Imago Relationship Therapy – Introduction Series

A couple fights because each of them wants the other to be more like them. Underneath that, on the Imago account, is a need that went unmet a long time before they met, and the only language either of them has for asking is pain. Which means the request never arrives as a request. It arrives as criticism, and it cannot be answered.

The shift Imago asks for is from the individual paradigm to the relational one. What comes to therapy is the relationship, the work happens in the space between two people, and the relationship itself is the agent of change. From there the model treats conflict as an opportunity rather than a problem to be settled, and moves the therapeutic focus off the frustration and onto the underlying need, because that is where the change actually happens. The partner who meets that need has to stretch beyond what they would normally do, and the stretch is what grows them too.

Three hours in three parts, presented by three Imago clinicians. The first is the theory: why couples fight, how partners are selected, symbiosis and self-absorption, and how a small trigger produces a reaction out of all proportion to it. Then a filmed dialogue with a real couple, taking in childhood, present frustration, need, and giving and receiving. Then the three presenters going back through that session and saying what they were watching for and why. They are upfront that they are showing you the end of a process without the many sessions of work that get a couple there.

You’ll walk away with

• The relational paradigm stated clearly enough to be useful even if you never practise Imago, including what changes when the space between two people becomes the treatment target
• Why couples fight, in Imago’s terms: the one-world reality where each partner assumes their own is the real one, and the intolerance of otherness that follows
• The move from frustration to underlying need, and why nothing shifts while the work stays on the frustration
• The stretch: why the partner doing the giving is the one who grows, which changes how you frame a request that one partner is resisting
• Mate selection on this model, both matching internal images formed in childhood and finding the parts of yourself you gave up
• Symbiosis and self-absorption as the mechanism behind disproportionate reactions, with an image for it that clients tend to recognise immediately
• Crossing the bridge into a partner’s world, and what it does for a client to be seen by someone who has genuinely been over there
• A filmed dialogue with a real couple, so you see the structure delivered rather than described
• Three experienced clinicians unpacking that same session afterwards, including what they noticed that a first viewing misses
• A sense of whether this model fits how you want to work with couples, before committing to the full training

Watch the course trailer

Gene Shelley

Gene is a Mental Health Counsellor and a psychotherapist. He is an affiliate member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, USA. He was a former member of the teaching and supervising faculty of the Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute, a psychoanalytically oriented residency training program.

Gene is also an Imago Clinician, Clinical Instructor and Workshop presenter. He runs the Getting the Love You Want workshop and the Imago Clinical Training for therapists.  In addition, he runs individual and group consultations to support Imago therapists.

Dr Nedra Fetterman

Nedra is a psychologist and Director of the Relationship Centre in Ardmore, PA, USA. She brings over 16 years of experience in working with couples, families and organizations and is a senior therapist at The Centre for Psychological Services and a clinical consultant to Corporate Initiatives. While she is known for her gentle, healing touch, she is a powerful presence in her workshops and her trainings. As a coach and mentor, she is committed to producing results which often means assisting clients transcend their self-imposed limitations and to get on with the adventure of their lives. Nedra is passionate about rekindling her client’s aliveness and increasing their sense of wonder and possibility.

Nedra is a unique member of this training team and her work inspires transformational work in others. In both her workshops and trainings, participants speak openly about the vulnerabilities and strengths that took them from a place of distance and injury to a place of connection and healing.

Kobus van der Merwe

Kobus van der Merwe is a faculty member of Imago International Training Institute and has been training clinicians in Imago Relationship Therapy (Clinical Training) and other professionals in the Imago Relationship Theory (Imago Professional Facilitator Training) since 1998.

He was a winner of the Harville Hendrix Award for Clinical Excellence in 2016 and is currently a Professor of Imago Studies at Daybreak University, California USA.

Kobus is a remarkable teacher and couples’ therapist who seamlessly weaves theory and Imago relationship constructs into his practice and supervision with students. He has made a significant contribution to the development of Imago globally and particularly in South Africa. He is a second-generation Imago practitioner as both his parents practice Imago.