Relationship Counseling
We live in a fast-pace, fragmented, individualized and disconnected world where marriage and important relationships are under constant stress and turmoil. The price we pay when our most significant relationships are deteriorating and/or broken is beyond measure. Our mental health, health and often social and financial situation are greatly affected. Our children and loved ones suffer in countless direct and indirect ways.
As human beings we are born in connection. Connection is our primary experience and it is embedded in our nature. As psychiatrist Dr. Van der Kolk explains in his book: "The body keeps the score": "Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. Although our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organism."
The Mindful Relating’s mission is to guide couples to live lives of authentic connection and learn to grow their “Love” as they navigate their way from conflict to intimacy.
Why Imago Relationship Therapy?
- It takes fewer sessions to get to the core patterns and roots that fuel most conflicts and disconnection.
- It empowers couples and individuals with tools, skills and principles that they can learn and use on their own, thereby reducing dependence on the therapist.
- It helps normalize and make sense of most of the distress that happens between spouses/partners.
- It promotes connection and emotional intimacy without losing ones self in the process.
- It increases compassion, even when you don't like what your spouse or partner does.
- It provides motivation for making changes.
- It helps couples respect the needs and concerns of both partner and opens up more possibilities for win-win approaches to conflict.
- It provides a process through which people can grow themselves and their relationship.
Process
PART 1: Couple's Dialogue
During sessions the couples are guided to learn the couple’s dialogue: Face to face, looking at each other with a soft gaze, both partners take turns expressing themselves as “ hosts” and listening as “ visitors” to discover the root of their conflict.
PART 2: "Re-Imaging"
The host is invited to explore and express his/her experience fully and the visitor is guided to listen with complete attention. The couples co-create a space of safety as they intentionally tune in to each other. This process allows them to understand the true nature of their difficulties and “re-image” each other. This means that their respective behavior in the relationship now makes sense.
PART 3: Frustration into Desire
As the couples gain greater understanding of the true nature of their difficulties during the re-imaging” phase, they naturally start to feel empathy for each other and shift from acting out a frustration to expressing a desire.
Imago-Based Therapy
Kareen's Mindful-Relating Approach to relationship counseling combines practices from several areas of study, but is based on a foundation of Imago Relationship Therapy.
Imago-Based Therapy for People with Addiction Issues
You can learn more about relationship counseling with chemical dependency/addiction issues here: Addiction vs. Intimacy