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The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
What Makes Couples Therapy Actually Work? Dr. Kathy Malcolm Hall Explains
When relationships falter, many couples seek help without understanding what makes therapy truly effective. Dr. Kathy MalcolmHall joins the Relationship Blueprint to reveal the four research-backed common factors that determine success in couples therapy, regardless of approach.
The conversation opens by contrasting individual therapy with couples work, examining how the shift from personal pathology to relational understanding creates powerful healing opportunities. "Most therapists help couples move from vilification to partnership," Dr. MalcolmHall explains, highlighting how blaming and diagnosing partners ("he's a narcissist" or "she has ADHD") undermines connection. Instead, effective therapy helps couples see difficulties as patterns happening between them rather than character flaws within individuals.
Dr. Malcolm Hall vividly demonstrates Imago Therapy's structured dialogue process, showing how it disrupts negative cycles by creating safety for vulnerable communication. As one partner speaks and the other mirrors back what they hear, the autonomic nervous system calms, allowing deeper understanding to emerge. This addresses our innate negativity bias – our evolutionary tendency to anticipate and focus on threats – by intentionally introducing positivity and appreciation.
The podcast explores how expanding support systems around the relationship dramatically increases success rates. From workshops and books to supportive friends who champion the relationship rather than enabling complaints, couples thrive when surrounded by resources that nurture connection. "We don't rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems," Dr. MalcolmHall shares.
Perhaps most importantly, the conversation examines how finding the right balance between safety and challenge creates transformation. When couples feel secure enough to take risks while being gently pushed beyond comfort zones, lasting change becomes possible. The research validates what many have experienced: structured dialogue, positivity focus, and relational understanding create profound healing opportunities.
Whether you're considering therapy, already working with a therapist, or simply wanting to improve your connection, this episode offers invaluable guidance for navigating relationship challenges with knowledge and intention. Ready to transform your relationship? Listen now.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Welcome back everyone to the Relationship Blueprint. Unlock your Power of Connection. And today I have someone with me who I've gotten to know in a more deep way in the last couple months. So I'm really happy to introduce Kathy Malcolm-Hull. She finished her PhD in Marriage and Family Counseling with a specialization in Imago Therapy, family counseling with a specialization in imago therapy and you all know how important imago therapy is to me and my world and all of the people's lives that we have touched. So, without further ado, welcome Kathy.
Speaker 2:Hey, coco, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you're here. You're here from Dunwoody and, for those that are listening from different parts of the world, that's a suburb of Atlanta. Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2:it is Sort of the north end of Atlanta and that is where you practice. I do. I welcome people into my home. I have a home practice with a private waiting room and private space down here and I really love it. I love welcoming folks into my home to work on relationships, make their lives better.
Speaker 1:I love being so intimate with my couples on many levels and I think Imago really changes that dynamic because we typically don't see our clients as sick and we see them as regular folks that are having really natural struggles with relationships, just as we have in our own relationships. Do you see it that way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I see that I often say to clients I'm in the same hospital you're in. I just checked in about 10 years earlier.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot. Yeah, yeah, just checked in a little earlier and been able to gain some skills on most days.
Speaker 2:Right Came in for a landing a little earlier than you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there they are and they're seeking help, and that's what we're here to do today is to help people really understand. I know your PhD, your dissertation was very important to you and very important to our Imago community to understand what you've learned and really to help couples out there who are thinking about maybe they're in individual therapy, maybe they're already in couples therapy or maybe they haven't explored therapy at all but really helping them understand what is different about Imago therapy compared to individual therapy and what can this bring that perhaps some other kinds of therapy may not be able to approach in the same way.
Speaker 2:So fascinating to really look at what makes couples therapy work. What makes it work, how's it different from individual therapy? How can we educate ourselves about what works? Dr Colleen Berniart-Lanier and Dr Rebecca Sears also worked on this research with me, as well as Brenda Rawlings, so we moved forward after Brenda passed with her spirit in our hearts, but Caroline and Rebecca also mined this body of research. I got to look at the body of research through the lens of common factors. So when you talked to me about the podcast, I got excited about being able to bring forth this information to folks at home, like what's common in every modality that really works.
Speaker 1:If I've got that, kathy, please do you really want to help us really see is that many people don't realize that if they really ask their practitioner what kind of therapy is your strength or what are you highly trained in, that most therapists might answer I am EMDR, or I do trauma work, or I'm polyvagal informed or whatever their answer is, but that among those hundreds of kinds of therapy you looked at four common factors that made for effective therapy.
Speaker 2:Did I get that you? Which got right was I did look at the common factors. What I did was looked at the common factors of couples therapy.
Speaker 1:And only within couples therapy. Thank you, I can't wait to hear more. Yeah good.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't wait to tell you more. My intent is really to just be helpful, to educate, to help folks know what really helps, what helps in marriage, and then to be smart about who they're hiring as a clinician, if they so choose to hire Right.
Speaker 1:So you're really one of the things our listeners today can take away is these are the things I may want to look for if I'm going to pay someone money to help me with my relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And be more savvy as consumers right To know what to look for. Maybe questions to ask just to have a deeper understanding, instead of going through psychology today and seeing someone specializing in 84 things and maybe couples is on there but not really knowing.
Speaker 2:It's overwhelming, really. Yeah, it really is overwhelming. And one of my patron saints is Brene Brown, and she says clarity is kindness, and so I really want to be clear today. My intent is to be clear. All this research is a little bit like as I mentioned to you on the phone previously. It's a little bit like getting an octopus in a Kroger bag, but I really want to be able to take the complexity of it and make it helpful.
Speaker 1:So here we go, all right. So let's start. Let's begin with the first component.
Speaker 2:Tell us about that, yeah, so what we found or what we know about common factors is that the first common factor of all good couples therapy is that the clinician really helps the couple conceptualize what's up with them, what are, conceptualize the difficulties they're having in relationship terms, help them think differently from. That's his fault, it's her fault. It's this diagnosis, it's that diagnosis to. Happening's this diagnosis? It's that diagnosis too. It's happening between these people Okay.
Speaker 1:So I think that's so important to mention, because what I'm thinking is that every couple that's ever come into my office has said, if they haven't said it verbally, they have said it somehow Like I'd be fine if you would just fix him. And what you're saying is that, moving away from calling people narcissists or you know he's a borderline or whatever, the story is that if they can look at what's happening between the couple, that's where the power lives Correct Exactly, and thank you for bringing up those diagnostic codes.
Speaker 2:It's not that those things aren't true. Sometimes they're really true. It's just that good couples therapy helps the couple shift from vilification to partnership. How do we really look at what's happening between us if we have narcissistic and borderline personalities, if we have AD, if we have a trauma that causes polyvagal dysregulation, if all those things are true, how do we help our couples relate in a relational way and think in a relational way about what's happening between the two of them.
Speaker 1:You're saying and I might pause you a few times because I really think, as a therapist, we can stay in our therapist language, and I think it's so important to just highlight how important it is what you're saying, because if I go to my couple's therapist and I say you know, my husband has ADHD and that makes it so hard for me, I have to do this and such, that is vilification, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, the data might be correct. The posture of judgment doesn't help. So part of what good couples therapy does, according to the research, is that it helps couples move from judgment to discernment, the being able to say gosh, we have an agreement here about our division of labor. That's really wonky. Hey partner, can we work on this? That's a different modality than diagnostic judgment. Vilification Is that?
Speaker 1:That makes total sense. I think what you're saying now will make sense to those who listen to relational contracting You're highlighting right now is we're not going to vilify anyone. We're just going to say, hey, this isn't working, like the division of duties, for example. This isn't working for us. Let's really look at that versus. You know, it's all because of your blank right, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And how do we support, should those diagnoses be true and often they are? How do we support a person who's suffering with borderline, because boy is there, it's a lot of suffering. How do we move toward love? So it's not that we don't call this faith a state, so to speak, right. It's that the posture moves from vilification to partnership.
Speaker 1:I really love that, kathy. It's so important to go from judgment to discernment, and when we do that, we have compassion right Then we can look at how can I support you and how can you support me. Yeah, Right.
Speaker 2:So as we talk about this, I've noticed both in us soften, because it does bring up the yummy stuff like vulnerability and compassion and it makes the question what's possible here, what's really possible between us? And that's what the difference between individual therapy and couples therapy is that a good couples therapist will help you look at the diagnoses in the room and say how is this helpful to know this, is it helpful, how's it helpful and how do we help this couple talk about it in ways that are connecting? And for folks who are not in therapy gosh, please try this at home.
Speaker 1:So when you say, try this at home, let's try to model sort of a conversation that we might have as friends maybe that are struggling with. Let's pretend I have ADHD and I'm always late and I let you down often or I forget to call. I have time management struggles. It's part of my challenges, right, yeah, we can unpack that together, can't we? We can talk about it, but I'm not going to be able to talk about it. If I feel criticized then I get defensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:But when I hear your compassion and about how I'm impacting you, maybe that I'm not going to show up for you or you feel this is bringing back some stuff of you know, being abandoned in different relationships or always having to be the parent or the responsible one, Like it's never about being late, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right, right, right. Well, now, yeah, and now we're talking at a deeper level and this is the way we would guide couples. Right Is to say, let's look at intent and impact and let's look at what's happening in the story. We tell ourselves because someone's late. But in terms of that modeling, what for folks listening to be able to say to a friend gosh, you know, I know you love me and I know you really deeply care about me and I know you're really trying to be on time and it's really hard work for me when you're not, what can we do? Like, what could we do? Could you text me? Could you bring me a coffee if you're coming late? I don't know, but that idea of leaning into the relationships and saying this is a thing. Can we partner up about it? What's possible?
Speaker 1:If I stay with a tough. I'm annoyed, my time is valuable. I can get on my high horse and to make you feel really bad about yourself. Or I can say to my story that if you don't show up, something's happened to you, because that happened in my past, that when someone didn't show up, they were hurt, and I think I go right there. Can you help me with that? Yeah, Very different. Yeah, yeah, I go right there, can you?
Speaker 2:help me with that. Yeah, very different. Yeah, yeah, it really is. And this is the upside of individual therapy, I think, is helping people identify. Because when you go to individual therapy it's really a lot like okay, what are my feelings? Helping people that may not know what am I feeling, what do I need, what do I want, what's my hopes, what's in the way of me, and joy. To be able to really identify those things is what good individual therapy is. When the individual therapist starts working on the relationship with the person without the other person present, that gets a little tricky because the obvious tricksters are you don't know how it's going to impact the other person. But good couples therapy and common factor one, how it helps couples deal with those feelings that people have discovered in stories in just in relational terms, helping them own the impact, not coming in like a wrecking ball.
Speaker 1:So ownership becomes really important and also moving away from judgment to discernment and what is the possibility for us. I really like that because it brings hope to the relationship and you can have connection without self-awareness and without saying to yourself I can make him the villain if I want to, but is that effective? That's my favorite question lately. Is my behavior getting me what I want? Is it effective? If it's not, then maybe we unpack it. We kind of try to figure out what will be effective. Yeah, exactly what is the second component?
Speaker 2:that you study. Yeah, so the second common factor of all good couples therapy is disrupting the dysfunctional patterns. So typically what we see with couples is people cycle, they get in cycles, they get in patterns, habits, and being able to say couple, let's get on the balcony, let's get on the balcony and look at this. And you know, Imago has a beautiful dialogue structure that helps couples really do this Disrupt the pattern of criticism and defensiveness, or octopus and turtle as we say in the Imago community, of the one that's always reaching and the other one that's shut down, and the ability to really disrupt patterns and implement love between equals, being able to talk about what's happening inside of them and connect more effectively.
Speaker 2:So you know, there's a lot of common things about couples therapy. One of the uniquenesses of the therapy and I practice is the couples dialogue which we you know it's a sacred cow which we adore, and for good reason. Right, it really helps people. So many miracles, I mean, I think marriage is a miracle anyway, but so many miracles are born in those moments when a good couples therapist is holding a couple in dialogue structure and really just supporting them as they come back into regulation and hold each other, move toward love.
Speaker 1:My passion for this work is when a couple comes in and they're starting the dialogue about their core scene, that the fight that they have over and over again in a different outfit, right and then, as you've said so brilliantly, within the structure of the dialogue, they are able to see or hear or express something that is absolutely new to them about this old scene. And the dialogue does create that structure to look at the pattern in a different way. And as they finish the dialogue, saying something to the effect of God we fought about that a hundred times. I didn't think this would help me, but it did. Now I hear it differently, now I see it differently and, as you said in the beginning, it's this shift in perception that can happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I don't know how many of your listeners are dialogue savvy. But what we mean by dialogue structure is a very calm, mostly way of just sitting face-to-face. One partner speaks and the other one listens deeply and the only responsibility of partner B is just to repeat back. Hey, is this what you're saying to me? It quiets the autonomic nervous system so that you're not thinking, okay, that's wrong. That's wrong, that's wrong. I disagree Essentially, warring for one narrative right, creating this big fat, two ticks and no dog. It's just like we are just so symbiotic, it's just exhausting. Dialogue structure helps couples really pull that apart and create love between equals. Let me hear you Can.
Speaker 1:I ask you a favor. Yeah, we keep talking about the dialogue on the program and I think we've done it once, but I wonder if you'd allow me. This is a mini contract to and she could say no. Kathy is welcome to say no, but would I be able to give you an appreciation in the dialogical form for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, I love this. You're willing to receive yeah, yeah of course I'd love to model, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the first thing we would do really is get ourselves centered. So, kathy and I did that earlier before the podcast, but we may take a moment now just to breathe and to remember the last time we were together, remembering and this is what you do at home you remember what you really love about your friend, your partner, anyone that you want to dialogue with, and once you feel your heart soften, I would ask for an appointment. So, kathy, are you available for an appreciation, dialogue?
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:So what I really appreciate about you is I love your metaphorical, poetic language.
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing you say is what you really love about me. Is my metaphorical, poetic language. Did I get that right?
Speaker 1:You got me and when you talked about you know putting it's like putting an octopus in a paper bag. It's so visual for me that I can see and feel your yeah.
Speaker 2:So when I, when I quoted that particular one octopus in a Kroger bag or Octopus in a grocery bag it really helps you see and feel my thoughts, did I?
Speaker 1:get that right, yeah, and what a great teacher you are.
Speaker 2:And what a great teacher you think I am.
Speaker 1:Because being able to help people see things through metaphors and helping the brain make connections is so powerful and so important to be able to digest whatever you're teaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you think that helping the brain, that the pictures, the word pictures, and helping the brain make connections in a different way than just hearing words, really helps people get a visual and take it away better?
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, you got me, and so I love that in writing, but I also think it's just a powerful teaching method.
Speaker 2:So you love it in writing when you read it, but you think it's a powerful teaching method.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did I get that right?
Speaker 2:You got me, and so would you be able to summarize what I'm hearing you say is that you really appreciate the way I language things, you like the metaphors, you like the word pictures and you think it's a great teaching style because it helps people make connections in at least two ways the verbal, but also the visual and that you appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and the part you missed was that I think you're a wonderful teacher.
Speaker 2:And the part I missed is you think I'm a wonderful teacher. Well, thank you. And all that makes sense to me because I do love a word picture. It was modeled to me very well by my mother, who was sort of a cliche queen, and I grew up in the hills of Kentucky and so I have a lot of nature, I think, in terms of nature a lot.
Speaker 1:Is there more? I think that's it. So is there an empathic statement you want?
Speaker 2:to make. So that makes sense to me. In my kisses you feel.
Speaker 1:I feel joyful when you use metaphors. It's not really relaxed, it's like a chuckle, and joyful Seeing the octopus in the Kroger bed. It makes me laugh and I love to feel joy and make connections. Yeah, so you got me.
Speaker 2:You got me, yeah it makes you feel joyful.
Speaker 1:So for our listeners, that is, you make the appointment, you mirror what you've heard. I don't know if you noticed Kathy, but she said at some point is there more? And until I'm finished, until I say no, that's about it. Then she gave me a validation which explained why that all made sense to me, and then an empathy statement which just guessing so I imagine that left you feeling. And she said relaxed, and that's okay that she guessed. But I said no, it wasn't really quite relaxed, it was joyful. So guessing the feeling is just reaching over into my world. She can't read my mind, but she was able to guess, which made another connection.
Speaker 1:So this is a very small example of a dialogue, but appreciations are something you can do at home anytime you want. There has never been a time that I haven't said to my husband are you willing to have a dialogue about an appreciation for you? And he said oh, absolutely not. But how many times have I said I really want to sit down and talk and he looks like I'd rather move along. So it's a really good way for people to start to pivot at home to try on some of these things and the acronym mirror over and over again validate, empathize.
Speaker 2:Right and you did a beautiful job of cuing me to that, that empathy statement, which is, was great. Modeling folks, you know, folks fall in and out of dialogue at home, of course, my goodness, because it's a lot, it's really a lot, yeah. So well, thank you for giving me that opportunity to model that. I think it's great. And it's so great that you use positivity because, in particular with the you know, the octopus in the Kroger bag, all that, that research that we found. The thing that people love about Imago therapy is it's focused on communication and positivity. That is a very big way that we interrupt the negative cycling. When our brains have a negativity bias, we just do. It's funded anthropologically and calcified in childhood and so as Imago therapists, we really interrupt that process and want to help the couple with positivity, because we cannot learn and bond with negativity afoot. It's just really difficult.
Speaker 1:And Kathy, can you expand for our listeners the definition of a negativity bias?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's a little part of our brain, but it really is big. It's got a big impact. It's a fight-flight brain and the fight-flight brain gives us the potential of worst-case scenarioing and seeing things through a what's going to be wrong, what's the next thing that's going to be wrong and what are they going to do then. And so we can problem solve. And my husband I love my husband likes to say all those Zen Buddhists were eaten because those of us who could predict you know, uh-oh, there's a rustle in the leaves, it must be a predator. No, it was really. You know someone bringing you, you know, some lovely flowers. That ability to predict, we will often predict bad. So with that negativity bias, you're also sort of being critical about them. It's really has people in a very vicious cycle of two ticks and no dog. That's what I think about it.
Speaker 1:So, kathy, the negativity bias what you're really helping us understand more deeply is that we're wired that way, we're not trying to be mean or negative or bad, but that that negativity bias is important for our functioning because it helps us prepare for if there's a car coming at me and running the red light, I'm predicting what could happen. I may stop or swerve to the right or do something that's going to help me survive, right. All that kind of thinking really doesn't help in our relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't. We're prone to negativity, so being able to sit and really notice okay, god, I don't need my fight flight system in this situation, I'm just talking to my beloved, yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're really not the enemy, although I'm mad at them or they're mad at me. Like reminding ourselves like this is the person we chose to live with for the rest of our life. Like can I see his innocence? What is that Brene Brown says about a generous assumption about people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, benefit of the doubt, generous assumptions, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, can I assume that maybe when Kevin's being I don't know short with me, that he has other things on his mind and maybe not take it so personally that that ability is about giving someone that we care about generous assumption instead of going right to that negativity bias?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I learned to think about Ramsey I bet he's up to good, I bet he's up to good. That was so helpful and really hard for me to do, super hard for me to do because yeah, because of negativity, bias and some early training and I was a young bride. But when I learned to say I bet he's up to good, I didn't like it and I didn't want it, but I bet he was up to good. That really was transformative. And so, more under the please try this at home generous assumptions and benefit of the doubt and being brave enough to say what if your partner's up to good?
Speaker 1:Can I stay curious enough long enough to find the good to understand and reach out instead of shutting down or yelling back or whatever the pattern that I may normally take? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:So the third. The third is and there's four of them and this is one of my favorites actually expand the direct treatment system. And because it's surprising to people yeah, it's kind of surprising that the third thing that a good couples therapist can do is really say to a couple who else is on your side, what other church, synagogue, system, family, neighborhood is for your couplehood, is not trying to get a straw in your Coke all the time, but really supports you to have good rituals of connection, to take your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly times that you get away. So who in your world supports you? And also for us as couples therapists, pointing couples to workshops, giving couples books to read and podcasts. I'm so excited about your platform I have you know my couples never leave my office that they don't have one of your podcasts in our little group chat because I think extending the treatment system is so important. You know Caroline and Jason are doing a couple's cafe and Bob and Wendy Patterson here in Atlanta do workshops and Bob Patterson and Suleiman Yuradin do the men's clearing. That's so important because, look, we don't raise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.
Speaker 2:And if the systems around us that support the couplehood are only about taking from them, getting them to do more. It's tragic and the ability for us to help our couples say who's for you, who's giving you margin, because if that couplehood falls apart it really impacts society. It's a social difficulty when couplehoods split Now. Sometimes people need to part ways and bless and release each other. I really, truly believe that and if they can stay together it could be a real help to them psychologically and spiritually. Stay together. It could be a real help to them psychologically and spiritually. And so you know I'm pro-marriage, I'm prone to staying together with you know, understanding people can't always, but being able to extend the treatment system and help couples see what's around them and gosh. The Imago community has just been so wonderful about creating opportunities for couples to be exposed to that relational paradigm. We're good at creating opportunities for people to get more help, to make it more normal within their reach, so to speak.
Speaker 1:And I'm just kind of circling back for our listeners that the individual paradigm was the way that we saw therapy for a really long time, like if, say in the 80s, you go get help, I'll go get help, and then maybe we can work on our relationship which the relational paradigm has the opposite message, which is you can be each other's healers. Who else, if you go to a therapist once a week and gosh, you hope that that makes a difference. And I am certainly not discouraging individual therapy. But when I see a couple and watch the growth that happens in that dynamic, it is just so powerful. Individual growth, I think, happens within that dynamic. Some weeks it's for one, some weeks it's for the other, some weeks it's with both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and you brought up such a good point that couples therapy comparatively is pretty new. It started emerging in the 80s before they had what I call proximate counseling. People are proximate in the room but they're not looking at what's happening in the between. It's really they're talking to the therapist, he's talking to the therapist, she's talking in the between. It's really they're talking to the therapist, he's talking to the therapist, she's talking to the therapist.
Speaker 1:I think that you know. When you were talking about resources, I can't highlight enough that a couple's workshop there's not a statistic that's accurate, but people have reported six months of therapy in one weekend. So I hear people saying I don't have time, I don't want to spend, and I'm thinking about all the money people spend on divorce.
Speaker 2:I think it's super vulnerable for people and I think that's why I love that we're talking about this is it educates people? Is that when you go to a nematotherapy workshop, you're not hanging your dirty laundry on the line. You're essentially, it's an educational workshop and you are educating yourself. I go education right? Yeah, totally yeah, it's not therapy.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite stories was during a workshop. I had a couple who didn't say a word. I mean, they talked to people in between when we were on breaks. They were friendly to us on breaks, but if you asked me, did they get anything from the workshop, kathy, I would have told you I don't think so I'm a little worried. They kind of had stoic faces. They did the practices on their own, which was wonderful, but they didn't raise their hand, they didn't contribute much. So after that weekend I guess it was a Tuesday and the woman called me and said that was transformational and I shared with her. I said I was so afraid it wasn't for you. I made up a story that this wasn't for you or that you didn't find it meaningful, and she said it was just the opposite.
Speaker 2:You can have a very private experience at an Imago workshop. You can simply look at in our lives who supports our couplehood, who supports us, what happens between us? Who says prioritize yourselves. Take a date night here. Let me take your children, those people you want to.
Speaker 1:You know those people you want to really invest in and take advantage of and sitting around with your girlfriends and talking about how awful your husband is. The husband's going to the bar and complaining is not exactly the kind of resource that you're talking about. Correct In the negativity bias, we do this naturally, and so, again going back to Kathy's point about interrupting patterns, maybe for just a little while, while we're working on our relationship, we have to look at all these ways that we are not giving to the relationship. We're actually taking withdrawals like a bank account. When we don't give much to it, we're broke, no saving right.
Speaker 2:Right, and when I'm meeting with my girlfriends we're just seeking validation. We're up to wanting validation because we're in pain and that makes a ton of sense. But a big piece of what Imago therapy does so well, I believe, is it helps people really say to their partners, helps me say to Ramsey well, it makes sense to me because I did blow up, I did, I did lose my temper and my guess is it made you feel really frustrated and sad. So that ability to help couples with the thing that we all really need is validation. It holds couples in a dialogue structure that helps them get it, so there's less needing to go.
Speaker 1:What you bring up, too, is that you can use a piece of the dialogue at any time Say I've interrupted Kevin in front of people at a dinner and I could watch him shut down or something, and later being able to say it makes total sense that you shut down because I interrupted you and I am so sorry. Even better if I can say it in front of everyone. I think what you're bringing up. It's so important to validate that what you did had the impact, even if it wasn't your intention.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Yeah, Listen, we're never intentionally I think we're rarely intentionally hurtful. I mean, there are some cases in which there's so much going on that domestic violence situations and other kinds of situations those don't qualify for what I'm getting ready to say, but I believe that most of us are just really never up to bad. We are really up to good, and finding an effective way to be in the relationship is part of what Imago therapy helps couples do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Will you share with us that? Fourth?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the last one is expanding and enhancing the therapeutic alliance, and what this one means this is how they articulate it in the literature and what this one means is really being able to connect with. If you're choosing therapy, connect with your therapist. In the early research. This tickles me to death because they talk about this being like your therapist needs to have an effective personality. That phrase is so funny because I've known some great therapists that I wouldn't necessarily qualify them as having effective personalities, but is it a personality.
Speaker 2:I don't know. We love the word effective but there wasn't a lot written about that, but that term just tickles me to death. But I think what is really true about when couples therapy works, it's because you've negotiated the contract well Episode number two in your series. You have an agreement with your therapist that is clear and mutually agreed upon. I ask my couples when I work with them can we have an agreement that I'm going to be, I can be positive with you all? It's going to be scary because you're going to be afraid. I'm going to forget all the pain and difficulty, but could we have an agreement that we bring a positive lens? And let me tell you why. I quote the research and talk about how helpful it is for me as their clinician to be able to highlight what's going well. Getting agreements clear about what is expected on both ends, clearly and kindly, makes the therapeutic alliance. It enhances the therapeutic alliance, and doing that every session, I think is really important.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking too of another contract that I try to bring up with my clients is that, especially when they're highly charged you know, maybe they've just had a recent thing that's been really hard, and I just ask you know, do I have your permission to interrupt when I see you're going down the rabbit hole?
Speaker 1:Because I know you've got it home for free and it's very painful to watch you do more harm to each other. So may I have your permission to interrupt you when I see that start to happen, and it's really very in alignment with what you said about. Can you let me be positive with you. I want what's best for you and when I see you having ineffective behaviors with each other that are negative, right, it's feeding into that negative bias. Can we do something different, Because we're in the pattern?
Speaker 2:sort of figure out how we're going to be together around that, but I absolutely think it's important. The other piece of that that I want to mention is that another thing about enhancing the therapeutic alliance is making sure that you're tracking safety and challenge that. Getting that nexus of making sure clients feel emotionally safe enough in the room and with each other that you can challenge, you can bring a challenge to them, because validation and empathy and understanding all terrific but if couples don't leave with, here's a new thing to try and it's going to hurt. It's going to be a little scary, because moving toward love is always a little scary. You know it's vulnerable. It's like a puppy laying on the floor with his belly up. And so do I have permission and do you feel safe enough for a challenge? Those things enhance the therapeutic alliance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that contract is so important because do you feel safe enough for the challenge? Either they're going to say yes or they're going to say no, and then you can troubleshoot the no, but I think it's a really great question. Do you feel safe enough for the challenge? Because how do you grow? I mean, I have not grown personally by staying the same, doing the same thing, not taking risks, although I'm pretty risk adverse, or I used to be prior to being in the hospital about 15 years ago, the same hospital you entered. I think that I've learned so much more about risk taking and how powerful it can be, because we really do have all this tremendous power inside of us. It's just been scary. It's scary sometimes. That's key to all of this.
Speaker 2:Safe enough enough, right, safe enough for a challenge. Yeah, safe enough.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners today that maybe we've skipped over or left?
Speaker 2:out? I don't think so. I'll think of a hundred things after I get done, but right now I think it's enough.
Speaker 1:Do you think you would go through the four? Just very briefly to summarize what your findings were For clarification.
Speaker 2:I don't think I was super clear about this, coco. These I didn't personally didn't find the four common factors. Those were already found. What I did was I looked at all the interviews that we did with Imago clients. I looked at those four factors and I said what did our clients say that line up with those particular common factors? When couples talked about the nexus of safety and challenge, with the therapist feeling like gosh, I felt safe enough that a therapist could say, hey, you're shooting yourself in the foot here. I felt safe enough that a therapist could say, hey, you're shooting yourself in the foot here. That all that data.
Speaker 2:I had the privilege of hearing so many couples talk about their experience and then aligning it with the four factors. So the four factors are not my original work. None of it's my original work. I just categorized. I just got the octopus in the gargabag. But the four factors are conceptualizing the relationship in relational, conceptualizing the difficulties in a relationship in relational terms, stopping vilification, ending blame and criticism, disrupting the dysfunctional patterns through the dialogue structure and we do it in imago through the dialogue structure and positivity and appreciations, expanding the direct treatment system and the way we do it with the way we do it in imago is all kinds of workshops and then expanding the therapeutic alliance, which is making sure you have the right fit for you so I'm really excited even more excited about your research now that I understand more clearly what your research was about and what you concluded, because I feel that as a therapist, I of course have tried different models and I have never experienced anything as transformational as the Imago Meta Theory and its impact on couples.
Speaker 1:And so just to hear your research and the other researchers that have had PhDs in marriage and family with a specialization in imagotherapy has really just validated something that was a feeling and an experience I'd had.
Speaker 1:But now, when you have all the data, it really just does validate how important our work is and how important it is that we make sure that we're looking at all four of those components as we're working with our couples continually so that we can be effective and really make a difference in lives.
Speaker 1:It's really a gift to help people know how to look for an effective couples therapist and give our listeners just an opportunity to be more knowledgeable, be a better consumer about who they hire to help them navigate this really challenging journey and who to entrust with their lives and their relationship and, as you said, the children that are affected I forget which person said this recently maybe it was Sophie that we're creating the playground in which our children are building their Imago match, meaning they're watching us in all our interactions and they're learning.
Speaker 1:You know, if my dad never comes home in the evening and my mom does everything at home, how does that impact that child growing up who they're going to choose in their relationships? Because sometimes in the grownup pain we forget about our impact on our children and the relationships that they will form not all because of us, but partly because of us. So it's too important to just go to anyone choose wisely, and I think this episode will really help people do us. So it's too important to just go to anyone choose wisely, and I think this episode will really help people do that. So thank you, kathy. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:I hope so. Well, thank you for having me. It's been really. It's really been fun and generative. I appreciate it. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, kathy. So everyone, thank you for being with us today on the Relationship Blueprint. It's 25 episodes now. We've hit a benchmark. We're in 230 cities now and 29 countries, and it's all because of our listeners sharing People like you, kathy, therapists who are listening. I'm having my students listen to the podcast because there's many lectures in every podcast that they can take with them, share with their clients, so that their clients can benefit from the knowledge of all of our wonderful therapists that have joined us in the Relationship Blueprint. So, signing off for now, everyone, thank you for being with us and like us on Instagram, like us on Facebook. Please make comments, whether you listen on Apple or Spotify or YouTube. We're really grateful for you listening and we enjoy all of your feedback. All feedback is providing me with a method to evaluate how can I make this podcast better. So don't be shy. Let us know what you need and until next time, take care.
