Enhance Your Intimate Relationship – Break Negative Patterns With IMAGO

Looking to enhance your love relationship? Are you struggling with falling into the same old patterns in your relationships? Check out Imago, a Mind, Body, Soul-based relationship therapy offered by Centus Counseling.

Many queer couples struggle through similar issues and conflicts as straight couples and often don’t know where to turn or how to get help. One solution is IMAGO Relationship Therapy (IRT), an approach to developing healthy relationships created in 1980 by Harville Hendrix Ph.D., and Helen LaKelly Hunt Ph.D.

The core theory behind IMAGO is that people are attracted to both the positive and negative aspects of the people (often parents and significant caretakers) who formed their “emotional blueprint,” Paul Bretz, the only gay IMAGO-certified therapist in Colorado, explains. “IMAGO suggests that the reason that we are attracted to both positive and negative traits is because we are hardwired for healing, and we all want to finish our unfinished business. We’re attracted to somebody that has enough of what we need to help us finish our unfinished business.”

Another central aspect of IMAGO theory is centered around the ways that we communicate with our partners. Bretz explains that, “Most of the time when we are communicating, even with our intimate partner, what we’re really doing when they’re talking is formulating in our head what we want to say in response to them and not actually listening.” IRT aims to solve this problem by emphasizing communication strategies with participants in IMAGO workshops primarily through a process called intentional dialogue.

Intentional dialogue, as explained by Bretz, is a form of communication “where there’s a sender and a receiver on a given topic, and the sender is sharing with the receiver, who is mirroring them, and then will summarize, validate, and empathize with their partner around the topic. It really is about understanding and empathizing with your partner rather than agreeing with them.”

IRT tools work to transform a person’s communication style from internal and distracted to external and focused to create a deeper connection with their partner.  These communication tools also focus on creating a relationship that emphasizes the positive aspects of the relationship rather than the negative aspects. This idea is based on a study by John Gottman from the Gottman Institute that says that for every negative interaction, there must be at least five positive interactions with the same person so that the relationship feels positive overall. Following this ‘rule’ allows partners to focus on affirming, understanding, and empathizing with their partner and helps create a more emotionally safe and connected relationship.

All of these different aspects come together to help couples in their transition from initial attraction, through an inevitable power struggle, to a commitment that can lead to conscious intimacy. According to Bretz, “The difference is that in the early attraction phase, in the most cynical view, you’re projecting onto somebody else who you want them to be, and they’re projecting onto you who they want you to be and you’re each essentially having a beautiful relationship with yourselves. When you hit the power struggle you realize, ‘Oh shit, this is actually a completely different person, and they’re their own person. They’re not the person I wanted to make them into,’ and so then there’s a choice, ‘Do I really want to love this person for who they actually are, rather than something that I’m trying to make them be in my head?’”

Many couples/partners don’t make it through the “power struggle” phase, instead breaking up and getting into another relationship in which their unfinished business eventually emerges again, and so the same problems are often encountered in the next relationship.

Despite IRT originally being created by a straight couple and historically being applied to straight couples, Brad Hoffner, Bretz’s husband and co-facilitator of IRT workshops, explains how it applies to queer couples and the importance of having couples’ therapy targeted specifically to queer couples.

“When we attended our workshop, we were the only gay couple there. And that can be a bit intimidating. At that time, I don’t think Paul and I really cared about that. We were there for the content. But it can also be a barrier. And I think one of the nicest things about one of our weekend workshops (that he and Bretz host) was when we deviated a little bit from the IMAGO content and started talking about what it’s like to be in a same-sex relationship right now, especially those from our generation where HIV/AIDS impacted relationships in terms of how you show affection and how you communicate.” These queer-specific insights emphasize how important queer-run couples therapy is for queer people.

For those interested in IRT in Colorado, Bretz offers monthly psycho-educational intensive sessions, and workshops for couples (Getting the Love You Want) and for individuals (Keeping the Love You Find) through Centus.

Photo courtesy of Paul Bretz