Interesting hypothesis. But there are some things that make me skeptical of it.

Firstly, you say that the alpha males who protected the tribe also had to dictate to the others. But my understanding is that, in some tribes, the leader was not like a dictator, but a revered elder who cared deeply about the others in the tribe. In other words, I don’t think it was necessarily a trait of tribal leaders that they had significantly reduced empathy. I’m sure it was the case sometimes. But I don’t think it was necessarily the case. My image of the psychopath in the tribe is more of a moocher and a con artist. I would guess that there were certainly times the con artist managed to get into a position of power. But I don’t think that was the norm because I’m not sure that type of leadership is very sustainable in that setting.

Second, in your hypothesis, humans moved from this tribal structure into the more modern civilized structure and then those who looked down on the ones stuck in the past took on psychopathic traits. But it seems to me that would mean they already had to have that lack of empathy and propensity for a sense of superiority. So wouldn’t we say that the psychopathic mindset was already present and just found a new target? (The fact that these traits were already on display in tribal culture is supported by stories like the one about the “kunlangeta”.)

Deception and trickery are certainly very commonly selected for evolutionarily. Obviously, they were, to some extent, selected for in humans. But honesty and cooperation were also selected for. So there is this co-evolutionary race that goes on.

I’m sorry you’ve had these encounters with psychopaths as they can be traumatic. And it’s a very important lesson that I hope more people learn that most of them are not like the sensationalistic portrayals we see on television and in movies. As to your mention of their love of preying on the victim, look up “duper’s delight”, a concept that really hits on that.

You’re absolutely right that psychopaths prey on the fact that many normal people just assume everyone is basically like them at heart. That’s why it’s so important to educate people that this is not the case and there are qualitative differences in character at play.

Thanks for your comment.

That said, as you say, there is quite a lot of deception and ‘trickery’ going on in the natural world, and which no doubt evolved in various plants and insects and animals as a consequence of the all powerful genetic instinct of survival.

PS I have had many ‘encounters’ with psychopaths over the years but, like most people, I thought of psychopaths as being murderers and rapists, and it was only about five years ago that I learnt otherwise and, as such, was able to see what I had actually been the victim of, and one thing is for sure, they just love it when they find someone they can prey on, and after pretending they’re your friend and having drawn you in, so to speak, they then blow your mind, quite literally, and all I can say to sum up is that evil just loves being evil.

Afterthought: One thing that psychopaths undoubtedly recognise in non-psychopaths – or ‘numpties’ as they regard us – is that normal people, generally speaking, think and believe that other people are just like them, and THAT, for example, is why so many people get ripped off by scammers. Trust is an inherent part of ordinary people’s make-up, and the psychopaths know it!

So what’s your choice – are you going to hold out or sell out? The clock is ticking because life is finite and you’re getting older, and your decision will cost you something one way the other. Do you hold out for full healing with an Imago match, knowing that it may mean living alone for years or even the rest of your life alone if no one is willing? Or do you settle for good enough, knowing that you’ll never get the healing you really want but you will get companionship and good treatment in a good relationship?

First of all, I think the dilemma is only present in a certain subset of Imago matches. If your Imago draws you to partners with a condition like BPD that influences their willingness or ability to engage in the very types of healing Imago focuses on, then you have that catch-22. But others, probably by far most people, are not in that extreme of a situation. And in that case, while Imago work may always have its challenges, they aren’t facing the same kind of fundamental dilemma.

You seem to be framing the situation as if the fact that it takes time to work on the relationship is a major problem for Imago and as if a couple can only really get down to enjoying their relationship after all the Imago issues are resolved. I don’t see it that way. The process of working through the Imago issues is itself the journey of the relationship. And the process isn’t all unpleasantness either. It involves moments of growth and excitement and adventure too. There are literally exercises focused on increasing the fun in the relationship that are part of the Imago process.

The tragedy is not if it takes time to do the work, even if it takes many years. The tragedy is if people don’t even know about Imago until after they’ve already spent decades repeating the same unhealthy cycles, so they don’t get started doing that work until decades in. But that isn’t a problem of the Imago model itself, just a problem of needing to spread awareness of it so more people can start the work earlier on.

Our experience is quite different since you have only met one Imago match in your dating life, while, for me, I’ve repeatedly attracted almost exclusively Imago matches and, each time, gotten closer to managing to engage them in actual Imago work. But, as close as I’ve come – and I’ve come incredibly close – they’ve always abandoned before the work could start in earnest.

At this point, I’ve had to think more broadly. You mention how some people aren’t motivated to change. My Imago matches are deeply motivated to change, but equally afraid of change. So there is an inner conflict. If yours is simply unmotivated, that’s a different situation. But in either case, this question of motivation brings up two important issues – social context and incentives. I see a major issue in the fact that our society doesn’t really incentivize this kind of work and often incentivizes its avoidance. So if you want a little insight into my latest thinking on this, it’s that for people with an Imago as conflicted as I’ve written about, it likely requires a focus on the incentive structure around the potential work. Without enough incentive, the basic disincentives of the social milieu will win out.

Hendrix does not say it’s impossible for a person to do healing outside an Imago relationship. He only says we can’t finish the job fully outside of such a relationship. I believe he would completely agree that we have the option to be with someone who is less than a full Imago match and still do plenty of healing. We just won’t be able to do as complete a job as we could with a full Imago match.

We talked a few years ago about this, and I’m interested to see if you think you have come up with a resolution yet. I was thinking that this whole problem may be based on the Nirvana fallacy, a false dichotomy between a real but imperfect solution vs. a perfect/ideal but ultimately unrealistic solution. I understand the dichotomy: either you find a willing Imago match to bring you to fully mature spiritual growth and complete resolution of past trauma (ideal solution, but often impractical) vs. limping though a stable but half-dead life in a non-Imago relationship, while every day your soul cries out for healing and growth while your loving and considerate partner tries fruitlessly to heal you.

I wonder if there is some other possible outcome. As you and Hendrix have both found out, Imago relationships are also not a perfect solution, because even if both partners want to work on the relationship it often takes 20+ years for them to completely work through their Imago-related problems, by which time they are middle-aged or even older, having spend their prime years fighting and being miserable. It seems that by the time they have worked out their Imago problems, it may have been better if they had marred a “normal” person and just learned to live with the wounds. And that’s under the best of circumstances. What happens more often – as you have found out with your women who have BPD – is that one partner is completely unwilling to change, or their capacity to change is limited, so that in the best case the “good” partner still gets only part of what they wanted, and they still have to choose between staying in a partially satisfying relationship or leaving in hopes of finally finding someone better.

I’m saying this because in my many years of dating I have met only one Imago match, which was 6 years ago. After a brief relationship she abandoned me. I have grown much on my own by applying what I have learned from her and from Hendrix, but at this point it seems likely that she is probably never going to change, or that she will never change ENOUGH to be a good relationship partner. Some people don’t want to change, and some have severe limitations on their ability to change. Some people aren’t motivated enough to put in the work to build good relationships. Her (my Imago match) behavior has been so bad that at this point I don’t have a lot of hope of things ever being different, and I feel like I’m robbing myself of my life by waiting and hoping that she will change.

Hendrix is adamant that it is impossible for a person to do the work of healing outside an Imago relationship. As much as I like Hendrix, I am wary of anyone who takes such a firm ideological stance without supporting evidence. In cases where one person is unwilling or unable to change, certainly there must be a way for the willing partner to find a satisfying relationship without having to live the rest of their life as if they were half dead in a relationship with a partner who is loving and caring but who is unable to heal their wounds because they aren’t an Imago match.

Thanks for your comment.

Yes, these discussions regarding fundamental dynamics of human attachment and relationship are likely to remain relevant for quite a long time. The themes I wrote about here definitely remain very prominent in my life and in the lives of so many people I encounter still.

Repetition compulsion is such a powerful concept and explains so much that would otherwise seem inexplicable.

I definitely agree with the importance of inner child healing. However, Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy encompasses that process and takes it to a much more advanced level. I highly recommend you check out IFS if you’re not familiar.

In Imago, the partner relates on several levels, which include both representing important traits of your original caregivers, as well as often reflecting shadow elements. So it’s not one or the other, but a combination. If you look into the concepts of the Lost Self, the False Self and the Disowned Self in Getting the Love You Want, you’ll get a deeper understanding.

You can of course seek out more information about the Imago model and Hendrix’s view of it. But I’ll offer what I know.

Hendrix certainly puts forth that the subconscious is trying to resolve something and that, when the relationship is enabled to play out to its potential, that resolution is actually achieved (which is the very goal of Imago relationships and therapy and is seen in practice.)

I agree that you can be primed by experience to notice certain things more than others, as in the example of the red car. But with Imago, it goes far beyond just noticing to strong, sometimes even overwhelming attraction to the Imago match as opposed to the lack of such attraction to a non-Imago match. And that attraction is not necessarily “comfortable.” In fact, it can be downright scary at times with its intensity. It can be so uncomfortable that people often run from it…only to have it repeat again until it is faced. In fact, one of Hendrix’s goals in his work is to educate people who keep trying to run away from Imago matches that doing so is futile since they will almost certainly just end up in the same situation again until they work through it.

This only becomes an intractable dilemma, as I write about in this piece, when one’s Imago match happens to be someone with a fundamental aversion to resolution. In other cases, where the Imago match is someone who at least has some significant willingness to work toward health, this process is a fantastic opportunity. So what I’ve written about in this article is what happens in a subset of Imago situations that involve particular kinds of people, not in all, or even most, Imago relationships.

The chemistry in Imago is picked up at a subtle unconscious level, perhaps through microexpressions, for instance. It is based in a recognition that the person has certain traits of the original wounding caregivers and of the aspects of ourselves that have been repressed or denied. This is explained in great detail in Keeping the Love You Findand Getting the Love You Want. So I recommend you read those if you haven’t.

If this was only about adoration, then intense attraction could develop for anyone who gave that. But what Imago explains is why our response has much to do with who it is giving something, not just what is being given. We seem to want to not only get what we didn’t get in childhood, but get it from someone who is as challenged in giving it as the original person who interacted with us in this way. Imago theory would say that it isn’t a coincidence that you were drawn to someone who offered communication and then took it away, but that, had they been the type of person who would go on to consistently give communication easily, you wouldn’t have responded to their original communication so strongly. After all, there are plenty of good communicators out there, yet most of them would not stir you in the same way.

I do think that being cautious about sex could help weed out some types, such as those with BPD, that often attract people through strong early sexual energy. But this isn’t a solution to the dilemma I’ve described here. If your Imago match really is someone with BPD traits, it would be just a way of invoking one side of the dilemma – namely the side in which we make the conscious decision to seek a stable, even if non-Imago, relationship despite the fact that this may limit the overall potential for healing.

However, Imago chemistry is not just sexual. Imago partners “push each other’s buttons” in a host of ways. I even believe that you can pick up on elements of these types of repetition compulsions in non-romantic settings where sex isn’t involved at all. It’s just that in a fully romantic Imago relationship, all systems are go in the same place so there is tremendous growth potential.

When you say “I wonder then if high imago types are mostly very sexual types on both sides?” it exhibits a bit of a misunderstanding about what an Imago match is. There is no overall “Imago type.” An Imago match for a given person is like a psychological puzzle piece that fits with their own psychological structure in a certain way. There could be Imago matches who are both highly sexual, both less sexual, or mismatched sexually. There are all kinds of arrangements that could be involved in Imago relationships depending on the structure of each person’s wounds. There are infinite precise Imago configurations, though they do fall within some general categories.

I really think you would benefit from studying up much more deeply on Imago so you understand the entire model and the full depth of what makes someone an Imago match. If you do that, I think you’ll see that while the points you’re making are important, they are based on an incomplete understanding of the model. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with the model. Perhaps you’ll believe Hendrix is just wrong. There is some research being done to validate what he is saying. But not everyone agrees with him, of course. But if you take the model as it is laid out, then you’ll see that it does offer a context in which to understand the points you’ve raised.

I imagine part of the reason there isn’t a lot of education from successful relationships is that many of the most healthy relationships involve people who grew up in healthy situations so they haven’t really had to get highly conscious. They were raised with healthy dynamics, had most of their developmental needs met, attract a partner at a similar level, and the relationship plays out naturally in a rather healthy way. Just as sometimes the naturally great athlete isn’t as great of a teacher/coach because they can’t relate to the struggles of the average athlete, perhaps, similarly, many naturals at relationships don’t even know how to articulate what they’re doing to those who are just learning about healthy relating.

I agree that some of the best education would come from those who went through the power struggles of Imago, gaining consciousness in the process, and came out the other side. Of course, Hendrix’s work is, in many ways, offering that education since that is what his work is based on. But it would be great to hear more directly from those who went through it. I think there are some resources like that out there, including testimonials from those who have gone to Imago therapists and seminars. You could contact Imago Relationships and see what they have to offer in that vein.

First, the whole concept of “chemistry” versus non chemistry vs the intent on Imago. It seems like there are some fine lines or blurred lines on this topic. One is that by following the Imago model of engaging with these patterns we are running into rather then running from them. I don’t know if the theory talks about chemistry of attraction does it ? per se – if you keep running into the pattern it is because the subconscious is trying to resolve something. Okay, is it trying to resolve or just finding what is familiar. In hypnosis and NLP they talk about the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The example of buying a car comes to play. Lets say you buy a particular model car and its red. Now all of sudden you see them everywhere on the road. BTW this happens to me after a break-up; i see the type of car my ex drives and notice that as my mind focus’s on that vehicle despite all the other vehicles on the road. Why? the subconscious is trained to look for it- The RAS sees it.

So if the RAS can do this with cars, imagine what it does with partners? “oh there you are again”.
I think the fundamental problem/challenge is that most of us LIKE THAT CAR (to stay with the metaphor). It’s comfortable and we recognize it.

So now do we ride this ride again? even though by doing so may lead us on a roller coaster ride?
What’s confusing in discussing this on other forums with the maximizer type is that we get fooled real easy because the other party gives us what we want and it feels good. So is the chemistry more about giving us what we didn’t get from our family of origin. In my case the partners that i have had seemed to give me adoration and a desire to have a partner who was a good communicator. I didn’t realize maybe this was because at their core they weren’t going to be good communicators. I don’t recognize this (or haven’t in the past) until they take the “candy” that they give away. Of course nobody likes to have things that partners give you taken away! The switch is amazing though. We say, “if i had know this was who my partner was, i would not have picked them!” Sort of a “wolf in sheeps clothing” scenario.

So first how to we avoid running into this?
One clue in this past relationship was sex. i view sex as love so I was or had been willing to accept cues for sex as cues for love. One book, “cupid poisons arrow” talks about how sex polarizes couples. The author views the solution as to NOT have orgasms with your partner. In searching for a partner that was willing or not willing to do that- she had to find someone who didn’t stimulate her desire to have an orgasm as much as the “hot” guy. What does this have to do with Imago or chemistry or bpd/npd? First, I thing from hanging around those forums for awhile, those that held out from either having sex too soon in the relationship or talking to their partner about NO ORgasm sex were able to weed out borderline or chemistry addicted types who would not want to go this path.

The view on chemistry here is: hot sex and hot chemistry equates to eating Junk food and the high that one gets from that. Slow sex or NON orgasm sex (which is based on more of bonding model) is better.

i have to say that with my last partner (who exhibits NPD to a degree) having sex was a huge trigger for her to control me and then shift into being a runner. I think the concept of “great chemistry” here scared her because for someone who likes control – losing yourself in sex is disempowering.

David Scharch talks about this in his work: “passionate marriage”.

My part of the equation with this: I was not willing to follow this “slow sex” or low heated sex model. I was so interested in pleasing my partner thinking that this was how to get love back from her. After the last sexual experience with my ex- she called me two days later and broke up or pushed me away by saying really mean and disparaging comments. I decided to walk away and I’m struggling with that decision but I needed to find my balance after she had told me after great sex that she wanted to see other men (the next day).

So I haven’t seen or heard anyone combine David’s work with Imago with Karezza (Marnias work).
For Marnia and her husband they have a very loving relationship based on bonding behaviors. The other partners she tried to engage with were not willing to do this slow sex. I wonder then if high imago types are mostly very sexual types on both sides?

Also, what’s particularly interesting about relationships is that there is very little education from those that have successful ones. It would be great to have a forum of IMAGO survivors who finally worked things out and were happy with each other? Where are they? and how about the NoN Imago partners who are happy? If we had a model to hear about successes versus failures most of the time, then our subconscious would also get good messages. Right now the airwaves are piping out the music of failure in relationships and our brains maybe are singing the only song it knows?

Just some thoughts.