Just about all of my clients did therapy before working with me. My guess is that you have, too. A great therapist is priceless and I think therapy is an invaluable framework to help you understand yourself.
Just this week, I learned about Harville Hendrix’s Imago Therapy and wanted to share a few highlights that may resonate.
Imago therapy addresses the pain of projection from a difficult parent by helping you recognize how childhood wounds unconsciously shape your adult relationships.
- In childhood, you form an unconscious image of familiar love based on your relationship with your caregivers, including both positive and negative traits.
- As an adult, you are drawn to partners who trigger familiar feelings from your childhood. If a parent was critical, distant, or controlling, you may find yourself repeatedly in relationships where you feel criticized, ignored, or controlled.
- This dynamic is a form of repetition compulsion, where your unconscious mind tries to heal old wounds by re-creating them with new partners.
This is a genius observation that validates what I’ve seen with my clients. Think about your most difficult parent or the dysfunctional dynamic you witnessed in your parents’ marriage. That is the basic template for what you see as “normal” in adult relationships.
This therapeutic insight does a great job of explaining why you are the way you are, and why you potentially gravitate to unhealthy partners who don’t feel safe.
It’s one thing to know the source of your anxious attachment style. It’s quite another to be able to make different choices moving forward. Remember, everyone who hires me has “done the work” and STILL doesn’t have a healthy relationship.
The reason coaching works well is that by providing support, structure, and accountability, you can let go of your past and create a bright new future.
I have gone to therapy, I have coached therapists, and if you have someone amazing in your corner, I want to encourage you to continue. Just know that even an amazing therapist has limitations and can’t expertly guide you through the process of dating and choosing a life partner.
If you have a great understanding of what went wrong in your past, but don’t quite know how to translate that into an effective action plan that gets you a lasting love, click here to book a time to talk with me.
I can’t wait to learn more about you.
Love,
Evan
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* This article was originally published here
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