They meet. She likes his sense of humor, his eyes and his Jeep Wrangler. He likes her kindness, her smile and the way she looks in jeans. At least that's why they think they're falling in love.
But it's a lot more complicated than that, says M. Dorsey Cartwright. It's our unconscious that really picks our mates - and it leads us inevitably to someone we will be incompatible with.Cartwright is something called a "certified imago relationship therapist" and a proponent of the work of Harville Hendrix. Hendrix is a marriage and family therapist, an author and the creator of the "Getting the Love You Want" workshop, featured last fall on PBS.
Each person's unconscious, says Cartwright, carries a map that will lead him to the kind of person that embodies the emotional traits of his parents or other primary caregivers. He will be drawn to a relationship because it feels familiar. And he will be drawn to it because he instinctively knows that there will be conflict.
"At the unconscious level, we're drawn to this person because he has some of the nurturing aspects of our parents but also some of the characteristics that frustrate us," Cartwright explained in a recent phone interview from her home in Texas.
The nurturing aspects generally are evident during the first stage of relationships, she says. "In the romantic stage, we're trying to get our unmet needs met through loving, positive behavior."
What inevitably follows, though, is the power struggle stage, "when we use negative means to get our needs met."
"If you're attracted to a person, it's a given that you'll find out you're incompatible," Cartwright says. And that's precisely the reason we've chosen that person.
While this may seem like a cruel trap our minds have set, she says, "it's really a tremendous gift - a way to heal our wounds."
Cartwright is in Salt Lake City this weekend conducting a "Getting the Love You Want" workshop. She will use ideas and techniques detailed in Hendrix's three books, "Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples," "Keeping the Love You Find: A Guide for Singles," and "The Couples Companion," a book he co-authored with his wife, Helen Hunt.
Hendrix, a former Baptist minister and professor of marriage and family relations at Southern Methodist University, began to explore new ways of helping couples after his own first marriage fell apart.
"One of the things that captured his attention," says Cartwright, "is that what each partner needs most is what the other is least about to give."
The goal of imago relationship therapy, she says, is to help couples grow into a "true love" relationship that combines both the passion of the romantic phase and "a deep, deep friendship based on knowing each other as individuals."
The key, she says, is the "couple's dialogue" - using the techniques of mirroring, validating and empathizing. In mirroring, each partner reflects back what the other has said. In validating, each partner acknowledges the logic of what the other has said, even if he or she doesn't agree with it. In empathizing, which is the heart and soul of the work, says Cartwright, each person tries to understand what it feels like to have his or her partner's needs and frustrations.
The only way to heal the wounds of childhood, she says, is through an ongoing relationship. "You actually learn to love yourself while you're learning to love another person."
For further information about the "Getting the Love You Want" workshops, contact Laurie Christie, 582-6704.