Transactional
Analysis Journal
April
2006 Abstract
"Freedom and Responsibility"
Volume 36, Number 2
Editor: William F. Cornell
Intimacy, Risk, and Reciprocity in
Psychotherapy: Intricate Ethical Challenges
Tim Bond
pp. 77-89
Risk and uncertainty are inescapable existential challenges that face
all therapists and their clients. However, they may be only partially
and inadequately addressed in existing approaches to ethics and
therefore merit further ethical consideration. This article builds on a
dialogue between Bill Cornell, Sue Eusden, Carol Shadbolt, and the
author about the ethical challenges posed by the revival of the
relational tradition in transactional analysis. It proposes a new
approach to the ethics of trust, one designed to respond to the
intricacies of psychologically intimate therapeutic relationships. An
ethic of trust is defined as one that supports the development of
reciprocal relationships of sufficient strength to withstand the
relational challenges of difference and inequality and the existential
challenges of risk and uncertainty. Examples are provided to illustrate
the application of this approach to ethics.
Freedom and Responsibility: Social
Empowerment and the Altruistic Model of Ego States
Pearl Drego
pp. 90-104
This article underscores the altruistic content of Parent, Adult, and
Child ego states. It extrapolates from Berne's (1957/1977a) cowpoke
story to show how the little boy who responsibly helped the cowboy now
helps his therapist to discover a path to update historical ego states
and bring them the freedom of OKness. This freedom is not only
individual but is altruistically oriented to experience the "other" as
OK. Berne's (1972) three-handed position of "I'm, OK, You're OK,
They're OK" envelops both individual and social freedoms. It spans both
individual wholeness and mutual responsibility between individuals and
between groups. The Cultural Parent (Drego 1983) of a group can help or
hinder freedom, justice, equity, and love among its members.
Perceptions of OKness of the "other" affect the perception of rights
and responsibilities in interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup
relationships. The lawyer's (i.e., the little boy's) journey to freedom
through the relationship Berne developed with him gave transactional
analysis psychotherapists technologies for healing the Child ego state
and responsibilities for healing the wounded histories of social
groups.
Roundtable on the Ethics of Relational
Transactional Analysis
William F. Cornell, Editor
pp. 105-119
This article is an edited transcript of a roundtable discussion on "The
Ethics of Relational Transactional Analysis" held on 9 July 2005 during
the World Transactional Analysis Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. The
roundtable was chaired by Helena Hargaden and Bill Cornell;
participants included Jim Allen, Richard Erskine, Helena Hargaden,
Carlo Moiso, Charlotte Sills, Graeme Summers, and Keith Tudor.
Oklahoma City Ten Years Later: Positive
Psychology, Transactional Analysis, and the Transformation of Trauma
from a Terrorist Attack
James R. Allen
pp. 120-133
The literature on terrorism and disaster has generally emphasized
immediate response. After awhile, however, the people who come to help
go home, and savings, insurance, and favors are used up. This article
addresses this later period, the long-term effects of trauma, and the
roles of outreach and other interventions, at least as they have been
experienced in Oklahoma City since the terrorist bombing of the Murrah
Federal Building in April 1995. It emphasizes the roles of permission
and protection, the cocreation of meanings, individual and cultural
scripts, and the transcendence of drama triangle roles and their
relatives. The article also addresses the possibility of posttraumatic
growth as people grieve for a lost sense of personhood and construct a
new one. Finally, it considers the concepts of increasingly complex
psychosocial and neurological integration (neuroconstructivism).
Freedom with Responsibility:
Interconnecting Self, Others, and Social Structures in Contexts
Robert F. Massey
pp. 134-151
Humans capable of freedom and responsibility live in contexts. Persons
exercising freedom with responsibility coconstruct both what occurs
between them as individuals and the quality of group life. In
responsible freedom, each person interprets accurately the meanings of
all parties and acts to protect the freedom of each to respond and
connect with integrity. Contexts both expand and constrict
possibilities for freedom and responsibility. Interpersonal trauma,
intergroup conflict (Chirot & Seligman, 2001), conditions of
justice (Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner, 1986), and power (May,
1972) impact freedom and responsibility. Eric Berne formulated a social
psychiatry that presupposes living in contexts. Transactional analysis
highlights experiencing contexts through ego states, transactions,
group imagoes, and scripts. These constructs emphasize the individual
and interpersonal dimensions of human development. However, larger
contextual dynamics necessitate expanding the conventional
transactional analytic perspective to include social-structural
processes. A comprehensive, integrative framework expands Berne's
social psychiatry to encompass social-psychological and systemic
processes-from self to international relations-that bear on the
exercise of freedom and responsibility. Effective clinical applications
require responsiveness to client dynamics and to emerging theory as
encapsulating the dimensions of personal experiences and social
structures through which freedom and responsibility, harm and healing
transpire.
Simunye - Sibaningi: We are One - We are
Many
Diane Salters
pp. 152-158
The material in this article was originally developed as part of a
presentation to the staff of a medium-sized company in Cape Town, South
Africa, as part of their "Women's Day" program. The author explains how
she uses various transactional analysis concepts in diversity workshops
in South Africa. She describes how she uses the concepts of the OK
Corral, cultural scripting, Cultural Parent, and individual boundary
distortions to enable people to own and celebrate diversity while
connecting with an understanding of our common humanity.
Being White
Marie Naughton and Keith Tudor
pp. 159-171
Culture is often viewed as "'other," and black as unusual, exotic, and
"cultural." In this way, white/whiteness is the dominant, privileged
norm and becomes both neutral and strangely invisible. This article
challenges notions of cultural neutrality and encourages white
practitioners to reflect on and engage with their own colors and
cultures. With privilege and freedom come responsibilities. Drawing on
ideas about whiteness, cultural identity, cultural scripting, and
cultural intentionality-as well as their own experiences, which include
facilitating a workshop on the subject-the authors explore the impact
of culture on the white therapist and of the white therapist on
culture.
Unconscious Constraints to Freedom and
Responsibility
Fanita English
pp. 172-175
Definitions of freedom and responsibility vary according to context,
family, culture, and religion. Our personal views and behaviors are
also significantly affected by one or more of three unconscious
motivators that channel our emotional energy in different ways in our
ego states. This article discusses these three motivators: the survival
motivator ("Survia"), the passionate/expressive motivator ("Passia"),
and the transcience/quiescence motivator ("Transcia"). It also
describes the characteristic attributes of each motivator and the
conflicts that may arise between the inner dictates of the motivators.
Examples illustrate how such dilemmas can be multiplied in social
relationships and how emotional balance is maintained by rotating among
our motivators.
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