The great Dr. Harville Hendrix has a theory about what happens in our consciousness when we enter into a romantic relationship. His theory of the Imago states that we are unconsciously drawn to partners who embody both the positive and negative traits of our primary caretakers. These traits don’t randomly appear — they’re imprinted into our subconscious from early childhood experiences. The person we fall for is not a stranger to our psyche; they are, in many ways, a composite of our past. This composite is what Hendrix calls the Imago.
According to his theory, once we enter into a romantic relationship, we don’t stay in the present moment. We regress — emotionally and psychologically — into our inner child, the vulnerable, wounded part of us that is still seeking peace. This regression strips away the polished surface of the social self — the personality we’ve built to protect the child within. What lies beneath is raw: longing, neediness, hope, fear, and unresolved pain.
And in that regressed state, something strange happens. The very traits that once attracted us begin to repel us. We want intimacy — we chase closeness — but when it’s offered, we pull away. Hendrix calls this the dance of intimacy: the cyclical push and pull of romantic bonding and retreat. We long to be seen, but when someone truly sees us, we panic. The closer they get, the more the buried wounds flare. We run from the very thing we crave.
This isn’t dysfunction — it’s a wounded system attempting to resolve itself. The subconscious hopes that, by reliving the past through our partners, it can find closure. But this isn’t how healing works. Without awareness, we don’t heal — we reenact. We don’t close the wound — we deepen it.
In our daily lives, minor emotional injuries — a small rejection, an unmet expectation — can reverberate with childhood intensity. The inner child awakens. The nervous system ignites. We move out of calm, out of connection, out of presence. The sympathetic nervous system takes over, and our reactions begin to feel out of proportion — because they are.
This is where my own theory builds on Hendrix’s work. What he called regression, I see as anxiety taking the wheel. The inner child isn’t just emotionally triggered — they’re physiologically flooded. They’re in survival mode. And in this state, rational thought, adult logic, and communication tools all collapse.
We can’t think our way out of that state. We have to breathe our way out.
So healing isn’t just intellectual. It’s somatic. It’s ‘nervous system work’. It’s deep breathing, returning to presence, again and again. It’s tracking the moment when the dance of intimacy begins — and choosing not to run.
Even if you’re not in a romantic relationship, your psyche will find other mirrors: your job, your friendships, your government, your community, your environment. All of it can trigger the same wounds. The human mind is always seeking integration. The question is whether we meet those moments with panic, or with presence.
This is where my own theory builds on Hendrix’s work. What he called regression, I see as anxiety taking the wheel. The inner child isn’t just emotionally triggered — we are physiologically flooded. We enter our own version of survival mode. And in that state, rational thought, adult logic, and all the communication tools we’ve learned collapse.
This is deep stuff. And the best part is — you don’t have to believe it’s happening. You can feel it. You can watch how it flares up. You can see your patterns as they emerge in real time. It quickly stops being theory. It becomes objective reality — a kind of emotional physics. It's the logic of how the mind works. Still mysterious, but observable. And, with enough awareness, even somewhat predictable.
We can’t think our way out of that state. We have to breathe our way out.