Imago Hostory and Resources

1990 Carin Ritzén Sick (1939-2007) went with her husband Hans Sick to the United States to attend a workshop led by Harville Hendrix. This inspired her to ask Hedy Schleifer, a pioneer in the international distribution of Imago Relationship Therapy, to come to Sweden 1994 to start Imago training here. In this first group of trainees we find Bibbi Kuntze, who after many years of work as a clinical psychotherapist, reoriented herself to work exclusively as an Imago therapist.

In the year 2000 Carin, Bibbi and Eva Berlander, daughter of Carin, started the first private Swedish Institute for Imago Therapy and in 2002 a complete basic training of Imago therapists took place there. Eva invited Jette Simon – Clinical Instructor with roots in Denmark and training programs in the U.S. and all over Europe - to do this training. Jette has subsequently been teacher for around 50 Swedish Imago Therapists.

Today the number of certified Imago Therapists in Sweden is rapidly growing. We are about 17 at the moment (2008), of which 5 have undergone Workshop Presenter training. Many more are on the way. In April 2006 the Swedish Imago Association (Svenska Imagoföreningen, homepage www.imagosverige.org) was founded, to promote and develop Imago in Sweden and provide Imago therapy and Workshops all over the country. In 2007 Hannah Engel and Anders Avemo took the initiative to invite Orli Wahrman to Stockholm to instruct the Association in the Communologue. A little later in the same year Eva Berlander invited Pat Love to give seminars in Gothenburg.

Today our Association has 33 members and is growing.