Headed for Imago Couples therapy

[Grey Kitty]

My uBPDw did see a therapist a couple times... .and my suspicion is that she has set things up so that our therapist views this as a normal relationship with some difficulties. Now we are scheduled for a couple of 4-hour appointments of "Imago Couple's Therapy" There is a fairly short window when we can have the appointments.

The therapist told her that it wouldn't really be fair to tell my wife a lot about this therapy before I see her. So neither of us know much about it other than it is supposed to be stuff about how we relate based on patterns in our respective families of origin.

My wife does like this therapist a LOT. That is a good thing.

My wife (and I) were introduced to the possibility that she has BPD from a 3rd party a month or so ago.

Recently, my wife has been pulling the "You need to put a label on me that says I'm defective" sort of thing with me. I've since stopped using the word BPD with her, and I've even told her (honestly) that I don't care about labels... .I just care about how much we are fighting.

She has also taken a similar tack regarding verbal abuse. In this case, she admitted it to me before I ever used the word "abuse" with her. Now she gets really 'twitchy' about the idea that I would have mentioned to anybody that she was verbally abusing me.

I was really hoping that she would get enough individual therapy to help herself. It was looking good for a while. I know better than to think I can "nudge" her in that direction... .For now I let go and try what she is willing to sign up for. Later I may try a DEARMAN type letter asking her to get individual treatment... .or not, depending on how things go.

She does think it would be a good idea for me to talk to her therapist on the phone prior to our appointment, and I do intend to do that. I'll see what comes of that.

I see no signs of anything bad coming from the therapist. In fact the therapist suggested we do something like a "time out" to keep fights from getting ugly. I have tried to do this with various levels of success before... .I really welcomed the idea coming from my spouse.

When I looked the therapist up online, there was no mention of BPD (or any PD). The T does mention CBT, but not DBT.

I'm ready to go along and see what good comes out of it. Meanwhile I'm going to stick around here for a while--Thanks to all of you for the support and suggestions!

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[seeking balance]

Hi Greykitty,

I did Imago therapy 2 times with my ex before I suspected any type of personality disorder.  Imago is about getting to the core of where a specific feeling comes from - it is a deep process, and frankly - I do not know how it wouldn't trigger someone with BPD. 

The communication tools are good - but eventually, my pwBPD started telling me to stop "being her T" when I tried using the techniques at home - they just caused too much pain.  You basically start with a situation, and say "it made me feel -blank- when this occurred."  Then you ask, "when have you felt that way before."  then, "can you tell me more" then, "what can I do to help heal - blank."

It is deep, very deep.

Since BPD is like someone with stage 4 burns on their emotional skin; I am not really sure that Imago is the best use of time as it could cause more harm then good.

This was my experience - I am sorry if it is not as positive as you may have hoped for.

Years later, we did more communication techniques from High Conflict Couple that were a bit more effective.

Good luck,

SB

[Grey Kitty]

Thanks for the thoughts.

My wife hasn't been diagnosed as BPD. I do see aspects of it in her, but they seem pretty mild compared to much I read about here.

So I am hopeful that she will handle it reasonably well.

Sounds like I should really practice getting good at validation before this starts!

[Steph]

  Let us know how this goes.

If she has BPD, at some point, she is likely to not be able to control her stuff in therapy and, hopefully, the T will recognize it as BPD. This happened with us...

He ended up imploding in a therapy session and this highly ethical MC honestly and gently told us she wasnt able to help us, as she felt he had BPD and that he needed to get into DBT. Until then, when he had skills to manage the emotional fallout that MC brings, she felt it would not be useful or ethical to see us. That was the beginning of our journey back to health.

In your case, lets see what happens... .I am hoping for the best!


Steph

[colt81522]

My BPDSOgf and I are going to attend an Imago Therapy weekend Couples Workshop the last weekend in January. It is supposed to be the equivalent of 3-6 months of weekly therapy sessions.

Quite frankly I don't know if it will help or hurt but I've been asking her to attend some form of couples therapy for a long time. She tried individual therapy a few months ago but stopped going because she said she didn't trust the T. So the fact that she has now willingly agreed to attend anything gives me some hope. I have a bit of worry about how she may react to the possible intensity of the workshop but that is also a control/fix/rescue issue that I am going to avoid. She will either participate or she won't.

I will post again after we attend.

[Grey Kitty]

Today I did have a conversation with the therapist, and I feel good about her.

I did mention the possibility of my wife having BPD (remember... .no diagnosis), and that my wife has been getting upset if I say something to indicate that she has BPD. I very much wanted to explain this part of the background to the therapist when my wife wasn't there to get upset, and I told the therapist this.

I told her that I wasn't planning to mention BPD to my wife again... .nothing good seems to come of it. And that I wasn't recommending that she mention it to my wife either. The therapist said she normally can sense BPD upon first meeting a client, and did not get that feel from my wife. And also mentioned some of the old ugly history in the therapy world about the BPD diagnosis.

The really good part (from my perspective) was that the therapist told me that she would be intending the same sort of treatment whether there was a diagnosis of BPD or not. [I know, this doesn't 100% match what I've read here] In this case, I figure that this therapist will do all she can to help us, and none of us even have to discuss whether she has BPD or not. And that would be a worthless thing to fight about.

My summary is: I like this therapist. My wife likes this therapist. We're gonna see what she can do for us. Look for more info after.

[Kpax]

I did IMAGO with my  BPD ex. It was fine as long as we were talking about what I did wrong but as soon the focus shifter to her the rage came out and it escalated to her leaving me. I do like the ID they use for comunication.

[Grey Kitty]

I guess I never did report back on this here. A lot has changed over the last year

We did two 4-hour sessions, and really "got" the mirroring dialog. We both went through example exercises. I started mirroring the T just so we could understand how it worked. Then we did some exercises with each other, while the T made sure nothing got out of hand.

A bit more reading is telling me that there are deeper and/or more advanced uses of imago therapy in addition to this technique. I doubt a person with BPD would be willing/able to succeed at that. We haven't been back for anything like that, so I'm just speculating here anyhow.

In the last year we have used this technique on-and-off. Sometimes it helped a great deal. I can't recall an instance where it ever made things worse. I won't give it full credit for her improvement by any means, but it did make things much better for us.

I also doubt we could have learned this technique without a good T present to coach/guide us.  She really helped there.

Looking at it now, I see it as a structured form of validation. No wonder it worked so well

My feeling is that your partner with BPD is willing to go and try this, it really can help.