 Imago therapy is a whole theory about why couples choose each other, why couples experience conflict and it's a whole approach in terms of how couples get out of conflict to create a conscious marriage. The theory of Imago is that everyone's looking for our Imago. Imago means image in Latin and the idea is that we have an unconscious image of our ideal partner. That no matter what we think we're looking for consciously, we're going to be unconsciously drawn to someone who's very familiar and that familiarity is somebody who reminds us of the positive and negative characteristics of our primary caretakers. In short, marriage is the unfinished business of childhood. It's an opportunity to kind of get it right again. The problem is after the romantic stage begins to wear off we fall into what's called the power struggle and that's where we experience the triggers from the past. It's only when we become conscious of the triggers understand that it's coming from something deeper, that it's coming from our past experiences whether traumatic experiences or just our childhood experiences or early formative relationships when we become aware of that we start to realize that our spouse is not the problem but half of the issue is our own baggage or maybe even more than that that we bring to the table and that when we can become aware of that we can create a conscious marriage where we can actually make a conscious decision how we react when we get triggered instead of just feeling on the defensive.