Imago Relationship Therapy As A Spiritual Path

by Dale Bailey, Th.D
Chapter 16 -Wade Luquet & Mo Hannah, eds.
Healing in the Relational Paradigm, (1998) Washington, DC: Brunner/Mazel

Although traditional spiritual paths have not focused on the role of intimate committed relationships in the inner life, nowhere can spiritual transformation take place more fully than within such relationships. Only in relationship do we become truly human. Only another human has the potential of constellating so many sides of ourselves, can react so pointedly to our inhuman side, and can bring to consciousness so much of that of which we are unaware. Nowhere else do we have such an opportunity to learn the true meaning of love as in the drive for reunion with that from which we have been separated.

The connection between the spiritual life and relationship is described most succinctly by Martin Buber (1952, p. 125), who says that a human being "becomes most truly a person" in the dialogic meeting with God, the Eternal Thou. Buber regards our spiritual growth as equivalent to our ability to see every person as a thou and as a glimpse into the eternal Thou. When we open ourselves to meeting the other as a thou, we both know the other's essence and we discover most fully who we are.  Buber writes, "In the act of true dialogic (I-Thou) relation, man becomes a self. And the fuller its sharing in the reality of the dialogue, the more real the self becomes" (p. 125).

In my work using the dialogue process with couples, I witness spiritual moments. The possibility of entering into the divine dimension is brought to fruition through the dialogue. This happens whether or not religion has been mentioned and whether or not the couple is religious.  I have come to understand that such moments of connection have a mystical quality that can transform and heal those involved. Like moments of communion with nature, when one is overcome by nature's beauty, or at times of religious devotion or conversion, when one is overcome by an inner Presence, when partners connect empathically with one another, they may become immersed in a moment of grace. Through such empathic connection, the partners go beyond themselves to join each other in an experience of affective oneness.

This experience is self-transcendent in two ways. One partner, despite disagreeing with the other and being in emotional pain, provides validation and empathy for the other. To do so, he or she must contain and transcend his or her own reactions to understand and empathize with the other's reality. Image Relationship Therapy calls this "stretching" and growth. The one who receives the validation and empathy not only is calmed and soothed, but is often powerfully moved by a sense of gratitude. For the couple, it is a healing experience. What they receive enables them to transcend themselves in a moment of oneness with their partner, which provides the basis for inner transformation. Transcendence, therefore, has two aspects: to transcend oneself in order to provide empathic connection to the other, thus producing growth; and to transcend oneself in a moment of grace where empathy calms and soothes providing healing. Growth and healing are twin facets of the effects of Image therapy.

In Imago therapy, our psychological and spiritual well-being are understood as dependent on the quality of our connectedness.  Instinctually, human beings, like other mammals, are driven toward attachment. We are social beings; being connected is in our nature. We are happiest, healthiest, and function best when we are in a trusting intimate relationship that supports our connectional nature. When this connection is broken, when our relational nature is not supported, we experience pain, unhappiness, and sometimes pathology.

The development of consciousness and self-awareness has, however, complicated, intensified, and magnified our drive for connection.  Self-awareness has made human relationships much more complex, because self-awareness renders us, during our emotional development, more vulnerable to psychological injuries, such as shame, guilt, and depression. Psychologically, we must develop a sense of ourselves as differentiated beings. The awareness of our separateness leads also to spiritual dilemmas: questions emerge about the nature of our connection to the rest of creation, questions that reflect our drive for spiritual connection. As St. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." It is this same spiritual restlessness that drives us toward connection with an intimate partner.

In committed adult relationships, the relationship has at least as much power over the individuals in it as the individuals have over the relationship (Mason, 1996). The relationship takes on a life of its own, and the quality of the relationship has a profound impact on the individual partners. It is as though, instead of having a relationship, the relationship has us. We are grasped by it and by its promise; our destiny is intertwined with it and with its health. When the relationship is good, our functioning is supported and enhanced. When the relationship is in turmoil, our sense of well-being suffers.

Our social nature makes our need for connectedness and relationship primary. When we feel disconnected, whether or not we are in a relationship, we suffer a loneliness and alienation that control us. We experience ourselves as needy, and even neurotic, because we feel so obsessed and oppressed by our need. The way people cope with disconnection takes different forms. For instance, we might experience the disconnection with ambivalence: we know how good the connection feels and how much we need it, yet we become extremely frustrated by it (maximizer type). Or we might fear that the connection is hopeless and too painful, and so, clinging to the illusion that we don't need it, we avoid it (minimizer type). But whatever our coping style, ambivalent or avoidant, when we experience a break in connection, we become dysfunctional. If we are ambivalent, we become addicted to people. If we are avoidant, we become addicted to work, power, acquiring things, or achieving goals.

In Imago therapy, romantic love is understood as a drive for reunion that overcomes disconnection. Falling in love is the spirit knocking; we experience ourselves grasped by the spirit, and our souls come alive. We suddenly become more truly ourselves, free of fears and egoistic strivings. It is as if we feel transformed by a force outside ourselves.  We break through our defenses and taste the truth of our essence. We experience a healthy glow, which is, in part, drug induced; endorphins and natural amphetamines flood into our bloodstream. We feel known, whole, and complete. There is an awareness that goes beyond the experience of separate subject and object. There is the ecstasy of union. Two become one, at least temporarily. This oneness is clearly not in the physical sense of becoming one body or in the psychological sense of having the same identity. It is a spiritual experience, a realization of and movement toward a larger, more inclusive sense of self. Each completes the other. "He is half part of a blessed man, left to be finished by such a she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him" (William Shakespeare, King John, Act
II Scene 1, lines 439 ff.).

Romantic love is a taste of how a loving connection sustains our life.  Such ongoing fusion experiences are essential, because they enable us to live a healthy differentiated existence. In that sense, romantic love is realistic. But the exhilaration of reestablishing connection in romantic love has a temporary quality, because it is also based on illusion.  Although the partner maintains his or her positive qualities, romantic love fades because we eventually become unable to sustain our denial of negative qualities. To reestablish and maintain a loving connection, couples must learn to cope in constructive ways with the conflict and frustrations their negative traits generate in the relationship. This task requires the courage to face a dark passage reminiscent of what St. John of the Cross referred to as the "Dark Night of the Soul".

Imago therapy sees the spiritual journey as moving from the sense of an isolated self to a realization of one's connectedness to all that is. This journey takes place through the intimate committed relationship between romantic partners. The quality of a couple's spiritual journey depends on the characteristics of consciousness and intentionality in their relationship. These characteristics move the couple from the temporary state of romantic love, through the dark night of the soul, to the conscious state of love.

The function of Imago Relationship Therapy is to facilitate moments of empathic connection between partners. Rather than help the couple to solve relationship problems, the therapist's task is to help them restore their relationship as a loving connection in which the needs of both partners are met. Problems cannot be solved except in the context of such relationship.

The dialogue is a process of growth and awakening. Meeting the other through dialogue becomes the occasion for awakening us from our self-preoccupations. We meet an other with a world that, no matter how similar to ours, is also very different from ours. As we open ourselves to mirroring the other's communication accurately, we begin to hear the other's perceptions, assumptions, and interpretations, which differ from our own, sometimes strikingly. We begin to hear something new, which makes possible a different understanding, an understanding of the other from the inside--the other's inside. The difference in our realities becomes a new reality to us. When we can momentarily set aside our own reality, we can become awakened to a larger reality, which also includes the reality of the other:

The objective of the dialogue is to create a bridge that is free from the egocentric distortion that keeps one from seeing the other's reality, and from compulsive over adaptation, in which one gives up core aspects of oneself. Across such a bridge, free communication can pass and empathic connection can be established. Such connection permits two human beings intimately to experience themselves, each other, and the current of life that is released in the space between them. Love and meaning unite in a way that not only is personal and relational, but also, in a larger sense, is truly spiritual.

REFERENCES

Augustine, St. (1950 ed.). Confessions, New York: Everyman's, Dutton.

Buber, M. (1952). Eclipse of God. New York: Harper.

Mason, R. (1996). Imago, relationships, and empathy. Journal of Imago Relationship Therapy, 1 (2).

St. John of the Cross (1959 ed.). Dark night of the soul, Garden City, N.Y: Image Books, Doubleday.

Tillich, P. (1963). Systematic Theology, vol. III. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

EDITORS' COMMENTARY

Spirituality is invisible to the naked eye, yet it is overwhelmingly real when we experience it. Imago therapists describe a feeling of awe, a sense of the sacred, when watching couples shift into deep connection during the dialogue. Spiritual experiences often have a "you had to be there" quality, but the aftereffects are unmistakable. For both the couple and the therapist, something new was born, or perhaps reborn, in the therapist's office. What was born or was born anew is the relationship.

Dr. Bailey describes a case in which spirituality emerged from the ashes of a broken relationship. It was not the outcome of the therapy that reflected spirituality; this couple, after all, broke up. But it is when a person is in the most desperate of states, is in the deepest of agonies--in this case, because of the end of a relationship--that he or she is able to surrender the false self. In the birth of the authentic self, the "I" is revealed, and only "I" can encounter, in safety, the "thou" that Buber describes.

Birth is painful. Any woman who has given birth knows the indescribable pain that precedes the sheer joy of having a baby. Yet most women say they would do it all over again. Likewise, when they are in dialogue, partners are giving birth to their relationship. Like a newborn child, a relationship cannot exist unless it is co-created by two people. As a sort of midwife to the birth of the couple's relationship, the therapist needs to attend as much to the baby being born as to the parents giving birth. That "in-between: the space and interface between two committed partners, that relationship is where spirituality emerges. The eternal thou exists in the interface of two people. Dialogue lets the eternal thou emerge.

Each time a thought, feeling, or revelation is shared by one partner and validated by the other, something sacred has occurred: two people have co-created a reality. According to modern philosophers, such as Ken Wilber, the next frontier is the mind. Couples willing to enter into the fertile field of consciousness are the next explorers on this planet.  The Couples Dialogue is like a capsule carrying partners into the noosphere, the far reaches of the mind. By exploring one another, they are exploring their hidden selves. Such exploration brings answers, purpose, forgiveness, and grace.