Dr. Harville Hendrix

speaker

468 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 7 Jul

Dr. Harville Hendrix’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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A Bit of Optimism · Why We Fall for the Wrong Person with Couples Therapist Dr. Harville Hendrix · 7 Jul 2026 podcast

If you have commitment issues, which is why when we do work with couples, one of the first things we say is we call it a no exit decision.

And the reason I do the no exit decision is I can tell you in advance that when we start working, you will start making progress.

You will get more and more anxious about the progress you're making because it's violating your survival directive.

Because your brain has been fine with survival without the needs being met.

When the needs start getting met, it changes the survival directive.

So you get more and more anxious and you'll want to stop therapy.

And when you want to stop therapy is when I'm going to invite you to make a non-negotiable recommitment to the therapy process.

Because in about three to five weeks, the anxiety will go away because your brain will discover it's not dangerous to receive stuff that you really want and need and are getting.

But if you leave when you get anxious, that simply means your brain says, hey, I can't, I don't know how to operate and be safe with this system of stuff, good stuff coming in.

I can't count on that.

I can count on the bad stuff because that gives me security.

So the brain's kind of crazy about that.

So that makes perfect sense to me.

Helen and I did without a therapist.

Yeah, right.

And so let me just add on to what you just said, that part of it is that if I really become vulnerable and let it in, that I might lose it.

The other side of that is that if I take it, I will violate a directive in my mind.

So I have to reject what I get, which is what I want in order to honor a directive in my mind, usually coming from some message from your caretakers early in childhood.

Yeah.

I'll sabotage what I want in order to maintain the status quo.

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