The Emotional Adaptations We Bring Into Love
How childhood survival strategies shape adult relationships?
In Imago Relationship Therapy, what we call adaptations are not random habits or personality traits.
They are creative survival responses to unmet childhood needs and early emotional injuries.
As children, we learned:
What parts of ourselves were welcomed
What emotions felt unsafe to express
How to stay connected to imperfect caregivers
These lessons shaped our character adaptations, ways we learned to protect ourselves emotionally while preserving attachment.
In Imago language:
The wound is what we didn’t consistently receive (attunement, safety, validation, presence).
The adaptation is how we learned to cope with that absence.
The Imago match is the unconscious selection of a partner who activates these old patterns, not to hurt us, but to heal them.
Why Your Partner Feels So Triggering (and So Important)
We don’t choose our partner by accident.
We are unconsciously drawn to someone who resembles the emotional landscape of childhood—not because it was healthy, but because it is familiar. This is the Imago.
When your partner expresses a need, disappointment, or frustration, it often activates the original wound. Your nervous system doesn’t respond to the present moment alone—it responds to the past.
That’s when adaptations take over:
Withdrawal to avoid overwhelm
Defensiveness to prevent shame
Control to manage unpredictability
Over-giving to avoid abandonment
From the outside, this looks like resistance.
From the inside, it’s protection.
The Core Imago Shift: From Protection to Conscious Relationship
In Imago, healing doesn’t happen by eliminating adaptations.
It happens by making them conscious.
Instead of:
“What’s wrong with me or my partner?”
We ask:
“What is this adaptation protecting?”
“What wound is being touched right now?”
“What does this part of me need in order to feel safe enough to stay connected?”
When couples slow down reactions and understand the function of their adaptations, the power struggle softens. The partner is no longer the enemy, the wound is finally seen.