevention, our identity becomes increasingly important. And so, what makes Imago Relationship Therapy unique from other marital education and marital therapy programs? And what distinguishes the Certified Imago Therapist from others who are attempting to address the same issues?

Foremost, Imago Relationship Therapy and its processes are guided by a "metatheory" namely, the relational paradigm. Briefly, this philosophy suggests that although we humans have boundaries-- "you" are separate from "me"--we are open systems that continuously influence and are influenced and therefore interdependent with and connected to one another. The relationship goes beyond "you and me" and, in some aspects, takes a life of its own. "Problems" arising out of relationship are a result of disconnection in that relationship and not a "problem" of the individual. This is why Imago Relationship Therapy embraces conjoint therapy. As William J. Doherty wrote in a recent letter to Newsweek, ". . . inner healing and marital healing are not two sequential steps in recovery--they are a seamless garment sewn as a piece or not at all."

But Imago therapists are not only educators of a theory: We are clinicians with a history of understanding the human psyche. The educator-clinician role enables us not only to teach skills but to skillfully guide a couple down the road to consciousness. We can listen for the nuances in current frustrations, and use sentence stems or provide experiential processes like the Parent-Child Dialogue at opportune moments to connect the current frustration to an old hurt. The Certified Imago Therapist can then guide the couple to become each other's healers in a dialogical environment (as opposed to "healing" in the client-therapist partnership). Once a safe and empathic connection releases the symbiotic vise, we put the committed couple on the road with a guidebook in their hands and let them travel with the underlying mantra, "Do unto your partner as you would have your partner do unto you."

Whereas many marriage education programs stress the compatibility of interests and things in order to predict the success or failure of a union, Imago theory asserts that incompatibility (i.e., the complementarity of the functions of the self) is one condition that fuels romantic attraction, and is purposeful, namely to finish childhood and recover wholeness. We choose partners who resemble our caretakers in significant ways and have similar developmental wounds with opposite adaptations. Incompatibility is, in fact, an indicator of potential healing and growth. So when rational Joe introduces his emotional wife Brenda, we are looking at an Imago match. And we know that part of our job is to awaken Brenda's thinking and Joe's feeling selves. And we also know that this is a part of Nature's grand design in bringing together two opposite people in romantic union.

Lastly, many of the other popular programs teach skills, many of the skills which overlap with Imago Relationship Therapy such as enhancing active listening, developing a relationship vision, and exchanging caring behaviors. But Imago Relationship Therapy teaches a way of being, more than a way of doing--an attitude rather than a skill but a skill that leads you to an attitude. For instance, the Couples Dialogue can be taught as "a communication tool." Indeed it is. But it goes further than that. The Couples Dialogue develops an empathic and mutual flow between healer and healee that ultimately strengthens the connecting loop within the intimate partnership and throughout the family, community, planet, universe. We teach of a conscious relationship path that takes time and energy and that puts the "big" issue--the impasse--on the back burner knowing that as small consistent changes are integrated into the relationship and connection increases, the impasse often dissolves on its own.

In a society that dwells on "happily ever after" illusions, quick fixes, and instant gratification, the notion of "a way of being . . . . eventually" is often unappetizing. But the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy is now celebrating its fifteenth year of existence. Getting the Love You Want: Workshops for Couples are being offered to over 3500 couples each year in major cities nationally and internationally. We have grown from a handful of clinicians to almost 1500 therapists participating in our clinical training program. Imago theory continues to strike a chord. The shifts from "me alone" to "we together," from "independent" to "interdependent," and from "fairy tale marriage" to "marriage is work" and "marriage as therapy" are slowly seeping into our cultural beliefs. And in some ways I hope that in another fifteen years, Imago Relationship Therapy is not so unique, that the extremes in therapies and marital education courses move toward a deeper synthesis which ultimately saves committed relationships and raises healthy children.