Imago Relationship Therapy

Imago relationship therapy (IRT) aims to equip couples with the tools necessary to relate to each other in healthier ways and reveal the emotional pathway formed in childhood that led them to their current situation. This form of therapy combines spiritual and behavioral techniques with Western psychological methodologies in order to assist couples in unveiling their unconscious components.

While I do use other modalities for relationship therapy, such as Gottman and EFT, I find the techniques and exercises used in Imago therapy, which is best suited for helping clients take more control of their own healing process.

I work with couples using the couples dialogue, helping them to feel heard and understood, with the goal of engaging in healthy conflict and having a strengthened relationship.

When your partner REALLY listens to you, a disagreement need not become a fight. We'll use Harville & Helen Hendrix's communication techniques to listen to understand, rather than just waiting to fire back a rebuttal. So often, we aren't even fighting about the same thing. Having help to slow down and stay on the same track has made all the difference for couples' relationships. I have heard "I just wish we'd done this sooner," as I work with couples to re-build connection.

This is a specific kind of relationship therapy that is designed to help conflict within relationships. We learn about the individual's own past wounds and how it maybe affecting their parter/relationship. Through this process we learn about personal triggers that are impacting the relationship.

I engage in IMAGO relationship therapy often with couples to help them connect, attach, and communicate more effectively.

Imago Relationship Therapy provides couples and families with a safe structure to co-create a healthy, loving and mature relationship where all parties feel heard and understood. Imago is unique in several ways; it provides a dialogical process that you will continually use to connect and heal.

There is a link between frustrations in adult relationships and our experiences growing up. Childhood feelings of abandonment, suppression or neglect will often arise in an intimate relationship. When partners meet wounds with defensiveness and reactivity it can overshadow the positives in a relationship and lead to feelings of disconnection, pain and dis-empowerment. Imago Relationship Therapy aims to help couples learn to shift out of the power struggle and into loving connection.

I have advanced training in Imago relationship since the early 1980s. I recently renewed my training in this method and am working towards my certification in this approach. I find Imago is very valuable in doing depth work with couples, helping partners build an intimate and loving space between them that feels nurturing, safe, and authentic. I also appreciate how simple the imago dialogue process is so any couple could learn this and use it to their benefit very quickly.

Imago Therapy provides you with skills to mirror, validate, and empathize with your partner and building effective communication.

Imago exercises will having you feeling intimately connected with your partner again.

I am a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist and when looking through the lens of Imago, I help couples discover the answers to three important questions about relationships. - Why are we romantically attracted to someone? - What causes the conflict in our relationships? - How do we turn this conflict into reconnection and personal growth? I believe that, “We are all born through and into relationships, we are wounded in relationships, and the way we heal is through our relationships.”