Will I love Getting the Love You Want?

I find this a fascinating book in part because it has an original concept of the “imago”. Hendrix’s concept of the “imago,” that we are unconsciously attracted to someone to heal old wounds, is not something I buy—that is, I don’t think it is usually true as a primary cause of our attraction—but I do think it is worth considering both in my own marriage, and also in the work I do with couples. 

I was intrigued by the ideas about why we chose our partners in the first place. I discovered ways to have more compatibility in relationships. This book opened my mind to aspects I had not considered before. Those realizations caused positive shifts in behavior.

And… I had a much better understanding of why my partner approached things the way he did.

Getting the Love You Want is an insightful and comprehensive guide to understanding and improving relationships. The book is based on Hendrix’s Imago Relationship Therapy, which he developed with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt and has been an invaluable resource for me in understanding the psychology of attraction and the often unconscious forces that shape our relationships. 

In this book, Hendrix provides readers with a step-by-step approach to understanding their own needs and those of their partner. He explains how to identify and address the underlying issues that can cause conflict in relationships, such as unmet childhood needs, power struggles,… show more.

Just as daughters of narcissistic mothers need to proactively and consciously learn parenting, we need to learn about healthy personal relationships, especially within our primary love relationship, and this book is awesome for providing exactly that. It draws a direct line between our childhood wounds on the one hand, and what we seek in a romantic partner on the other, and the way we subconsciously choose a romantic partner in the hopes that they will heal the childhood wounds. And of course this never works, and this book shares how to avoid that and how to create healthy relationships that… show more.

Here’s the truth. Because I’m not interested in partnership currently, I haven’t had a chance to fully experience the power of this book in my own life. But, reading it has greatly influenced how I plan to shape partnership in the future. I was able to start the process in my last relationship, by using the simple, yet downright miraculous tool of Imago Dialog, which is outlined in this book. We had a lot of trouble communicating through conflict, and Imago became a foolproof way to get to the other side of once impassable chasms. I love this style of… show more.

I read this book for the first time when I was 22 years old when I was in Russia at a yoga retreat. I had gotten out of dysfunctional relations (back then I would not have used that word as I wasn’t a therapist yet…it was a shitty relationship that sounds more like my 22-year-old self). I picked up this book to help me find what I wanted in relationships. Funny I meet my husband (of now 25 years) a few months after I read this book. This book talks about why we pick the partners we do and how… show more.