|
Getting the Love You Want, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Guide for Couples (0805087001)
Description
| Product Description |
|
| When Harville Hendrix writes about relationships, he discusses them not just as an educator and a therapist, but as a man who has himself been through a failed marriage. Hendrix felt the sting of his divorce intensely because he believed it signaled not only his failure as a husband but also his failure as a couples counselor. Investigating why his marriage dissolved led him to start looking into the psychology of love. Marriage, he ultimately discovered, is the "practice of becoming passionate friends." As a result of his research, Hendrix created a therapy he calls Imago Relationship Therapy. In it, he combines what he's learned in a number of disciplines, including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, to name just a few. He expounds upon this approach in Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. His purpose in writing the book, he says, is "to share with you what I have learned about the psychology of love relationships, and to help you transform your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship." Divided into three sections, the book covers "The Unconscious Marriage," which details a marriage in which the remaining desires and behavior of childhood interfere with the current relationship; "The Conscious Marriage," which shows a marriage that fulfils those childhood needs in a positive manner; and a 10-week "course in relationship therapy, " which gives detailed exercises for you and your partner to follow in order to learn how to "replace confrontation and criticism ... with a healing process of mutual growth and support." The text is occasionally dry and technical; however, the information provided is valuable, the case studies are interesting, and the exercises are revealing and helpful. By utilizing his program, Hendrix hopes you too will be able to solve your marital difficulties without the expense of a therapist. --Jenny Brown Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
Reviews
Customer feedback
|
|
Voting |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author: Guest
I offer retreats in Sedona, Arizona and am also author of Love's Secret, also a relationship guide for couples. Getting the love you want is an excellent guide for couples and we have it listed on our required reading list for couples. It offers easy to follow tools and advice for couples to get the love they want and deserve.
|
Author: Guest
Very interesting ideas and a good read. Some examples:
p3 The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart - Ortega Gasset
p8 Most of us underestimate the scope of the unconscious mind (analogous to the stars in the sky that `come out at night).
Brain structure:
Brain Stem - Physical action (breathing, blood circulation, etc)
Limbic system - generate vivid emotions
Old Brain = Brain Stem + Limbic System. Main concern is self-preservation: "Is it safe?"
Cerebral Cortex = New Brain - Cognitive functions; i.e., Conscious, alert, makes decisions, thinks, observes, plans, anticipates, responds, organizes, information, creates ideas - the part of your mind you think of as "You".
The New Brain directly perceives the outside world. The Old Brain gets images, symbols and thoughts produced by the New Brain in broad categories: Is this someone to nurture, be nurtured by, have sex with, run away from, submit to, or attack.
The Old Brian has no sense of linear time. Today, tomorrow, yesterday do not exist, everything that was, still is.
Old Brain issues: Abandonment, Me vs. You Boundaries (Fusers vs. Isolators), Life & Death (we expect the outside world to take care of us),
P12 In mate selection, we are looking for someone with a very specific set of positive and negative traits - we are looking for the people who raised us so we can heal old childhood wounds.
The ultimate reason you fell in love with your mate, I am suggesting, is not that your mate was young and beautiful, had an impressive job, had a point value equal to yours, or had a kind disposition. You fell in love because your Old Brain had your partner confused with your parents! Your Old Brain believed that it had finally found the ideal candidate to make up for the psychological and emotional damage you experienced in childhood.
P15 Eros = Life force
P31 You Imago is a composite picture of the people who influenced you most strongly at an early age. A part of your brain recorded everything about them
P55 Unconsciously, we want our partners to love us the way our parents never did - to satisfy unmet childhood needs, complement lost self-parts, nurture us in a consistent and loving way, and be eternally available to us.
P62 People react to their partners as if they were carbon copies of their parents (or the people who raised them), even if all of their traits are not the same. In their compelling need to work on unfinished business, they project the missing parental traits onto their partners. Then, by treating their partners as if they actually had these traits, they manage to provoke the desired response. A colleague of mine claims that people either "pick imago matches, project them, or provoke them".
P63 The Imago is not only an inner image of what we want in the opposite sex; it is also a description of our disowned self; i.e. our dark side - the parts of our being we try to ignore, the traits we disliked in our parents.
P64 People try to exorcise their denied negative traits by projecting them onto their mates. They look at their partners and criticize all the things they dislike and deny in themselves. Taking a negative trait and attributing it to their partner is a remarkably effective way to obscure a not-so-desirable part of the self.
P65 Elements of the Power Struggle:
1. We stir up each other's repressed behaviors and feelings.
2. Reinjure each other's childhood wounds
3. Project their own negative traits onto each other.
P65 What makes us believe that hurting their partner will make them behave more pleasantly? Why don't people simply tell each other in plain English that they want more affection or attention or lovemaking or freedom or whatever it is that they are craving? Answer - When we were babies we didn't smile at our Mothers to get them to take care of us - we screamed! The success of this tactic was turned into an imprint about how to get the world to respond to our needs. "When you are frustrated, provoke the people around you. Be as unpleasant as possible until someone comes to your rescue and figures out what your problem is.
P67 Stages of the Power Struggle:
1. Shock (the long anticipated healing is not to be)
2. Denial (see things in the best light possible)
3. Anger (either your partner has changed or your were deceived all along)
4. Bargaining (I'll be nicer it you'll be smarter)
5. Despair (try to find happiness outside the marriage)
P73 It's the Old Brain that is responsible for our infantile response to frustration, the `cry or criticize' response that only results in further alienation.
P75 In most interactions with your partner, you are actually safer when you lower your defenses than when you keep them engaged, because your partner becomes an ally, not an enemy.
P76 Ten Characteristics of a Conscious Marriage:
1. You realize that your love relationship has a hidden purpose - the healing of childhood wounds
2. You create a more accurate image of your partner - they are not your parents, or your negative traits. They are not your Savior, but another wounded human being struggling to be whole.
3. You take responsibility for communicating your needs and desires to your partner.
4. You become more intentional in your interactions - be more constructive.
5. You learn to value your partner's needs and wishes as highly as you value your own.
6. You embrace the dark side of your personality.
7. You learn new techniques to satisfy your basic needs and desires
8. You search within yourself for the strength and abilities you are lacking.
9. You become more aware of your drive to be loving and whole and united with the Universe.
10. You accept the difficulty of creating a good marriage. In an Unconscious Marriage you believe you have to find the right partner. In a Conscious Marriage you realize you have to be the right partner.
P78 All the people in the world are strangers. If you want a friend, you're going to have to go out and make one.
P79 Some people are caught up in concepts and ideas, not feelings. They hid their vulnerability behind their formidable intellect, which prevents any genuine intimacy.
P84 Most of us go thru married life as if we were asleep, engaging in routine interactions that give us little pleasure. We have forgotten who we are. We come into the world blazing trails of glory, but the fire is soon extinguished, and we lose sight of the fact we are whole spiritual beings. We live impoverished, repetitious; unrewarding lives and blame our partners for our unhappiness.
It is only when we see marriage as a vehicle for change and self-growth that we can begin to satisfy our unconscious yearnings.
P89 What is your vision for your marriage? What would you like it to be like? E.g.
1. We enjoy each other's company
2. We are financially secure
3. We spend time together doing things we both enjoy
4. We settle our differences peacefully
5. We have satisfying and beautiful sex
6. We are healthy and physically active
7. We communicate easily and openly
8. We meditate together
9. We are each other's best friend
10. We trust each other
11. We work well together
12. We share important decisions
13. We meet each others deepest needs
14. We have daily private time
P93 Why do people spend so much time avoiding intimacy? Anger and Fear. "I am angry with you for not meeting my needs", and fear of pain.
P108 People who grew up experiencing a great deal of repression tend to have a particularly hard time with the Reromanticizing exercise. They have difficulty coming up with any requests, or they sabotage their partner's efforts to carry them out. They are hiding behind the psychic shield they erected as children to protect themselves from overbearing parents.
P149 Love and Anger are two sides of the same coin. We feel joyful and loving when our life force (Holiness) is allowed to flourish. We become angry when it is thwarted. We become angry when the promise of life is denied.
P186 Focus on yourself. You should realize that what you are doing for your partner is what you're doing for yourself. It's about your personal growth. When you stretch to meet one of your spouses needs, you are reclaiming part of yourself.
|
Author: Guest
This book is changing my life and my marriage. It's deep but easy to read. The exercises are efficient (even though I'm doing them alone). It's helping me understand the hidden expectations I have of my partner and glimpse his expectations of me.
|
Author: Guest
I have no reservations about this book. It is intelligent, well researched and covers essential facets of an individuals psychology that drives their ability to attain success in dating and relationships.
Much of how we behave with the opposite sex has to do with our emotional relationships with our parents. A person who has problems relating to his or her parents or feeling in control and grounded in the company of his or her parents, has issues. Issues that can be resolved if noticed and dealt with.
The first part of the book, `the unconscious marriage', goes into detail of how our past relationships and biology influence our success in a relationship.
The next part can help you enhance your awareness so you gain control of your unconscious behavior so you can't self-sabotage yourself and makes you more capable of dealing with relationship problems in a loving and intelligent manner.
Finally the author, Harvill Hendrix, provides you with some powerful exercises that you can apply right away to help you focus your mind on attaining the relationship success you desire. The exercises help you with emotional blocks you inherited from childhood (we all have some) to building your relationship and the affection you feel in a relationship.
This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to have a healthier relationship that grows and matures.
|
Author: Guest
This seems to be the definitive book on how to *be* the right partner in your romantic relationships. It's also an eye-opening epiphany about why we seek and ineffectively try to demand certain qualities in our partners. Many adolescents would benefit from knowing this information early in their dating lives (but I wonder if it would be meaningful to readers without a painful history of mistakes behind them). I withhold the last star because I'm annoyed by the author's tone in the first several chapters -- he would have done better to talk about one's tendency to recreate childhood dynamics in adult relationships. Instead, he was heavy-handed and unnecessarily absolute in his premise that everyone subconsciously selects a partner similar to one's caretaker. This can be a turn-off to those who can't fit themselves into his box, but if you stick with it, there are still a lot of exceptionally useful insights and exercises here to create a "conscious," fulfilling relationship.
|
Send to Friend
Send to friend
|
|
