Transactional Analysis
Journal
April 2004 Abstract
"Gay and Lesbian
Issues"
Volume 34, Number 2
Treating Gay and Lesbian Clients: Lessons from Them and
from My Gay Son
Rena Conley
The author—the mother of a
gay son—discusses some of the differences between working with gay and
lesbian clients and heterosexual clients, with an emphasis on special stressors
gay and lesbian clients deal with in their youth and adulthood. The article
concludes with a discussion of the need to advocate for such clients.
Homophobia and Gay Affirmative Transactional Analysis
Carole Shadbolt
This article describes homophobia—both
institutionalized and internalized—and offers two transactional analysis
models for understanding it. The author then discusses homophobia within
psychotherapy, including transactional analysis, and deals with clinical issues
relating to psychotherapy with lesbian and gay people. A gay affirmative
psychotherapy that includes consideration of transference and
countertransference phenomena and the therapeutic relationship is described
along with a gay affirmative transactional analysis treatment model.
Homosexuality in the First Three Decades of Transactional
Analysis: A Study of Theory in the Practice of Transactional Analysis
Psychotherapy
Graham Barnes
Eric Berne, in the 1950s and
1960s, constructed a theory that brought about its own psychopathology of
homosexuality, leading to the virtual disappearance from the transactional
analysis literature of the concepts of the homosexual and homosexuality.
Berne’s colleagues (and others) continued developing his ideas using life
script theory to explain homosexuality as a psychopathology caused by a script.
However, in the 1970s there were some gay contributors who began the work of
removing homosexuality as a transactional analytic psychopathology and
increasing visibility in the vicinity of the transactional analysis closet,
although they left unchanged the mesh of theoretically intertwined but
consistent concepts that produced the psychopathology. This essay describes how
the psychotherapy of the homosexual patient generates theory, the theory
creates the psychopathology of homosexuality, and, in turn, the psychopathology
of homosexuality produces new theory. Also discussed are Berne’s writings
on homosexuality, which demonstrate that theory comes before the psychotherapy
and the psychotherapy precedes the psychopathology.
From Moral Malevolence to Autonomous
Performance
Robert Trett
What does it mean to be lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex within social contexts that present
simplistic, often banal, definitions of gender and presume heterosexuality as
the norm? Various coalitions of lesbian, feminist, gay, and more recently
gender ambiguity liberation movements have sought to address these questions
from an activist stance. The landscape of psychotherapeutic theory as it
applies to gender and sexuality has the chance of being reshaped by over three
decades of activism and liberation. This article seeks to contribute to a
transactional analytic framework for understanding and working with gender and
sexuality by referring to contemporary ideas from outside our discipline, in
particular, queer theory. The discussion involves a queer examination and
critique of selected transactional analysis literature and a guide to a
transactional analytic therapy informed by queer concepts for clients of
nonheteronormative sex/gender/desire.
From Cultural Scripting to Autonomy: Influences on
Lesbian Identity
Suzanne Johnson
This article links
postmodern deconstruction of gender categories to the cultural and intrapsychic
processes involved in gender script development. Hargaden and Sills’s
(2001) theory of the development of self is used to discuss the intrapsychic
process of lesbian identity development. Poststructuralist theorist Theresa de
Lauretis (1994) is discussed in relation to the claiming of body-ego that the
lesbian may be expressing. Identity issues experienced by lesbians are
discussed along with possible transference issues that may arise when the
therapist is perceived as lesbian. Finally, therapists are invited to review
their approach to gender and sexual identity development and presentation.
Queer Constructions: The Making of Gay Men and the Role
of the Homoerotic in Therapy
Paul Kellett
This article
considers the formative function of the social and individual domains on gay
sexualities. The first section describes the social construction of gay
identities and the dominant values and meanings attached to these by Western
cultures. The second section looks at the motivational drive of erotic desire
on sexual positioning and offers a reflection on homoerotic desire as it
emerges in the therapeutic relationship. The two domains of erotic desire and
sexual identity are related to a model of structural development, and
additional parallels with other transactional analytic concepts are drawn.
These are illustrated through a discussion of therapeutic work. The third
section explores some consequences of these issues for therapeutic theory and
practice and advocates a more radical agenda for therapists in challenging
social values and practices that pathologize homoerotic desire and those who
identify as gay.
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