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My Journey
Nowadays, when my office phone rings and it is a couple calling to make an appointment to come in for therapy, I am filled with
excitement and anticipation. But it wasn't always that way… until I became a Certified Imago Therapist.
In school and during my internship at a family counseling agency, I was pretty much on my own when it came to dealing with troubled
relationships. I recall begging my clinical supervisor to "please, please, please don't assign any couples to me. I'd rather see
10 cases of schizophrenia a day than one couple!"
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Being in a room with two incredibly angry human beings, each of them bringing in their version of the truth was sheer torture.
Each partner wanted me to believe them and crucify their partner. They basically came in to get me to be the referee and decide
who was right (and there was only one right one) and who was wrong.
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One day, a colleague recommended a book about relationships that impressed her greatly. That book was "Getting the Love you Want"
by Harville Hendrix. This book started a cataclysmic shift that changed my life professionally, relationally, spiritually and philosophically.
"Getting the Love you Want" made so much sense to me that I not only started to integrate some of the exercises and ideas into my
couple therapy sessions, but I also registered my husband and me to attend one of the weekend workshops presented by Hedy and
Yumi Schleifer.
The experience was electrifying and life altering. Though I was the "dragger" and my husband was the "dragee," we both came out of
that experience reenergized and ready to work on our relationship in an entirely different way than we had done for the previous several
years.
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A few years after that magical weekend, I committed to the rigorous preparation offered by the Imago relationship Institute to become
a Certified Imago Therapist. The tools I received during that year of training, the brilliant supervision provided to me, the collegial
atmosphere in which all of this was conducted, gave me a clear, systematic, workable and sensible relationship model that I could
successfully teach my clients.
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Today I look forward to teaching couples how to
*listen to each other genuinely
*hold back their own reality and make space for their partner's reality
*send soft messages so they can be heard
*appreciate each other deeply
*develop empathy for the pain of the other person
*validate their partner's childhood and present experiences
*empathize with the feelings triggered in their partner by current events that have
their roots in the past
As I continue on my own personal journey, as well as help others to go on their own,
I am forever amazed at the new connection that is woven by these magical moments when partners truly understand each other and see their relationship as a place of hope and healing.
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