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Harville Hendrix visit his web site here Talk about it: Getting
the Love You Want
Harville (and yes, he probably did have a hard time in grade school with a name like that) - is one of the most respected authors and thinkers in the entire field of human relationships. His approach ranges from big-picture, deep-level thinking to the practical and concrete exercises and questions and have a direct impact on the day-to-day lives of his readers. He is also one of the most active and open of all of the relationship authors, endorsing such other thinkers such as Hal & Sidra Stone, John Gray, John Welwood, and others. It is noteworthy that Harville's present work was motivated, as he describes, by the pain of his own divorce (which came after many years of being a marital therapist (part of his story is outlined here,.which doesn't reflect too well for the marital therapy profession. Harville is praiseworthy for this alone). A fundamental premise of Harville's work is the observation that long-term relationships are generally based on unresolved childhood needs and conflicts - which are typically the underlying reasons why individuals select particular spouses. Although this point is controversial and counterintuitive (trying explaining that to a fifteen year-old girl who's convinced she's in love) - it is a recurring theme, and often one that is taken for granted in the thought of many other thinkers (Masters, Deida, Welwood, Huber, Beattie, etc, etc). His approach consists of a self-done 10-week (or so) course in marital therapy, and works for marital partners who are engulfed in conflict and seem to have come to an impasse with serious, long-term issues to resolve. Arguably, his "specialty" is doing an excellent job of helping the reader become aware of the past family influences on current close relationships. One of his major points is superb: that the search that happens within relationship, and the search for "the perfect mate," is actually the search for completion, fulfillment, wholeness, enlightenment . . . "IT." (a similar point made by Steven Harrison and Roy Masters, among others). We look for "love" from another person to make us happy . . . which eventually sets ourselves up for disappointment when it turns out to be the case (as is the typical cycle). One of his greatest strengths is shedding light on many of the previously mysterious underlying dynamics of what happens in a intimate relationship, and offers realistic, practical suggestions for what one can do about the situation. Hendrix's primary theme is that in order to deliberately have a successful marriage or successful relationships in general, you need a certain amount of real, hard-earned self-knowledge and self-understanding, and without it, one's ability to make a relationship work is dramatically lessened. Along these lines, a good deal of his message, to his credit, is focused on preventing unnecessary suffering, heartache, and trauma, through work on oneself before one gets immersed in a serious relationship.
Strong Points "For singles today, the spectrum of experience is broad, but confusion and despair about finding lasting love run deep." "So many singles concentrate all their efforts on perfecting the outside trappings and strategies of singleness, in order to stand up to the scrutiny of the mating game, while their inner selves remain unexamined and neglected." "I believe that as a single person you have an advantage over those who are married and trying to solve their problems in the throes of day-to-day crisis and hurt . . . I believe you are fortunate to be single in a culture that offers you the wherewithal and the opportunity to know yourself and your needs, to learn how to live on your own, to experiment with relationships and careers before you marry." "So much of the heartbreak of love could be avoided if we would postpone marriage until we learn what relationships are really about, and until we uncover the hidden land mines we bring to our partnerships." "If it were to become the norm for singles to delay marriage until they had made this journey, many of the problems that sabotage relationships would not arise." "It struck me that these people were sorely lacking in basic communication and relationship skills" "You know . . what I've concluded is that many singles just aren't mature - they're not connected to reality, they don't know themselves, they haven't the capacity to take on responsibilities, and they have fantasy-world ideas about love. They're either running to or running from marriage, but they are in the dark as to what it's really about." "They irony is that nearly 50 percent of those who marry before they unpack and examine their childhood baggage, before they get some relationship training, are all but doomed to rejoin the ranks of the single the hard way - via divorce. What they don't understand is that nothing will change until THEY change. They won't meet a healthier, more mature lover until they are healthier and more mature, until they've done their homework and preparation." "It is useless to try and nail down the 'right' person." "The social fabric of our country is unraveling before our eyes, and the disintegration is directly traceable to the crisis in the family, specifically to the quality of marriages - the nest from which children come. Underlying the crisis is a critical overlooked fact: the long-stagnant institution of marriage has undergone a revolution in the last century. But our minds and our hearts have not kept up with this change. Because we have not reoriented ourselves to the revised agenda of marriage, we're making a mess of it."
Weak Points As with all products we encourage a thoroughly open-eyed and skeptical approach, and although we found a great deal helpful, we also have become aware of many fundamental questions and potential disagreements with Dr. Hendrix: His work is ideal for a particular audience of those who find themselves swamped by "psychological issues," or those individuals who have arrived at an apparent impasse in their relationship without understanding why, or what to do about it. The early chapters of the book are, in our opinion, the most clarifying; towards the end of the book he relies more and more heavily on psychoanalytic theory and depth psychology, "inner child" work, and such dubious phrases as "healing nature as a whole," and other similar areas. Whether one agrees with all of these specific areas entirely or not, an open-yet-critical approach here works best, picking the most useful insights from his message and leaving the rest. One of his core assumptions, which we take issue with below, is that once you fix your psychological issues (understanding and overcoming your childhood conditioning, meaning, how you were treated by your parents) - then you will be able to love and have a successful relationship. This gives rise to many difficulties. First of all, mainstream therapy - which Hendrix makes full use of - is much better at describing problems than actually solving them. Hendrix is using the tools of mainstream psychoanalytic thought to try to resolve these issues (i.e. talk therapy, dream analysis, etc) - which, as discussed in our therapy article, generally doesn't work spectacularly well. As we've seen from individuals who have spent decades in therapy and have never gotten any "better," more powerful methods are needed to "make the unconscious, conscious" than Hendrix seems to be aware of. These techniques, which we feel work much better, are discussed here. Secondly, another perspective argued by David Deida is that you will never completely overcome your "issues" or childhood conditioning - so you have no choice but to practice opening and loving anyway, in spite of and through it all. To elaborate: A core theme of Hendrix is approaching "inner child work" or healing one's "childhood wounds" as essential aspects of a working marriage. He suggests that those wishing to have successful relationships should adopt (or recognize) a definition of themselves as a "wounded child," and he then proposes that the purpose of marriage is to "heal" that "wound." First of all, using this line of reasoning, the more therapy a couple has, the more healthy the relationship will be. Riiiiiight. Obviously, in real life; there are many healthy relationships with individuals who have never been through therapy at all. And further, one can even wonder if the opposite is the case - that couples who are very well-versed in psychology may even possibly do worse. Secondly, Hendrix suffers from some of the same psychoanalytic perspectives he draws from so heavily. Meaning, as stated previously, therapy is often criticized for finding out why certain problems have arisen; yet they are less effective at offering a solution to those problems. Similarly, Hendrix does a very good job of illuminating the problems in relationships, and perhaps the roots and origin of these problems; but his *solutions* to those problems (healing the "inner child") come across as weaker. Hendrix's approach to actually healing the "wounds" of childhood are, we believe, helpful at times, but perhaps not the absolute best available. Again, we suggest checking out the article "Does Therapy Work?" in the LiveReal Psychology Arena to discuss possible alternatives. Further, by this definition, every human is "wounded"; and even with the most ideal parents, "wounding" is apparently a universally defining event of the human condition. If this is the case . . . does it really need to be called "wounding"? Couldn't someone find a better word? After all, if "wounding" is an essential part of the human condition, perhaps some new terminology could be adopted that does not imply that someone (parents) did something "wrong." In other words, perhaps a stronger emphasis could be made that the inevitable issues that arise in a person's life ("wounding") are fundamentally natural, normal, and perfectly, in fact, healthy, and growth beyond the "normal" human condition to "wholeness" is, in fact far and beyond what we normally consider "normal" but rather, verges on the extraordinary. This becomes an issue because this perspective has the potential to, at times, create unnecessary animosity, guilt and blame towards and on the part of parents; in addition, some critics have maintained that this perspective puts an unnecessarily negative slant on the whole process (where one is defined as "wounded" or "inferior," and the best one can hope for is to become "normal" . . . rather than extraordinary, or beyond "normal"). Finally, again, in reviewing actual couples whose marriages have genuinely "worked" and continue to work, it seems that the majority of them have never at any time broached the area of depth psychology or examining childhood wounds. Apparently, then, there must be more to the picture. Finally, this case study could apply very well to some of the shortcomings of Hendrix's approach:
In cases like these, sometimes a more admittedly shallow, but practical and "street-level" approach like Michele Weiner-Davis might work better. While her approach has it's own shortcomings - possibly going too shallow, when Hendrix seems to go too deep - it can often be a more appropriate solution to real problems.
For digging deeper into the areas that Hendrix
covers,
"You don't need to have your emotional life
straight Talk about it:
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