Getting the Love You Want

What it is about

Getting the Love You Want sets out Imago relationship therapy for a general reader. Hendrix describes partner choice as partly a search for the familiar unfinished business of childhood, and the power struggle that follows as that history waking up inside the marriage. The later dialogues he offers—mirroring, validation, empathy—are meant to slow blame so a request can be heard. Later editions credit collaboration with Helen LaKelly Hunt; the frame remains the 1988 book.

Questions it can answer

• Why can the person one chose become the person one most fights?
• What is a couples dialogue meant to do that ordinary arguing does not?
• How does the book connect childhood frustration with present complaint?

What you will not find

• Evidence that every partner is a replica of a parent
• A screening tool for a dangerous relationship
• East Asian kinship institutions in any detail