IMAGO for Couples Therapy

IMAGO Therapy was formulated by Harville Hendrix Ph.D., building on the research and revolutionary, "triune" brain theory of Dr. Paul MacLean.  Dr. MacLean began his journey researching psychomotor epilepsy from 1946-1949.  At Yale, from 1949-1956, he studied the brain mechanisms of emotion.   At the National Institute of Health, as head of the Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior from 1971-1985 he devised a model describing three separate brains.  The R-Complex controls instinctive survival behavior and thinking, the limbic system is the source of instincts and emotions, and in the neocortex brain, complex thinking occurs.

IMAGO relationship therapy has evolved its own specific methodology rooted in behavioral sciences, psychoanalytic theory, Gestalt, transactional analysis, and cognitive therapy. IMAGO therapy aides couples in working out power struggles that emerge in every relationship.  Marriage is a union of two separate individuals into a new entity.  Living together creates a developmental process that metaphorically has a life of its own.  Just as individuals have setbacks, this new entity is also subject to stress, obstacles, and even regression.

IMAGO reduces the elements of the cosmological makeup of people into a theory of primary love relationships.  Positive and negative values in our unconscious mind, or IMAGO, contains the elements of the person that we need to marry someday to satisfy early nurturing wounds, usually unconsciously delivered.  That person matches a composite of our primary caregivers.  Marriage fulfills the unfinished tasks of healing those early parental wounds with a primary lover who also matches those parental traits.  IMAGO works to focus on the "Romantic Love" and "Power Struggle" stages of marriage.  Inevitably, our love partner can not successfully bridge the gap between the desire of the unconscious mind and reality.  IMAGO therapy allows the conscious and unconscious mind to cohabitate in harmony.

With the help of a well trained IMAGO therapist, the two people who comprise the couple can continue to develope an intimate and committed relationship.  An IMAGO therapist uses a specific form of dialogue, teaches couples to repair emotional wounds, facilitates a shift from criticism to compassion and hope, and also leads the couple to find new avenues of commitment, love and healing.