Get the love you want pdf

Getting the Love You Want PDF Summary - Harville Hendrix

A Guide for Couples

From time to time, we come across the terms such as “attention junkies”; “drama queen” and others; which spread lots of misleading info and concepts when it comes to love.

Building relationships as a process is nothing shorter than a pure brilliance, a real challenge and a quest for those ready to plunge into its fortune-telling elements.

Let’s dive right into Hendrix’s discoveries about love and affection.

Who Should Read “Getting the Love You Want”? And Why?

If you don’t need any love, then you are not alive. Our point is simple, Hendrix unlike other authors in the same realm, likes to mix it up. Facts, theories, and opinions create one comprehensive picture, which serves a higher purpose.

Therefore, we wholeheartedly welcome you to take a peek at this fascinating and eye-opening book (Getting the Love You Want) about love.

About Harville Hendrix

It’s shallow and unsatisfying to label Harville Hendrix only as a self-help author, without having to compliment on his unique style.

In other words, he is a real poster boy for providing value to the reader, and able to get into their minds.

“Getting the Love You Want PDF Summary”

Why are we feeling affection toward one person and not the other? As a story that is yet to be told, a mystery that is yet to be unraveled we decide to give an opinion on this question older than time. Finding that special someone is for the most people the backbone of life and a sprinkle of encouragement.

That magical moment, when two souls merge and form a special bond is indescribable because they are no words which contain the actual meaning of this deep connection. Many people valiantly discard the idea of monogamy and assert that falling in love with various profiles of people is equally compelling.

But let’s not skip these phases and move gradually:

Whether you are inclined to endorse the theory of love or not, it’s vital to at least acknowledge the fact that we all dream of finding our other half. The bottom line is the concept of love is not on the same wavelength as the process of building this profound connection.

Is the concept of happy childhood overrated?

Even the most caring and loving parents who endeavor to keep their little angels safe are not able to provide an eternal cover for their offspring. In other words, as much as we try to raise our children in the spirit of tenderness, some external forces tend to teach every one of us about the world fraught with danger.

Don’t let this be a discouragement that keeps you away from finding your way. All the twists and turns in life exist to make you more perceptive of the environment and its elements. For instance, Infants and teenagers have different sets of needs, and accommodating to their necessities is vital for keeping them in high spirits.

Generally speaking, this can be briefly explained in two scenarios:

– If the parents insist on instilling a sense of intrusiveness into the mind of the child, the kid can develop into an isolated individual.

– If the parent is not omnipresent in the life of the child, the once abandon kid can develop an obsessive need for attention.

The brightness from within

The beauty of sexual evolvement is contained within the idea of visualizing the ideal partner. As a person progresses from one stage to the next, the sexual aspirations grow in its subconscious; a process also referred to as “imago.”

The same phenomenon manifests the concepts and ideals that influenced your emotional and intellectual expansion since an early age.

To put it differently – all the individuals that can fit into this frame represent the potential candidates which you find suitable according to the imago. If the partner you select/choose is a mere reflection of your parents’ attributes, the greater the chances are that you’ll end up receiving the same treatment that your “Guardians” gave you.

If you decide to fly in the face of danger to “overpower” this influence you need to be prepared to face the music. Building a mutually satisfying, love-filled relationship is not a power struggle but a gentle refinement that brings to light your intrinsic quality.

The Road You Should Take

According to Hendrix, couples must abide by specific ground rules to build a strong, conscious and lasting relationship. First and foremost, to sustain this form of partnership the partners must work as one and commit to at least 10-15 therapy sessions.

During that time, they are prompted to define their ideal partner and relationship to emphasize the flaws which are blemishing their perfect imago.

Second, Hendrix likes to pop up a question which arouses a dose of discomfort because it inquires the couple’s methods for bypassing affinity.

In addition, take a look at this activity list which is also the easiest way to avoid a confrontation:

Going out with your Friends
Watching TV
Staying Late
Going Fishing
Shopping
Drinking
Overfocusing on the Children
Becoming a Workaholic
Exercising Too Much

Finding Love

Have you noticed how feelings can change in a heartbeat depending on the situation you are facing? If the love-problem entails massive baggage, it’s normal for the affection to recede at least temporarily.

Couples need to become allies and best friends, not competitors who try to overshadow each other. This healing process is often referred to as reromanticizing.

So, the least you can do is allocate some time to make your partner happy. Start with: making their favorite dinner, or massage – in other words, anything that makes them feel loved and appreciated.

Such actions spark the unconditional love that later blossoms into an internal dialogue and understanding.

Key Lessons from “Getting the Love You Want”

1. The era of love
2. Understand the purpose of life
3. The parents are mostly responsible for the child’s evolvement

The era of love

The first couple of months, when you feel the butterflies in your stomach is basically what you need to preserve.

Treating each other in the same manner can rekindle that fire once more, and spice you’re the relationship on the long haul.

Understand the purpose of life

If you remain with both feet on the ground and rely only on your conscious brain, you may feel how life dissolve naturally in positive energies.

As far as the coupling is concerned, the spiritual growth of both individuals is fueled by the elements deriving from right actions.

The parents are mostly responsible for the child’s evolvement

As the child grows, it develops a thirst for the material world, and maybe find a short fuse instead of warming hearth.

The childhood tendencies can induce a new behavior, which is inflamed or suppressed by the parental norms.

Like this summary? We’d Like to invite you to download our free 12 min app, for more amazing summaries and audiobooks.

“Getting the Love You Want Quotes”

When we were babies, we didn’t smile sweetly at our mothers to get them to take care of us. We didn’t pinpoint our discomfort by putting it into words. We simply opened our mouths and screamed. And it didn’t take us long to learn that,… Click To Tweet Helen and I like to think of two people in a conscious love relationship as companion stars. Each person is a unique individual ablaze with potential.

One is just as important as the other, and each has a unique and equally valid view of… Click To Tweet Dr. Hendrix, why do couples have such a hard time staying together?” I thought for a moment and then responded. “I don’t have the foggiest notion. That is a great question and I think I’ll spend the rest of my career trying to find out. Click To Tweet

Our Critical Review

All things said, all things considered; it’s fair to say that we all learned something today. Whether you are in a serious relationship or not, finding a way to improve your current emotional and mental state is vital.

We pretty much loved every piece of this magnificent masterpiece, and hope you’ll do too.

12min Team

Learn more and more, in the speed that the world demands.

Getting the Love You Want Workbook by Harville Hendrix, Helen LaKelly Hunt - Ebook

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About this ebook

This newly revised and updated companion study guide to the 2019 edition of the New York Times bestseller Getting the Love You Want.

In 1988, Harville Hendrix, in partnership with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, published a terrifically successful relationship guide called Getting the Love You Want. The book introduced thousands to their Imago Relationship Therapy, a unique healing process for couples, prospective couples, and parents, and developed into an overnight sensation. For their part, Doctors Hendrix and Hunt managed to aid scores of couples in their plight for more loving, supportive, and deeply satisfying relationships. Now, more than a decade later, this companion book picks up where its predecessor left off, delving further into relationship therapy to help transform relationships into lasting sources of love and companionship.

The Getting the Love You Want Workbook is designed for the hundreds of thousands of couples who have attended Imago workshops since Getting the Love You Want hit bookstands, as well as new and curious ones seeking a practical route back to intimacy and passionate friendship. The workbook contains a unique twelve-week course (The New Couples’ Study Guide) designed to help work through the exercises published in Part III of Getting the Love You Want.

For those of us struggling to maintain our most precious relationships, the Getting the Love You Want Workbook helps us grow aware of our individual, unconscious agenda while steering us towards a more harmonious link with our loved ones that will satisfy our deepest needs.

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LanguageEnglish

PublisherAtria Books

Release dateNov 1, 2007

ISBN9781439100332

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Reviews for Getting the Love You Want Workbook

Rating: 4.666666666666667 out of 5 stars

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9 ratings5 reviews

nandadevi_1
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
I have some reservations about Hendrix, his endlessly multiplying books, and the Imago Therapy industry that has grown up around them. Having said that - and I will come back to it later - it must be said that there is a great deal of substance to his theories and these books. His basic premise is that there is an unconscious element to romantic attraction. There is no controversy here. What Hendrix has done - based on extensive couple therapy - is to peel back the layers of behavior and motivation to get at a workable hypothesis of what is really going on. He notes that people entering into a romantic relationship (or failing to do so) often seem to have a sense that the other party has (or had) the potential to heal or complete something that was damaged or absent in themselves. Hendrix´s particular genius was to realize that this could be true and not true at the same time. True in the sense that the other person is the key to healing or completion; but not true in the sense that they will provide it to you by simply being there or by giving it to you as a gift. Hendrix´s theory is that you might unconsciously select someone whose makeup/personality is perfectly suited to ´pressing all those buttons´ that are linked to issues inside yourself that your unconscious would like you to address. So the job of the other person is to press buttons (and you to press theirs), and the job of each person is to address their own issues. Hendrix´s therapy essentially involves stepping back from seeing the other person as the one with the problems, or the one causing the problem, or the one who is going to (or should) give you the solution to the problem. He suggests that you treat the irritations of a connected life (once that blind romantic stage fades) as pointers (and a motivation) to do work you need to do on yourself. Which involves a lot (a very great many) of exercises that can by very uncomfortable. And like physical exercise it is easy to fail to do it properly and give up. But like physical exercise it is often easier to do it together with other people (not necessarily your partner), and if you persist with it my experience is that you will see at least some benefit.What don´t I like about Hendrix? He has a conversational style of writing, rather than an academic one. Which is great, but sometimes I feel that it is a rather rambling conversation and I yearn for some dot points. I´d love to see Hendrix say in less than ten thousand (or a hundred thousand) words, ´This is the essentials of what I´m talking about.¨ His analogies are great, his case studies support his arguments, and I have no argument with him expressing his strong Christian faith. It is just that they make reading him an effort, which I find wearying, knowing that the exercises he prescribes will be arduous enough. That said, he has set himself the challenge of trying to get across an abstract idea that is a little counter-intuitive to an audience that have hugely varied experiences, belief systems and appreciation of the workings of the unconscious. Which explains the multiple books, and the effectiveness of the group seminars where facilitators can ´bring people along´ with the theory and exercises.What else don´t I like? Most of all that Hendrix says this only works in deep romantic (love) relationships. I don´t think he has an issue with same sex relationships, but the books of his I have read (and this one) don´t give them any focus. As a theory it would be more interesting if he had looked at long term friendships and even our relationship with animals, with inanimate things and ideas, and with work and our position in society. Essentially his theory pins everything on the unconscious, and provides (apparently) useful exercises to satisfy it, but does not wrestle with what is going on in the unconscious - the way it represents the external world and it´s capacity for confusion, self-deception and displacement. And last of all, while the development of his theory is well anchored in real life couples experience, I sometimes miss some explanation or reflection on how his therapy can be effectively introduced to couples: how it leaves them ´on the far side´, and how it relates to the wider family (children, in-laws, etc) and situations where there is real mental illness. But worthwhile? Yes. Read it, put it down, come back to it and think about it. Accept its limitations, take advantage of what it has to offer, don´t expect a silver bullet. Try and be nice to your partner, and yourself.
2 people found this helpful
dinadansfriend
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
A superior book about couple building, and very helpful at the time.
1 person found this helpful
johnkuypers_1
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
If you're going through a divorce or marital troubles, this book makes sense of why things are not going well.
1 person found this helpful
pjcwlibrary
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
After over 20 years, my wife and I still use this book.
1 person found this helpful
amethyst26
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
Simply put: a must. Everyone- married, engaged, or even single- should read (no, study) this book. It will inform and enrich the reader's life, giving an understanding where there had been before.
1 person found this helpful

Book preview

Getting the Love You Want Workbook - Harville Hendrix

Cover: Getting the Love You Want Workbook, by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.

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Getting the Love You Want Workbook by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., Atria

We dedicate this study guide to the faculty of the Imago International Training Institute to honor them for their commitment to teaching Imago theory and practice worldwide. We especially thank them for their commitment to the highest teaching standards, their professionalism, and the joy of their colleagueship.

The person who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek God in the empty firmament of the mind, but in human love.

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE OF THE NEW COUPLES’ STUDY GUIDE

Getting the Love You Want introduced you to the conscious partnership, a radically new understanding of intimate relationships that fosters maximum psychological and spiritual growth. Such a partnership is created by becoming aware of and cooperating with the fundamental drives of the unconscious mind: to be safe, to be healed, to restore the original experience of connecting. Getting the Love You Want also introduced you to Imago Relationship Therapy, the process designed to help you create a conscious partnership.

The New Couples’ Study Guide is a unique twelve-week course designed to help you and your partner work through the exercises in Part III of Getting the Love You Want. This guide provides you with complete step-by-step instructions for transforming your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship. It simulates the process you would participate in if you were to come to a Couples’ Workshop or work with a Certified Imago Therapist®. Its purpose is to help you and your partner become aware of your unconscious agendas and show you how to intentionally cooperate with your unconscious to create a relationship that will satisfy your deepest needs.

Before beginning this study guide, please read all of Getting the Love You Want (2019 edition) by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D. The New Couples’ Study Guide is meant to be used in conjunction with Getting the Love You Want as a companion to the exercises in Part III. It has been designed to build on the insights you gained about relationship and marriage from reading the book and contains only brief reviews of the book’s content. Your successful participation in the process contained in this study guide will be greatly facilitated by having a complete understanding of Imago Relationship Theory and of the entire Imago Process presented in Getting the Love You Want.

INTRODUCTION TO THE IMAGO PROCESS

When couples show up in our office for counseling, they are often in a stew of anger, shock, despair, and sadness. Some are relative newlyweds, and they can’t understand how they have plummeted from the heights of love and glory into a swamp of hopelessness and conflict. Others have been together for many years, and though they have been slogging along—in calm or in storm—and their days of wine and roses are a dim memory, they are no less devastated by the shambles of their relationship and the consequent lack of fulfillment in their lives. Even if life at home is relatively peaceful, couples lament that they have nothing in common. So they coexist in anger and disappointment, each partner with his or her own friends and interests, in a marriage of convenience, or an arrangement they endure for the sake of the children.

They wonder if they will ever again feel love for their mates. Can they ever breach the chasm of silence or anger that has grown between them? Perhaps they should just cut their losses, they muse, and find someone who loves and understands them, someone who offers one more chance at the love and security they long for.

Whatever forms they take, shattered dreams are painful. If you are considering using The New Couples’ Study Guide, it is likely that you are also struggling to find love and meaning in your committed relationship. We assure you that there is hope. In fact, the pain and conflict arise not out of lack of love for our partners, but from a misunderstanding of what relationship is about. Moreover, your conflict can be the fuel for the fulfillment you seek.

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN RELATIONSHIPS?

Before you begin Session 1 of this study guide, we want to talk a little about what happens when we fall in—and out of—love. To make sense of what’s really going on when you and your partner fight, to gain insight into the hidden agenda of your relationship, we need to look at the complex process of human growth and development, and at how we human beings fit into the larger scheme of things.

We are creatures of nature, with the evolutionary program of our species encoded in our genes. We all begin life in a state of relaxed and joyful bliss, with the sensation of connecting to everything and everyone. Our overwhelming impulse at birth is to sustain this sensation of connecting, to remain attached. If our caregivers are attuned to our wants and needs, ready and able to provide warmth, safety, and sustenance, our feelings of aliveness and well-being are sustained. We continue to experience the sensation of connecting and the joy of feeling fully alive.

But that’s not the way it works out. Even in the best of circumstances, our parents (or caregivers) are not able to maintain the perfect standards of our time in the womb, when everything was provided immediately and automatically in an atmosphere of total safety and continuity. Even the best parents are not available every minute, do not always understand exactly what is needed, and are unable to meet every demand. More to the point, most of our parents, hampered by their own nurturing deficits and beset by longstanding problems of their own, are unwilling or unable to meet our infant needs. Tired, angry, depressed, busy, ill, distracted, afraid, or sad, our parents fail to sustain our feelings of security and comfort.

But every unmet need triggers another sensation—anxiety—and in our infantile ignorance, we have no idea how to stop the pain and restore our feeling of safety. Desperate to survive, we adopt primitive coping mechanisms. Depending on our temperament and the nature of our caregivers’ neglect or intrusion, our feeble defenses take many different forms. We may cry constantly to get attention. Alternatively, we may withdraw from the touch and attention of our neglectful caregivers, denying that we even have needs. Though we do what we can, already the world feels unsafe, and love is rationed.

THE ESCALATION OF RUPTURED CONNECTION

All of us, including our own parents, are products of imperfect parenting, simplified into two types: intrusive or neglectful caregiving. Parents were either overinvolved—telling us what to do, think, and feel—or they were underinvolved—physically or emotionally absent. As a response, we become anxious and self-absorbed, losing our capacity for empathy and yearning for the experience of joyful connecting. Our developmental impulses from infancy to young adulthood offer more opportunities for our caregivers to support or rupture this essential connection.

Meanwhile, throughout childhood, we are also being socialized, molded by our caregivers and communities to fit into society. We are told what to do, what to say, and how to behave. We see behavior modeled by friends, teachers, and TV characters, and we are intimate witnesses to the relationship modeled by our parents. Observant and malleable, we learn what to do to gain love and acceptance. Socialization, too, chips away at our sense of safety and connecting, for inevitably we come to see that certain aspects of ourselves aren’t working. These aspects may include the way we look or talk, the things that interest us, our abilities, or our attractiveness as boys or girls. In the interest, again, of survival, we repress or disown parts of us that society finds unacceptable or unlovable. Our sense of all-right-ness diminishes further, and we end up as shadows of our true selves and disconnected from our social context.

If you want evidence of this self-dismantling process, think about the young children you know. At two or three, most are still exuberant, lively, unique, and eccentric, though some may already show signs of apathy, anger, or fear that a deprived infancy has left in its wake. At eight or ten, the inhibitions are more obvious and numerous; it’s the rare ten-year-old who is still unmistakably, unabashedly himself. By the midteens, the toll of incomplete nurturing and society’s messages is seen in the rebellion, depression, or lack of self-esteem of inadequately loved teenagers.

To the degree that our caregivers, and our society, are able to support the emergence and solidification of our innate impulses, and to the degree that we are allowed to be ourselves, we survive and prosper. Most of us had good enough caregivers, and we do all right. Others of us didn’t fare so well, and our lives are handicapped by our deep hurts. But all of us, to one degree or another, are nursing childhood wounds, coping as well as we can with the world and our relationships, using the feeble set of defenses born in the pain of childhood, along with parts of our true nature that we’ve stuffed into the drawers of our unconscious. We look grown up, we have jobs and responsibilities, but we are the walking wounded, trying desperately to live life fully, all the while unconsciously hoping to somehow restore the original sensation of connecting and joyful aliveness that accompanied our birth.

FALLING IN LOVE

When we fall in love, we believe we’ve found the bliss we were born with. Suddenly, we see life in Technicolor. We nibble each other’s ears and tell each other everything. Our limitations and rigidities melt away. We’re sexier, smarter, funnier, and more giving. We decide that we can’t live without our beloved, for now we feel fully alive and connecting—we feel like ourselves. Finally, we feel safe and breathe a sigh of relief. It looks like everything is going to turn out all right after all.

But inevitably—often when we marry or move in together—things just start to go wrong. In some cases, everything falls apart. The veil of illusion falls away, and it seems that our partners are different from what we thought they were. It turns out they have qualities that we can’t bear. Even qualities we once admired grate on us. Old hurts are reactivated as we realize that our partners cannot or will not love and care for us as they promised. Our dream shatters.

Disillusionment turns to anger, fueled by fear that we won’t survive without the love and safety that was within our grasp. Since our partner is no longer willingly giving us what we need, we change tactics, trying to maneuver our partners into caring—through anger, crying, withdrawal, shame, intimidation, and criticism—whatever works. We will make them love us, or so we think. Now we negotiate—for time, love, chores, gifts—measuring our success against an economic yardstick of profit and loss. The power struggle has begun, and it may go on for many years, until we split, or settle into an uneasy truce, or seek help, desperate to feel joyfully alive and connecting again—to have our dream back.

THE IMAGO EMERGES

What is going on here? Well, it looks like you have found an Imago partner: someone, we’re afraid, who is uniquely unqualified (at the moment), to give you the love you want. However, this is what’s supposed to happen.

Let us explain. We all think that we have free choice when it comes to selecting our partners. In a way, we do. Ours was not an arranged marriage, after all, and there was no exchange of money or cows between our families. But regardless of what we think we’re looking for, our unconscious has its own agenda when it comes to mate selection.

Our primitive old brain has a compelling, nonnegotiable drive to restore the sensation of full aliveness and joy with which we came into the world. To accomplish that, it must repair the damage done in childhood as a result of needs not met, and the way it does that is to find a partner who can give us what our caregivers failed to provide.

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practice”, Harville Hendrix – Litres

Originally published in the United States by Atria books

* * *

We dedicate this guide to the staff of the Imago International Training Institute, who put their heart and soul into teaching the theory and practice of Imago around the world. We are very grateful to them for their dedication to the highest pedagogical standards, professionalism and camaraderie

WHY DO YOU NEED THIS PRACTICE GUIDE?

In our previous book, Love for Life, we talked about mindful partnership, a fundamentally new approach to intimate relationships that promotes maximum psychological and spiritual growth. Such a partnership is born from the fact that we understand and take into account the basic needs that drive us at the deepest level: the desire for security, the desire for healing, to restore the original sense of unity. Also in the previous book, we described in detail the method of Imago-psychotherapy of relations, designed to help build a conscious partnership.

Love for Life Practice is a unique twelve-week course designed to help you and your partner work through the exercises in Love for Life. You will receive step-by-step instructions on how to turn relationships into an inexhaustible source of love and understanding. The 12 sessions replicate the same process you would go through in a couples workshop or with a Certified Imago Therapist®. The goal of this course is to help you and your partner see deep unconscious needs and teach you how to purposefully work with the unconscious to create relationships that meet those needs.

Before starting work, read Love for Life ^[1] by Harvill Hendrix and Helen Hunt. Love for Life: A Practice is a companion to this book and expands on the exercise part. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the necessary ideas about relationships and marriage, so we provide only a brief overview of the theory. An understanding of Imago-Relationship Theory and the Imago process in general will make this practical guide much easier to work with.

INTRODUCTION TO THE IMAGO PROCESS

Couples who come to our office for counseling are often in a state of shock, anger, despair and longing. Some are married for a relatively short time and cannot understand how they fell from the shining heights of love into a quagmire of hopelessness and conflict. Others live together for many years, have gone through storms and calms and already vaguely remember the times of roses and champagne, but the troubles in relationships and the general dissatisfaction with the life they are going to depress them no less. Even if everything is relatively calm at home, partners complain that they no longer have anything in common: they simply coexist in anger and disappointment. Their friends and interests are now different, and the marriage is maintained out of convenience, by agreement, or for the sake of children.

These people wonder if they will ever feel love for their chosen one again. Will it be possible to close the crack of silence and irritation that separated them? They wonder if it's better to just accept the loss and find someone else - someone who will love and understand, someone who will give another chance to receive the love and security that they yearn for so much.

Broken dreams always hurt, no matter what form they take. If you've been thinking about turning to Love for Life: The Practice, you're probably having a hard time finding love and meaning in your relationships, too. Believe me, there is hope! The fact is that pain and conflicts arise not from a lack of love for a partner, but from a misunderstanding of the meaning of relationships. What's more, conflict can fuel the satisfaction you seek.

What actually happens in a relationship?

Before you start your first session, let's talk a little about what happens when we fall in love and when we stop loving. In order to understand the meaning of quarrels between you and your partner and to look into the unexpressed program of your relationship, you must first consider the complex processes of human growth and development and how we, as humans, are built into the global order of the universe.

We are children of nature, and we have the evolutionary program of our species encoded in our genes. We all begin life in a state of relaxed, joyful bliss, feeling connected to everything and everyone. At birth, our whole being is driven to maintain this sense of unity, do not lose connectivity. If those who care for us are sensitive to our desires and needs, and are ready and able to provide warmth, security and support, our liveliness and well-being are preserved. We continue to feel the connection and enjoy the fullness of life.

However, this is not always the case. Even in the most favorable circumstances, parents (or other significant adults) are not able to maintain the idyll that we were surrounded by, because in the womb we received everything immediately and automatically, in an atmosphere of complete security and continuity. Even the best parents cannot be around every minute, they do not always understand exactly what we need, and not all requests can be satisfied. More importantly, most are hindered by problems that arose during the period when they themselves were children. They have long been overwhelmed by their own difficulties, so they are unwilling or unable to give their babies what they want. Parents are tired, angry, depressed, busy, sick, distracted, afraid, and sad, and therefore cannot keep us safe and comfortable.

Every unmet need creates a feeling of anxiety. The baby understands little and has no idea how to quench the pain and regain a sense of security. Desperate to survive, he resorts to primitive, weak coping mechanisms. Depending on the temperament and the nature of the neglect or interference on the part of the parents, this can take a variety of forms. Someone constantly cries to get attention, someone moves away from touch and attention from neglecting parents, denying himself existence needs. We do our best, but the world already seems like a dangerous place where love is given out in portions.

Deepening the gap

All of us - and our parents are no exception - were brought up imperfectly. To simplify, there are two types of problems: obsession and neglect. Parents are either over-engaged in us - telling us what to do, think and feel - or not enough and absent physically or emotionally. In response, the child becomes anxious and withdraws into himself, loses the ability to empathize and yearns for a joyful connection. Our impulses from infancy to adolescence give parents plenty of opportunities to maintain or break this important bond.

Socialization also takes place in childhood: thanks to parents and other people around, a person changes in such a way as to fit into society. We are told what to do, what to say and how to behave. We take an example from friends, teachers, heroes of TV shows, we take the model of close relationships between parents as a model. Children are observant and flexible, so they quickly figure out how to get love and acceptance. Socialization undermines the feeling of security and connection, as we inevitably realize that certain aspects of our personality are not welcome. This may relate to the appearance and manner of speaking, interests, abilities, attractiveness to the opposite sex. For the sake of survival, one has to suppress what society considers unacceptable or unattractive, to renounce it. We feel less and less in order, in the end we turn out to be only a shadow of our true self and break away from the social context.

If you need proof of this process of personality dismantling, think of a child you know. At the age of two or three, most of them are full of vitality, unique and eccentric, although even at this age there are sometimes signs of apathy, anger or fear due to the passing of infancy. At eight or ten years of age, the signs of personality suppression become more obvious and numerous. Among ten-year-olds, you rarely meet those who unmistakably, openly remain themselves. At the peak of adolescence, parenting errors and social influences in children who lack love result in rebellion, depression, and low self-esteem.

We survive and thrive to the extent that parents and society are able to support the formation and strengthening of our innate impulses, and to the extent that we are allowed to be ourselves. Most are taken care of fairly well and they do everything right. Some people are less lucky, and in life they will face various difficulties due to deep resentment. One way or another, everyone suffers from childhood wounds to one degree or another. We struggle to cope with the world and with relationships, using a set of weak defense mechanisms born in the pain of our childhood, as well as elements of true nature that are hidden in the depths of the unconscious. We appear to be adults, go to work and fulfill our responsibilities, but in fact we have a deep hole inside: we are desperately trying to enjoy the fullness of life and at the same time unconsciously hope to return the original feelings of togetherness and joyful liveliness that accompanied us when we were born.

The beginning of love

A person in love seems to have regained the blessing with which he was born. Life suddenly begins to play with all colors. We pull each other by the ear and are ready to tell each other everything. Restrictions evaporate, stiffness disappears. We get sexier, smarter, funnier, more generous. It seems that it is impossible to exist without a loved one, because with him all the fullness of life and connection is felt - with him we feel like ourselves. Finally, there is a sense of security, and we sigh with relief - now everything should be in order.

Inevitably, however—often after marriage or the start of a life together—something starts to go awry. It happens that relationships fall apart: the illusion falls like a veil, and it turns out that the partner is not at all what he first imagined. Simply unbearable qualities are found in him, and even features that once aroused admiration begin to unnerve. Gradually, the understanding comes that this person cannot or will not love us and take care of us as he promised, and old wounds begin to ache again, and dreams are crumbling.

Frustration turns to anger, fueled by the fear that we will not survive without the love and security we already had in our hands. The partner is no longer willing to give us what we need, so we change tactics and try to force him to care, using any means for this - anger, crying, detachment, reproaches, intimidation and criticism. We need to make love us, and it seems that this is possible. The stage of haggling over time, love, household chores, gifts enters, and success begins to change into economic categories of profit and loss. The struggle for power can last for many years and ends in parting or a difficult truce. Sometimes people, desperate to experience joyful excitement and connection again and regain their dreams, seek help.

Imago appears

What's the matter? It looks like you've found your Imago - a person who seems terribly unsuitable (at the moment) to give the love you want to receive. However, that is exactly how it should be.

Let me explain. It is generally accepted that we have freedom when it comes to choosing a partner. In a sense, this is true: after all, no one forces us to marry, and families do not exchange us for money and livestock. But although we think that we choose ourselves, the subconscious mind has its own principles for choosing a couple.

Our primitive ancient brain has an inexorable, absolute desire to regain all the fullness of life and joy - the feeling with which we were born. To do this, it is necessary to repair the damage caused by unsatisfied needs in childhood. And this can be done by finding a partner who will give us what the loved ones who cared for us could not give.

It can be assumed that in this case it is necessary to choose a person with traits that our parents lacked - and, of course, this is what we strive for on a conscious level. Unfortunately, everything is not so simple at all. The ancient brain thinks in its own way and has a ready list of desired qualities. He already has an image of the ideal partner, a complex combination of characteristics shaped in response to how our parents responded to our needs. Any pleasure, pain and interaction in childhood does not pass without a trace, and these impressions together form a subconscious picture with which we constantly compare people in search of a suitable match.

The image of “a person who is able to restore wholeness to me” is called Imago. Consciously, we are looking for only the positive features of the parents, but the negative ones - because of them the wounds that we are now striving to heal - have been imprinted deeper in the Imago. We have a subconscious need to reconnect with a joyful connection with someone who is reminiscent of those who cared for us as children. In other words, we are looking for someone who will show the same lack of care and attention that once hurt us.

When we fall in love, when the bells ring and the world seems beautiful, our ancient brain says that this is the right person with whom we can complete unfinished children's affairs. The imperfect parents imprinted in our childhood memories are reborn in our partner. Unfortunately, we do not understand what is happening, and when the terrible truth about loved ones comes to the surface, we experience shock and a desire to run away from them screaming.

The bad news doesn't end there. Another powerful component of Imago is that we are looking for those qualities - both bad and good - that we ourselves lack, due to the fact that we have lost them in the turmoil of socialization. If we are shy, we need an open person, and if we are prone to mess, we are attracted to people who are obsessed with neatness. Our partner is able, for example, to openly express anger, which we suppress, because we were punished for it at home, and we began to subconsciously hate this feeling in ourselves. When our feelings - repressed excitement, organizational skills or anger - are eventually awakened by someone and we get the opportunity to express them, it becomes uncomfortable, and we begin to criticize the partner for excessive openness, excessive organization, too bright temperament.

Awakening to reality

It seems that such a depressing state of affairs inevitably leads to disaster. This puzzled us for a long time: how to solve the problems of childhood, if a partner hurts us in the same way as parents, and we get bogged down in children's schemes and thereby hurt him?

The key lies in awareness. It changes everything. Not understanding the program of love is and there is catastrophe, as children's scenarios will inevitably be repeated with the same devastating consequences. However, there is a point to this madness. The subconscious recreation of the atmosphere of childhood clearly has the goal of finally getting out of the old impasse. When it comes to understanding that we are choosing a partner to heal certain wounds and that this will put an end to longing, we take the first step on the path to true love.

The inevitability of conflict

It is necessary to understand and accept that conflict cannot but occur. This is how nature works: there is nothing alike in it, and this itself creates the preconditions for a collision. The truth is that it is our otherness that sets the stage for romantic love. All people are different, and this is the norm in a relationship. The conflict must be taken for granted, as a sign that our psyche seeks to survive, satisfy its needs and restore the lost connection. To do this, you need to accept the differences and understand their potential, otherwise the conflict will be destructive.

Since there is no understanding of these processes in our culture, disagreements are considered a sufficient reason for divorce - something contrary to the purposes of nature itself, incompatible with them. Society has made divorce an acceptable solution because of the childish desire for an ideal, conflict-free relationship, even though it would be a distortion of natural processes. Breakup and divorce do not solve the problem. You can get rid of a partner, but difficulties will remain and will haunt us in alliance with a new person.

Romantic love cannot last forever. It's just the glue that initially binds two mismatched people together so that they reenact the childhood scenario and eventually receive the necessary love and care from the "copy" of their parents. To restore a joyful connection, the relationship must outgrow the stages of romantic love and power struggles. Many couples are hopelessly stuck in a confrontation, but, fortunately, it also ends someday.

If the conflict is overcome by accepting differences, the emotional connection generated by romantic love, which does not allow partners to part in difficult times, develops into an even more powerful, organic connection.

Gradually we came to the conclusion that nature heals itself in relationships. Each person is a thread of energy woven into the fabric of being. Where there is conflict, the fabric frays and weakens. Realizing yourself, it is not necessary to remain in the rut of a childish routine. We have a unique opportunity to fix what went wrong. By healing relationships, we close a crack in nature and in the social institutions in which we are built.

Hendrix H., Hunt H. Love for life. Couples guide. Moscow: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2019. Approx. ed.

sex and family psychology - genre search

Crazy about you. How to break free from love and sex addiction

Author: Carrie Cohen

Genres: sex and family psychology, psychotherapy and counseling, erotica, sex

How often do we meet quite a typical story: a successful person constantly experiences failure in romantic relationships. And then he starts blaming himself for everything. The author also experienced such a drama, although she had been successfully engaged in psychotherapy for several decades. Her advice on the LOAD (love and sex addiction spectrum) is filled with understanding and empathy for the condition of people who burn out in a love fever over and over again.

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Childish aggression. What is behind destructive emotions and how to develop empathy in children

Author: Esper Juul

Genres: sex and family psychology, pedagogy, child psychology, psychology

In modern society, any manifestation of aggression, anger and anger is universally condemned. However, the suppression of these "uncomfortable" feelings in children leads to mental disorders, self-harm, a decrease in self-esteem and self-confidence.

In this book, Jesper Juul, a world-famous family psychologist, talks about how parents can help their child learn to express negative emotions correctly without succumbing to their destructive power, develop empathy in him and establish trusting communication.

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How to help your child experience first love

Author: Andrey Maksimov

Genres: pedagogy, sex and family psychology, child psychology

First love… That which gives birth to both joy and pain in a child at the same time. Many parents believe that this, they say, is not at all a problem that should be discussed seriously. The kids don't agree. There comes a time in a child's life when love becomes the most important event in life. How to behave in this situation, dad and mom? How to help? And can you help?

Well-known writer, member of the Academy of Russian Television Andrey Maksimov decided to talk about it seriously. And specifically. Give parents advice that will help them survive this joyful, but difficult period in the life of their son or daughter.

Parents - children - first love... Let's understand this love triangle.

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How to help your child finish school and not go crazy

Author: Andrey Maksimov

Genres: pedagogy, sex and family psychology, child psychology

Andrey Maksimov is a well-known writer and TV presenter, a member of the Academy of Russian Television, has long been engaged in psychology and even came up with his own psychological system "psychophilosophy". Therefore, it is no coincidence that it was he who wrote a book about how, by sending their child to school, parents can solve the main problem: to preserve the mental health of their child. In fact, our school is such that it is not easy to solve this problem. The author in a lively manner and based on examples from his consulting practice tells how to do this.

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How to captivate your child with reading books

Author: Egor Serov

Genres: pedagogy, sex and family psychology

TV and radio presenter in a popular manner and with humor, candidate of technical sciences, author of the first conversational concepts and creator of Children's Radio ”, radio Zvezda, editor-in-chief of radio Book, famous voice of audio books, laureate of Russian and international competitions Yegor Yuryevich Serov convinces that reading cannot be replaced by anything. Only reading makes us people capable of fantasy, imagination, operating with meanings, develops our memory. Only reading makes certain parts of our (including children's) brains work. How not to force to read, but to introduce the child to reading? What is useful and necessary along this path, and what should be avoided? How to choose the right book? How not to disturb children's happiness? The book provides answers to these and many other important questions.

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How to help your child find a calling

Author: Andrey Maksimov

Genres: pedagogy, sex and family psychology, child psychology

If every third parent read this book and followed the advice described in it, we would live in another world - a world where people go to work with pleasure, doing what they love. In a world of happy people.

“A vocation is half happiness,” says Andrey Maksimov, author of the book, member of the Academy of Russian Television, winner of five TEFI awards, writer and theater director.

In addition to being widely known as a TV presenter, over the past 10 years Andrey Maksimov has become one of the main and authoritative specialists in the field of pedagogy, offering an absolutely original look at the problems of childhood.

How can you help your child find a calling? How to bring him closer to happiness? How to make him reveal what God (Nature) has in him?

Andrey Maksimov's new book contains practical answers to these and many other important questions.

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The poison of motherly love. How my mother invented illnesses for me

Author: Olga Yarmolovich

Genres: sex and family psychology, medicine

It is natural for parents to take care of their child's health, monitor his condition and consult a doctor in case of illness. But sometimes a mother who assures doctors that the child is seriously ill and needs constant care, drug support and procedures is not healthy herself. Olga Yarmolovich's mother had pronounced signs of delegated Munchausen's syndrome, a rare condition in which parents deliberately cause illnesses in a child or invent them in order to seek medical help.

“The good news is—and I remind myself of it every day—that I pulled through. If I can, then it's definitely possible. For those who are going through something similar now, those who went through the same hell as children, those who are trying to distinguish care from illness and who are striving to find something to rely on in search of confirmation of their normality - for you I will tell a story about how I survived and ultimately survived.”

Olga grew up and realized that her diagnoses were fictitious, tons of medicines unnecessary, and examinations crippling her body and psyche. She wrote a candid and poignant story about her childhood, painted in the colors of hospital wards. This is not just the first book in Russia about delegated Munchausen syndrome, it is a story of survival, gaining maturity and freedom from an abusive parent and inner demons that are inherited.

“A mother who devotes her life to caring for a sick child, giving up career, travel, self-development, personal life and wandering around hospitals in search of a diagnosis that would explain all the strange symptoms of her child, is admired in our society. This is the main goal of people with Munchausen syndrome - to get attention, sympathy, admiration for how they cope with difficulties and illnesses. They create problems and then heroically overcome them.”

For whom

This book is for those who want to learn more about Munchausen's syndrome and delegated Munchausen's syndrome.

To be a mother. How to calm down, find support and find happiness in motherhood

Author: Suzanne Mirau

Genres: sex and family psychology, psychology, self-improvement

unsolicited advice from relatives and friends. The desire to become the “perfect mom” leads to stress, burnout and even depression.

Susanne Mirau, renowned German educator, parenting consultant and mother of three, has studied how motherhood has changed over the centuries and talked to many women about their experiences as mothers. Her advice will help you understand your own needs and desires and become the kind of mom you can and want to be.

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Married to my mother. How to Rid Your Man of a Codependent Relationship with His Mother

Posted by Kenneth M. Adams

Genres: sex and family psychology, psychology

A practical guide for those who always have a third wheel in a relationship ... his Mom. How to save a man from an unhealthy attachment and build a strong full-fledged relationship with him? Dr. Kenneth M. Adams, the author of this book, clinical psychologist and well-known intimacy expert, has helped hundreds of confused men and desperate women get out of codependent relationships and start a new life in his twenty-five years of practice.

Conscious relationships

Author: Oleg Denisenko

Genres: sex and family psychology, psychology

What do you need to build a happy relationship? Understand the opposite sex, learn the lessons of seduction, learn to adapt and change? You may be surprised, but the key to an alliance in which both partners are warm and comfortable is understanding your own psychology.

In the book “Conscious Relationships. Break out of the web of unsuccessful romances, understand yourself and find love ”you will get acquainted with the author's concept, which includes the methods of cognitive behavioral and gestalt therapy.

Understand what thoughts and beliefs cause you to step on the same rake over and over again. Why is it so important to get in touch with your emotions and feelings. What six simple principles should be followed for a relationship to be joyful. Build a healthy and harmonious partnership through self-love.

Mother and daughter. How to help your daughter grow up to be a real woman0005

Meg Meeker's book "Mother and Son" became a bestseller in Russia and helped a huge number of mothers to find a common language with their sons. In the new book, the author — a pediatrician with 30 years of experience, a mother of four children and a grandmother — talks about how to raise girls in a modern world full of traps and dangerous temptations. Meeker's recommendations and real case stories will help parents build a trusting relationship with their daughter, instill the right values and raise her to be a real woman - strong, healthy and happy.

If mom is a tox... How to get rid of hostile relationships

Author: Marina Osborne

Genres: psychotherapy and counseling, sex and family psychology, self-improvement

A person who had a loving mother will never understand someone who has been in concentration camp of maternal violence: emotional, mental, physical and even sexual. And the adult children of such mothers themselves live all their lives with the stigma of the victim in a state of frustration and cognitive dissonance: “Why is she doing this to me?”, “What is my fault?” The author of the book, a professional psychologist specializing in gestalt and cognitive behavioral therapy, generously shares experience from his counseling and psychological support practice. The explanation of the reasons for the toxic behavior of unloving mothers is shown in real situations. The author's unique approach and exercises in each chapter will help readers significantly ease their emotional pain and guide them on how to live a full and joyful life.

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Zen-mother

Author: Yana Sonkina

Genres: pedagogy, sex and family psychology

Hello, my name is Yana. I became a mother at almost 40. The reality of maternity leave turned out to be as far from expectations as a children's chair from an electric one. I was one of the first to start an honest blog about motherhood and talk about what is customary to be silent. Maternal burnout, postpartum depression, guilt, accepting one's shortcomings and nurturing with the heart, as well as many funny stories from the life of ordinary mothers - that's what this book is about.

If you are a mother, this book is for you. It doesn't matter what - the future or already with a 25-year exposure. After all, aging is something with which any mother can compete with vintage cognac and will certainly win. This book will support you, answer your questions and make you laugh. Readers call my texts ironically therapeutic. I promise you will recognize yourself in every chapter and finally realize that you are the best mother!

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Where love is born. Neuroscience of how we choose and do not choose each other

Author: Stephanie Cacioppo

Genres: sex and family psychology

Outstanding neuroscientist and psychiatrist Stephanie Cacioppo talks about how love affects us and proves that it is the ability to love that makes us human.

Love has great power - not only connects us emotionally, but also helps us think better, recover faster from illness, and ultimately contribute to a more productive and long life.

And all these are not nice words, but proven scientific facts. Stephanie has spent years researching love and using modern imaging techniques to understand how finding a partner, romantic relationships and growing with a partner change our brain.

Studying love under a microscope, she asked questions that concern everyone and found answers to them:

— Is it possible to love one partner forever?

— Is monogamy a product of society or human biology?

— Is there any scientific substantiation of the tale of a long and happy love?

— Are there soul mates and love at first sight?

— Can we unravel the complex relationship between love and desire?

— Why is it so hard to find love?

In her gentle yet science-based book, Stephanie explains how and why we fall in love, what makes love last forever, and how to get over lost love, all based on cutting-edge discoveries in brain chemistry and the behavioral sciences, as well as her experience. Explanations and advice are intertwined with a touching personal story: from meeting her husband, the famous scientist John Cacioppo, and inextricably bonding with him to experiencing grief in connection with the departure of a spouse from oncology and healing.

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