Harville Hendrix: Relationships, the Brain, and Zero Negativity
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tami Simon speaks with Harville Hendrix, a therapist and educator with over three decades of experience working with couples and singles seeking intimate partners. The cofounder of the Institute for Imago Relationship therapy with his wife Helen, Dr. Hendrix has authored and coauthored a number of influential books on relationship psychology including Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Find, as well as the six-CD Sounds True audio learning course, Finding and Keeping Love. In this episode, Tami speaks with Harville about a biological explanation for the notion that opposites attract, what it might mean to recognize “otherness” in relationship, and the value of creating a relationship that is without judgment, or “living with zero negativity.” (57 minutes)
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Excellent podcast,!!!! I think you should have had 2 full hours with Mr. Hendrix . As a woman who got married for the first time at age 46 I would love to find out how I could get my husband interested in this. He’s a kind of guy’s guy and I don’t know if he would be open to attending one of Mr. Henrix’s workshops. Is there a “gentle” way to introduce some of these concepts? To me, the information sounds transformative but my husbands such a pragmatic type of guy. Thanks Tami for another great lesson
Comment by Diane garrity — June 28, 2011 @ 5:44 pm
Another outstanding interview! I listened to Leigh Forton right before and she spoke on how she had a most judgmental relationship with her husband and how that may have contributed to her ill health. Now, Harville speaks of being nonjudgmental towards our beloved to have the blessed relationship we all desire and sets forth steps to do that. He also speaks on how our negativity not only harms the other, but ourselves. Another wonderful Podcast! I wish I had limitless funds and time, as I would buy all the books and audio tapes, etc from all the interviewees I have listened to so far to study and practice. It’s truly a wonderful world and life.
Comment by Marie — June 29, 2011 @ 2:28 pm
Harville Hendrix…. the amygdala notwithstanding, why don’t you ask for the human to manipulate his behavior towards higher capabilities, instead of kowtowing to the primitive survival reflexes of the brain. We can do much better than get along well in relationships.Through thorough self knowing and dramatic honest expression of feelings and truthful and honest response, humans learn deep empathy, they feel the others experience, the innocence of all their feelings. They could even learn to stand messages not skillfully/caring-ly delivered. In my experience, in this milieu of innocent disclosure, innocent discovery, innocent surrender to what is….. this is truly the bridge to ‘God.’ jr
Comment by james Renn — July 1, 2011 @ 7:12 pm
[...] Sounds True: Insights at the Edge. [...]
Pingback by Sounds True: Insights at the Edge | joyandgratitude — July 3, 2011 @ 10:38 am
First time I’ve read anything by Harville Hendrix – wonderful and wise. This is where I want to go: zero negativity.
Thanks for making this available.
Comment by Willem de Villiers — July 3, 2011 @ 11:53 am
Tami & Harville–thank you! This was an incredible 57 minutes. Great questions, fascinating insight and very useful, immediately ‘implentable’ suggestions.
Comment by Tina — July 4, 2011 @ 10:46 am
What terrific insight – it is so true that one has to get out of the negativity and quit judging one another so that each can feel emotionally safe and willing to share completely with the confidence that their opinions, thoughts, and feelings will be fully accepted. To not only have no judgment but to actually appreciate and even celebrate the differences will open the door to true deep intimacy. It is important to have each party feel completely safe to share thoughts and feeling knowing that their partner totally respects their uniqueness no matter how different it may be from your own. I followed along with the transcript but I would like to be able to download the transcript so that I could increase the font and go over it several more times. There are so many pearls of wisdom in the conversation and Tami did an excellent job in drawing key relevent information out and keeping the topics flowing. Thanks for a great presentation!
Comment by Mark — July 8, 2011 @ 10:16 pm
Psychologist Harville Hendrix reminds us how deeply we are affected by our first four years of life. A large part of our later life seems to involve a need to heal emotional injuries we suffered during this time. In our first year of life this might be related to attachment, second year exploration, and third year identity.
In our later relationships, especially our intimate relationships, we have the opportunity to make these wounds worse or to heal them. A healing relationship is one in which zero negativity is practiced. This means that we do not judge the other in order to put them down and show them to be a not OK person. I guess we do this to try to make our self feel superior but it does not work. When we do this we suffer as much as the other.
Harville believes that God dwells in the midst of loving and thriving relationships. Perhaps we could practice trying to create some of these in our lives.
Comment by Cloud — August 8, 2011 @ 8:01 am
While I agree with most of what Dr. Hendrix is saying and practice couples counseling using the same theories, I do keep in mind that these are only theories. Dr. Hendrix’s contention that ALL couples unconsciously pick a partner who mirrors their early care-giver is astounding to me. What about arranged marriages? What about marriages of convenience or “accidental” marriages where there is no love? Sure you can always find something in your partner that reminds you of your mother. That’s probably because the range of human experience is SO BROAD that it is inevitable that there will be some overlap in the behavior of ANY two humans. You can look at this accidental overlap and conclude; “see, it proves my theory”, but it’s not really proof scientifically speaking. It’s anecdotal evidence at best. Also, using the denial accusation is patently unfair in therapy. “If you don’t agree with me then you are in denial” is circular reasoning and a no win situation for the client. Basically, these methods of pointing out coincidental behavior and then accusing denial amount to methods to ensure that the therapist is always right. One of the traps that therapists can fall into is thinking they are the “expert”. It’s a critical mistake when it comes to human behavior. Maybe you can be the expert about computer circuitry or something, but it’s risky when it comes to counseling human beings. Taking the authority stance will “steal” the authority from the client unless they have a very strong sense of self (many clients do not). The risk is basically intellectually bullying the client into agreeing with the therapist. The client then further loses their sense of personal integrity.
Comment by Paul — September 2, 2011 @ 3:39 pm