Marital & Relationship Therapy

My training in Marital Relationship work is certification as an Advanced Imago Marital Relationship Therapist. The term Imago is a Latin word that means “Image”. The principle architect of this theory is Harville Hendrix, who if you Google will give more of a history of his theory.

Basically, Hendrix’s theory suggests that we were born in relationship, we were neglected to some degree or mistreated in relationship and we spend our lives trying to get or find someone to be with who will give to us unconditionally what we deserved and or give us the safety of behaviour that will dissolve fears we have about being relational.

I have found some of the processes in Imago methodology to be quite useful with couples who are relatively healthy. These couples are usually experiencing difficulty or fear of communicating their needs and wants in a relationship. These couples usually respond and do quite well in some of the Imago processes. However, a majority of couples who are experiencing problems/power struggles in their marriage/relationship have deep seated defence structures that they learned very early in their lives to survive with. These defence mechanisms are often accompanied with high levels of anxiety and or depression and often create acting out behaviour that can be physically assaultive or verbally assaultive or both. In my experience this is where the rubber hits the road and most Marital Therapies fail or are not effective enough in their approach.

My experience working with couples has led me to develop a more successful approach to couples work than is being sold on the Marital/Relationship market today. First of all,recent research on and about martial therapists suggests that 79% of therapists state they do marital/relationship therapy/counselling. The study found that 69% of the 79% who said they did Marital/Therapy had NO training in marital/Relationship Therapy.

How I work with couples

How I work with couples and or individuals who are looking to be more relational is to see the couple together for the first session or two. This session(s) will give us a precise psycho diagnosis as to what the emotional health of each individual is and what procedure would be the most effective, quickest and long lasting and cost saving. Good, focused precise Attachment Based/Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy will be then offered to each individual along with strategic couples sessions to integrate the individual work that is being done. It is my experience and my intention to accelerate the process with precision and care to a successful outcome. In my opinion and experience this is a much quicker and cost saving approach.

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