Receiving Love

Name: Receiving Love
Rating: 4.5 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9781416507642

Transform Your Relationship by Letting Yourself Be Loved

By Harville Hendrix,Helen LaKelly Hunt

Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt explore why people so often resist the love they say they want—deflecting appreciation, dismissing affection, or finding their partner's care never quite enough. Tracing self-rejection to early childhood wounds and unconscious splitting, the book examines how these patterns play out across the stages of relationship. Eleven Imago-based exercises help couples move from this dynamic toward genuine giving and receiving, and ultimately a more whole and reciprocal partnership.

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Concepts

Rejecting Self / Rejecting Love
Hendrix and Hunt's insight that people who unconsciously reject parts of themselves will also deflect or diminish the love offered to them, making self-acceptance the precondition for receiving.
Unconscious Splitting
The early psychological defense of separating the self into acceptable and unacceptable parts, which later generates both self-rejection and difficulty tolerating a partner's full complexity.
Positive Flooding
An Imago exercise in which partners deliberately overwhelm each other with genuine appreciations, counteracting the negativity bias and restoring a felt sense of being truly seen.
Connected vs. Separate Knowing
Two relational stances: separate knowing maintains distance and judgment; connected knowing seeks to understand from inside the other person's experience, which is the foundation of Imago dialogue.
Receiving Quotient
Hendrix and Hunt's self-assessment of one's actual capacity to let love in — not just to receive gifts but to allow appreciation, affection, and admiration to land without deflection.

Chapters

Introduction
Part 1. Understanding The Problem
Chapter 1. Nothing's Ever Good Enough
Chapter 2. Three Marriages Gone Wrong
Chapter 3. The Unconscious Connection
Chapter 4. The Childhood Roots of Self-Rejection
Chapter 5. Refjecting Self/Rejecting Love
Part 2. The Solution
Chapter 6. The Science of Relationships
Chapter 7. Learning to Receive
Chapter 8. Establishing Contact, Connection, and Communication
Part 3. Exercises
Exercise 1. The Gift Diary
Exercise 2. The Imago Dialogue
Exercise 3. Learning How You Know
Exercise 4. Practice Receiving and Giving
Exercise 5. Positive Flooding
Exercise 6. Your "Receiving Quotient" Assessment
Exercise 7. Your "Giving Love" Assessment
Exercise 8. Your Imago
Exercise 9. Intimacy
Exercise 10. Becoming Whole Again
Exercise 11. Discovering Your Hidden Potential
Afterword
Notes

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Rating

Topics

Imago, Imago Dialogue, Relationships, Marriage, Separate Knowing, Connected Knowing, Unconscious Connection, Tuning In, Relationship Patterns, Relationship Stages, Attraction, Romance, Power Struggle, Mature Love, Unconscious Defenses, Attachment Styles, Anxious Attachment, Avoidant Attachment, Pursue-Withdraw Trap, Projection, Symbiosis, Differentiate, Minimizing, Maximizing, Self-Rejection, Split Self, Unconscious Splitting, Missing Self, Presentational Self, Self-Absorption, Rejecting Self, Rejecting Love, Self-Deprecating, Reparative Relationships, Attuned Parent, Relationship Healing, Mirroring, Validation, Empathizing, Relational Knowing, No Judgement, Optimum Distance, Appreciation, Gift Diary, Receiving Inventory, Gift Inventory, Positive Flooding, Receiving Quotient, Giving Love, Barriers to Intimacy, Relationship Wound, Whole Self, Lost Self, Growth Plan, Hidden Potential

Published

October 5, 2004

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

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