The Path to Wholeness
Imago Relationship Therapy as a Means to Help Couples Heal & Grow

by David McCann, Ph.D. & Janis McCann, Ph.D.

What Is Imago Relationship Therapy?

As licensed clinical psychotherapists who have been busy for over fifty years combined, trying to save and repair marriages, and thereby, save the children and the family, we have found nothing out there as effective and long-lasting as Imago Relationship Therapy and Theory for helping couples, not only survive the struggles of trying to do the hardest thing in the world that human beings have to do—live together successfully—but also to thrive while doing it! Imago Relationship Therapy is based on the writings and work of Dr. Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, and Keeping the Love You Find: A Guide for Singles.

The most startling idea about Imago—perhaps even outrageous if you think about it-- is that adult committed relationships exist to help us finish unfinished childhood business. And more: we actually search out, with a kind of x-ray unconscious vision, mates who resemble our original caretakers in both their positive and negative traits. We see this as Nature’s—or God’s, depending on your own spiritual take—way of healing the universe—one relationship at a time. By bumping up against this combination of traits in our long-range committed partners--some of which we would frankly repudiate with horror, were we truly conscious of what we were doing--we are called upon to stretch beyond what we think possible, given who we are as human beings. And by stretching to meet the needs of our partner, lo and behold, we grow too! This is what we mean by “Imago”—that is, the unconscious image of our original caretakers, and also our unconscious image of our eventual partners--which we carry around inside of us, almost unbeknown to us, until a passionate, committed partner, whom we have already fallen in love with, says to us: “I love you so much, that I am going to ask you to change your old habits, because they have become a block to your intimacy with me. Or I will die trying.”

Unfortunately, most of us do—die trying. Or the relationship goes the way of all flesh—into the pits, where we end up bitter, living parallel lives, spitting venom at each other, over the disappointment at not seeing our dreams for the relationship coming true. Or we do what over 60% of marriages in California do—split. We are offering the only real alternative that works. Imago therapy, which we introduce to couples, either through our weekend Couples Workshop or in intensive Couples Coaching sessions, where we introduce you to a set of communication skills that will turn your relationship on its ear, wake everybody up, develop more compassion for your partner (who will turn out to be a suffering child inside, just like you!), and put you on the road to healing and recovery.