Baffling Article by Harville Hendrix

[Guest guest]

I found an article that is based on a book called 'Getting the Love You Want' by

Harville Hendrix. It was on a blog primarily dedicated to BPD (see below) I have

never heard of what Hendrix writes about before, and I'm curious what his

background is. Reading his words depressed me; because he basically is saying

that children who are abused or come from alcoholic or dysfunctional families

can only fully and completely heal by confronting these problems and resolving

them with a partner that shares these similar characteristics of their original

care-takers. I pasted some of the article below.

But it seems like many KOs on this site have found healthy partners. I'm hoping

they don't feel incomplete or unhappy with this choice in a partner....has

anyone read Harville Hendrix's book?

http://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2008/04/choosing-intimate-partners-repeat/

* The reason the unconscious is driven to heal from those unmet childhood needs

with this particular person is that they possess both the " positive " and

" negative " traits of the caretakers who originally failed to meet those needs.

" How do we go about that? By falling madly in love with someone who

has both the positive and the negative traits of our imperfect parents, someone

who fits an image that we carry deep inside us and for whose embodiment we are

unconsciously searching. "

" What we unconsciously want is to get what we didn't get in childhood

from someone who is like the people who didn't give us what we need in the first

place. "

* The " negative " traits that this person shares with our original caregivers

unconsciously exert a stronger influence on our Imago, even though we may

consciously perceive ourselves being attracted only to the " positive " traits.

" Though the Imago is a picture of both the positive and negative

traits of our caretakers, the negative traits carry the most weight in our

attraction. Because incidents of neglect, abuse, criticism, or indifference

affect our survival, they are more deeply etched on our Imago template than our

memories of caring and attention. They are the aching sores that we want healed.

This is frustrating, because we consciously seek only the positive traits in a

potential partner, so that we can get our needs gratified. But without the

negative traits, we would not be attracted in the first place. "

* Therefore, our unconscious will only accept complete healing with someone

who is, whether we recognize it consciously or not, similar to the person who

originally wounded us, especially in sharing their " negative " traits.

" There is a perverse logic here; the old brain [Hendrix's term for the

more primitive, emotionally-driven part of our brain] is making sure that we

find what we need to heal. Inevitably, the person you need in order to heal is

similar to the person with whom you were wounded, because that is the only type

of person from whom your unconscious will accept what you need. "

* Because this type of person who is our only hope for fully healing shares

the same " negative " traits as the original caretakers that wounded us, they are

simultaneously most likely to wound us again in exactly the same ways, rather

than to help us heal those wounds we so desperately want healed.

" Unfortunately, since we've almost surely chosen someone with negative

traits similar to those of the parents who wounded us in the first place, the

chances of a more positive outcome this time around are slim indeed. In fact,

most people who have had serial relationships report that despite their best

intentions they manage to find the same problems each time around. "

* Despite these risks, and as much as we may wish it, we cannot and should

not try to consciously choose attraction to partners other than those that share

these traits of our caretakers and activate our deepest wounds from childhood.

For it is exactly these people with whom we must engage to confront those very

traits and wounds in order to heal.

* In order to benefit, rather than simply be re-wounded by such a

relationship, we must find such a partner who is also willing, along with us, to

become conscious, change and grow. When we and our Imago partner are willing to

communicate in new ways that promote beneficial insights and behavioral changes

within the relationship, we can avoid experiencing the repetition compulsion in

the relationship's outcome, and instead achieve mutual resolution of our

childhood wounds.

______________

At least when I read further on down the blog, and it listed other differing

points of views, and listed other books to support them. Also, it said that

Hendrix believes someone can change their Imago a good deal on their own. The

'Imago' is a term he uses for the unconscious.