The last piece of the combination lock is the Imago System. Harville and Helen made a huge intuitive leap in our understanding of relationships by making the connection between the unconscious image – the Imago (Imago is the Latin word for image) children form of their primary caretakers from childhood (the person who loves me, who meets all my needs, who takes care of me) and the power of that image in mate selection. That insight forms the backbone of Imago Relationship Therapy.
Imago Relationship Therapy
If you can wrap your head around that idea, some of the challenges you have in your relationship might make more sense. From an Imago viewpoint, the person you are with often has some of the positive and negative traits of your early childhood caregivers. While on a conscious level, you might just be looking for a good-looking guy or gal, your unconscious – which, as we know, is often driving the bus – is looking for someone similar enough to the one who loved me, who met all my needs, who took care of me.
The problem is that your early caretakers, no matter how good they were, weren’t perfect. Your parents weren’t perfect. You are not perfect. I am not perfect. So inevitably, the unconscious image already hardwired in your brain will have not only positive but also negative traits. And it is the negative traits that tend to bring tension to the surface in a relationship. This is because they tap into the very needs you didn’t get met as a child.
Childhood Caretakers
No one would consciously choose someone who couldn’t meet their needs, but unconsciously, we inevitably choose someone similar to our childhood caretakers (who didn’t meet certain needs the first time around). And so we repeat the pattern.
Solution
The solution. We have to become more aware, more conscious! However, we are still left with a conundrum. If my partner didn’t get certain needs met while growing up and then marries me who is unable to meet those needs, will her needs ever be met? Harville, in years of therapy trying to sort out his first relationship, was told NO, you just won’t get needs met later in life, that you missed out on in childhood. However, he believed, that if there was a need, there had to be a way to fulfill it. But, how?
An Example
When the answer came it was simple. The only way my partner, for example, will get her unmet childhood needs fulfilled is, if I grow and stretch and meet them. And in so doing, I also heal myself. She really has the blueprint for my growth toward wholeness, if I can cooperate with it – if I can become more conscious, more aware. The key is becoming conscious and then being able to reframe this insight into a positive rather than a negative. In fact, I have married my healer.
The metaphor I use to explain how it works for my partner and me is that I came out of childhood with a hand that didn’t work and I couldn’t stand up straight. To demonstrate this state of being, I bend over and let my hand go limp. Whom do I marry? Someone who wants my hand to work and for me to stand up straight. She says, “Give me feelings,” and I say, “I can’t do that; that’s not me.” But as I stretch to give her what she wants, (I slowly stand erect) I also heal myself. For me, it really is a win-win situation.
An Imago Perspective
From an Imago perspective then, the last piece of the combination lock is that you are with the right person, but there is work to be done. You have the blueprint for each other’s growth toward wholeness, but you have to be conscious of the intricacies of that blueprint. None of us had all of our needs met one hundred percent as children. Harville and Helen suggest: the way we discuss marriage and wholeness in Imago is by saying: “The unconscious purpose of marriage is to finish childhood and go on to live your best life.” (Doing Imago Relationship Therapy in the Space-Between, p.10)
Next week Chapter 5 – Personalizing your Playbook
