Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

Imago Relationship Therapy – The Receiver

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couples therapy in didsburyWhen couples come for marriage counselling with me they are often struck by how different Imago Dialogue is to the way we normally speak to our partner. In this series of articles I intend to take each part of the Imago dialogue process and explain why it’s done in this way and how it can transform your relationship. Before I start the articles I want to acknowledge both Harville Hendrix, the founder of Imago Relationship Therapy and my trainer Sophie Slade, who has provided me with many of the metaphors that are included in these articles. Thanks to both of them for such brilliance.

What is Imago Dialogue?

Imago dialogue is a different way of communicating with your partner. It involves three steps and two roles. In this article I will talk about the role of the receiver.

The Receiver.

One of the great metaphors in Imago is that of the two Islands. Imagine that you are on one Island and your partner is on another. There are no mobile phones, no computers with skype, no way to communicate with each other apart from that rowing boat you see pulled up on the beach (perish the thought eh!!). If you want to talk to your partner then you have to get in your boat and row over to their Island.

Now their Island looks very different to yours. They see things from a different perspective and they have had different experiences to you. It’s your job when you are over on their island to fully understand how things look for them. We call this role in the dialogue the receiver. The receiver is the one who is doing the listening.

As the receiver you are paying attention completely to what the sender is saying. The aim is for you to be really curious. What’s it like on their island? How do they see things?

What’s the reason for doing dialogue this way?

Think about how we usually communicate with our partner. We assume so much. We assume they see things just like we do and often that we know what they are thinking and feeling. We also assume that we know why they are doing things and often that they are doing it in that way just to annoy us, right?!

The dialogue process takes us away from that position. It allows us to separate ourselves from our partner. You are you and they are themselves – different and equally valid. Immediately this gives us permission to be ourselves and takes a huge amount of pressure off the relationship. You no longer have to expend energy attempting to understand why your partner has made their decisions and how you can get them to make a different one. They made the decision they made because they thought it was the best one at the time and they are not you!!

As the receiver your job is just to mirror, validate and empathise (more about these steps in future posts). You are completely over on your partner’s island so it’s all about them and not about you. This gives you permission to concentrate fully on them and not have to sit there trying to work out how you are going to respond. Once more this frees you up to be present for your partner in a completely new way.

There are great advantages for the sender too. The sender will have everything they say mirrored by the receiver and will be able to tell if their partner is listening carefully. This cuts out any chance that you end up in that place where one partner says “I’ve been telling you how I feel but you’ve not heard a word I’m saying!” – (more on the sender in this post)

Don’t Panic!

As the receiver you may well have feelings that come up for you whilst you are listening to your partner speak. You may feel angry about what your partner is saying and feel the need to answer back or defend yourself – so here’s an opportunity for growth! To be able to sit with your feelings and not react is a great skill indeed. John Gottman names defensiveness as one of the four horsemen of divorce. If you can learn that you are not going to die if you don’t give your partner a gob full back when they say something you don’t like then you are one step closer to a conscious relationship.

You can also be aware that you will not stay as the receiver forever. Once the sender has finished sending then it’s your turn to send. You can have your opportunity to express your thoughts and feelings to your partner in a safe, measured way, avoiding all of the other horsemen which have the potential to trample all over your other half!

Want to read the book?  Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix explains Imago Relationship Therapy in full – relationship changing stuff!

Five Reasons Why Couples Workshops In Manchester Will Improve Your Relationship

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couples workshops in ManchesterManchester Psychotherapy is not all about counselling in Manchester. I also present workshops for couples and they are a great way of learning about your relationship. I have recently added a workshop section to my website so I can keep everyone informed of what workshops are on over the next few months. But why should you be interested in going on a workshop?

Here are five good reasons why I think workshops rock!

  1. Workshops are great value for money. When you look at the price of a workshop initially they may seem expensive but let’s cost them out. If you spent the whole day having therapy then you would be looking at paying around £350 (and your brain may be a bit frizzled too). Most workshops cost about £200 a day so you are saving yourself a fair few quid.

     

  2. Workshops are fun! Imago workshops are great fun and it’s important to realise that relationships are about emphasizing the pleasure aspect of your relationship as well as sorting out the frustrations. If you think of the strange way in which we can behave when in a relationship then it’s great to recognise this and laugh about it. It makes it that bit easier to change.

     

  3. You get to work with some of the biggest names in Relationship Therapy. Many of the workshops are run by international presenters who have flown in especially to present the workshop. These are the rock stars of the relationship therapy world, the relationship therapy equivalent of having a singing lesson with Beyoncé! Joe Kort (workshop in May for gay and lesbian couples) is internationally recognized as an authority on gay and lesbian issues and has applied his expertise to the “getting the love you want” standard format to produce a great learning experience for couples attending that workshop – grab your opportunity to take part while you can! Sophie Slade is training and presenting workshops across the globe and has decades of experience in relationship therapy. She is also a warm, accepting woman with a fantastic sense of humour. When she comes to London and Bristol in autumn you would do well to take the opportunity to work with her.

     

  4. You learn a lot and learn it quickly. When attending a workshop you get a day’s worth of information that all links together and participate in activities throughout the day. If you come to me for therapy I will be giving you some of the same information but it’s a lot harder for me to make it flow together simply because you will also be doing therapy and there are one week gaps between each session. Workshops can give you a great understanding of the Imago way of doing things quickly and coherently. If you are having Imago relationship therapy then the “getting the love you want” workshop or my “start right stay connected” premarital workshop will accelerate your therapy experience and help you understand more clearly why we do things a set way in the Imago dialogue process.

     

  5. You get to be with other people like you. Workshops involve being part of a group and so you get to see other people practise Imago dialogue and hear other people’s stories. This is great for normalising your relationship issues because it’s likely that lots of other people have the same problems as you in their relationship too. In my “Start right, Stay connected” premarital workshop you will be participating with other couples who have decided to get married or have a civil partnership. It gives you an opportunity to swap information with likeminded couples and have a laugh at familiar issues that come up around planning the big day.

There are many workshops available for couples and I do my best to put them on my website as soon as I hear about them. My “Start right, stay connected” workshop for premarital couples will be taking place in August and has limited places. Book early to avoid missing out!

Read the book: Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix explains the Imago Relationship theory in full.  It’s a great read and will help you move from power struggle to conscious relationship.

 

Image: tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are There Lizards In Your Relationship?

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Your Brain and Your RelationshipWhen workign with couples I use Imago Relationship Therapy. Imago places a great emphasis on safety. An Imago couples counsellor will work hard at keeping both partners safe and ensure that they keep each other safe as they are talking. This post looks at why it’s important to feel safe in our relationships and how this allows growth for both partners.

Let’s start at the beginning, and I mean the very beginning for us humans. We are going to talk about the human evolutionary journey. There is now plenty of evidence to suggest that our brains formed in three stages;

  • First our lizard brain formed (the brain stem) – we were pretty basic creatures at this stage so needed tactics to stay alive. When under threat this part of our brain tells us to fight, run away, freeze (think rabbit in headlight) or submit.
  • Next came our mammalian brain (the limbic system) – this allowed us to have emotions, become social animals and form relationships (think wolves in packs).
  • Finally our logical brain (the cerebral cortex) – this is our thinking part, the only animal with a bigger cerebral cortex than humans is the dolphin (so don’t play chess with them ‘cos they will beat you). This is our speech, writing, maths, time and logical process centre. It’s the part of the brain that allows us to make decisions and veto those biological urges we have that may not be useful for us, e.g playing dead when sitting examinations has never been a great strategy if we want to progress up the education ladder!

I guess you can see where this post is now heading! When we apply this model to our relationships it becomes obvious that shouting at our partner is not going to get us what we want. If they get scared then old lizard brain kicks in and you may as well be talking to a gecko! Their brains are not going to have the capacity to think things through and they are just going to be focusing on survival. Logic and mammalian brain are switched off and they get ready to run away, do nothing, attack back or just agree with everything you say in an attempt to shut you up. Been there? I know I have!

Everyday strategies to avoid lizarding your loved one!

Many of these techniques are naturally built into Imago Relationship Therapy, but you don’t need to be working with a therapist to do them. Try the following:

  • Book an appointment with your partner when you want to talk about something important to you. It may be that they are ready to listen to you right there and then. If not, agree a time when both of you are in the right frame of mind to discuss the issue.
  • Avoid criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness when talking to your partner. Once you introduce any of these bad boys into the conversation you are going to be talking to a lizard faster than you can say “Godzilla”! Check out my post on these four relationship wreckers here.
  • Stick with “I” statements. Talking about yourself rather than your partner is much less confrontational and will keep your partner safe.
  • Have a soft start up. Ease your way into the discussion rather than hitting your partner full in the face with your demands! “I realise you are working really hard to bring money in for the family and I miss you when you aren’t around at dinner time” feels very different to “you are always bloody late for dinner you selfish pig”! John Gottman found that he could predict the outcome of an argument from the first sentence very accurately. Soft startups allowed discussion to happen (lizard free), whilst harsh startups pretty much always rapidly descended into arguments where both partners felt hugely wronged.
  • Repair as you go along. Once more, Gottman found that couples adept in the art of repairing whilst arguing stayed together. It was one of the most common skills found in couples that had been happily married long term. A repair attempt might be something like “yeah – I could see how you would think that, I was pretty grouchy yesterday” or “I know you are stressed at work at the moment and you don’t mean to snap at me”. It’s basically putting yourself in your partner’s shoes and validating their point of view.

If you can do a few of the suggestions above you are well on the way to a lizard free relationship. You’re not going to get it right all the time, no one does, but these techniques can make a significant difference to the feel of the relationship and make it a safer place to be. With safety comes the potential for change and growth for you both.