Transactional Analysis
Journal
January 2001 Abstract
"The Schizoid
Process"
Volume 31, Number 1
The Schizoid Process
by Richard G.
Erskine
This article was originally presented as the introduction to
the continuing education symposium on "The Schizoid Process" held on 20 August
1999 during the International Transactional Analysis Association annual
conference in San Francisco. Dr. Erkine served as the symposium
moderator.
Psychotherapy of Schizoid Process
by Gary
Yontef
Schizoid process is one of the most ubiquitous personality
patterns, but it is insufficiently discussed in the literature. This article
offers a description of both the true schizoid and the prevalent schizoid
process that runs through various types and levels of functioning. Schizoid
process and personality type are described, including the characterological
organization, interpersonal processes, and developmental origins of schizoid
process. Therapy of schizoid process is discussed in terms of presentation of
the schizoid in psychotherapy, development of the therapeutic relationship,
stages of therapy, and treatment suggestions and cautions.
Withdrawal, Connection, and Therapeutic Touch: A
Roundtable on the Schizoid Process
by Richard G Erskine, Helena
Hargaden, Lynne Jacobs, Ray Little, Marye O'Reilly-Knapp, Charlotte Sills,
Thomas Weil, and Gary Yontef
This article presents excerpts from a
roundtable discussion on the schizoid process held as part of a continuing
education symposium at the August 1999 ITAA annual conference in San Francisco.
Consideration is given to the importance of a number of factors in work with
schizoid clients, including safety, autonomy, the therapeutic use of both
physical and nonphysical touch, rage, the intersubjective nature of therapy,
projective identification, understanding defensive processes, and the use of
counter-transference.
Schizoid Processes: Working with the Defenses of the
Withdrawn Child Ego State
by Ray Little
This article
examines the defenses of the withdrawn Child ego state as described by both
transactional analysis and British object relations theory. The process of
withdrawal is considered, and the principles of therapy from a relational
perspective are explored.
Between Two Worlds: The Encapsulated Self
by
Marye O'Reilly-Knapp
This article explores the nature of the schizoid
process, in which withdrawal serves to protect the individual in the face of
psychological collapse. Someone who uses schizoid defenses for survival fears
living in relationship and splits off from both the external world of
experiences and the inner self. Caught between external and internal conflicts,
the person may withdraw into autistic encapsulation, a primitive method of
protection, and life is endured in a state of isolation, ambivalence, and
confusion. This article considers how the schizoid condition may manifest as
dissociative and autistic states, and a fourth pattern of insecure attachment
is introduced. Case vignettes are used to illustrate the phenomenological
experiences of the schizoid's unspoken and sequestered world and to identify
how contact and the methods of inquiry, involvement, and attunement are used in
an intensive therapeutic relationship.
Deconfusion of the Child Ego State: A Relational
Perspective
by Helena Hargaden and Charlotte Sills
This
article proposes a theory of self based on Berne's (1961-1986) original
structural model of ego states and on elements of object relations theory and
self psychology. Consideration is given to the implications of this theory for
psychotherapeutic methodology - including the therapist's use of self - as they
relate to understanding and working with the internal dynamics of the Child ego
state. The authors suggest that a congruent methodology for deconfusing the
Child involves using the transferential relationship as the vehicle for
deconfusion, and they identify four interrelated steps in this process.
Transference and countertransference are defined and explored, case material is
presented to demonstrate the therapist's use of self, and figures based on the
structural model of ego states are offered for each step. When we refer to the
therapist's interventions and behavior we mean to imply that the therapist
always functions in the Adult. The authors demonstrate how Berne's therapeutic
operations provide a valuable skeleton for mapping the processes of
decontamination and deconfusion.
Therapeutic Relatedness in Transactional Analysis: The
Truth of Love or the Love of Truth
by William F. Cornell and Frances
Bonds-White
Berne was quite critical and skeptical of those forms of
therapy that encouraged feeling over thinking, referring to "Greenhouse" games
(Berne, 1964/1967, pp. 141-143) in which clients escalate feelings and often
idealize feeling over thinking. For the past decade, however, transactional
analysis seems to be developing in a different sort of "Greenhouse," one of
enforced warmth, idealized relationships, and attachment/empathy-based clinical
strategies. When the authors were originally trained in the 1970's,
transactional analysis therapists were supposed to confront people into health.
Now it seems they are to attach, attune, and empathize clients into health. Yet
Berne's treatment group was not an empathic holding environment; it was an
interpersonal study matrix. This article offers a critical review of clinical
applications within transaction analysis of theories of attachment, attunement,
and empathy. It critiques the clinical models of therapeutic relatedness and
presents a clinical model of therapeutic space, which provides client and
therapist with the room and opportunity for curiosity, uncertainty, and
conflict.
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