TAJ January 2008 Abstracts

This article expresses appreciation to those responsible for the 2007 Eric Berne Memorial Award to Helena Hargaden and Charlotte Sills and then goes on to review relational psychotherapy in the context of the wider field, including some of the principles and philosophy of the approach. The features of the original theory are summarized in order to locate the work within the rapidly developing field of relational transactional analysis.

The Role Concept of Transactional Analysis and Other Approaches to Personality, Encounter, and Cocreativity for All Professional Fields
Bernd Schmid
pp. 17-30
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This article is the final exposition of Bernd Schmid's keynote speech presented at the 2007 International Transactional Analysis Conference in San Francisco. Schmid is the winner of the 2007 Eric Berne Memorial Award for his adaption of the transactional analysis concept of ego states. His role model integrates transactional analysis approaches with systemic ideas and can be used as both a personality model and a communication model. It expands the ego state model, describing the individual as the portfolio of his or her roles played on the stages of his or her world. Background information about these ideas are provided along with perspectives that are integrated in this role model. Familiar concepts-including intuition, encounter, empathy, humanity, and spirituality-are described from the point of view of an integrated approach.

Cooperation, Relationship, and Change
Richard G. Erskine
pp. 31-35

This keynote speech explores various aspects of human relationships and cooperation that are dependent on interpersonal connection and involvement. Eight principles of relational group psychotherapy and four homeostatic functions are considered as elements of cooperation, relationship, and change. The eight concepts of tolerance, humility, compassion, conscientiousness, curiosity, graciousness, creativity, and optimism are described as enhancers to quality relationships. Predictability, identity, continuity, and stability are presented as homeostatic functions.

The Power Is in Our Process
Adrienne Lee
pp. 36-42

This article is the adapted transcript of a keynote speech delivered on 9 August during the 2007 International Transactional Analysis Conference in San Francisco. The conference theme was "Cooperation and Power: Relationships, Choices, and Change," and this speech relates the theme to "process analysis" using a basic attachment model derived from George Kohlrieser that is related to Hegel's dialectic theory and Lacan's theories of the development of self. The dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis becomes a model to describe the experience of physis and unification in our cocreated process. The process of the keynote speech was intended to parallel the content.

"Take It": A Sixth Driver
Keith Tudor
pp. 43-57

"Take it" is considered as a sixth driver that accounts, both in developmental and social terms, for the introjection by the child of Parental messages to take and own objects in an inappropriate, exploitative, and unsustainable way. As a negative driver message, "Take it" is considered to support the development of narcissism. It also accounts for the integration of messages that encourage the child to impact in a constructive and sustainable way his or her environment. The author reflects on the nature of theory and the impact of a new contribution to existing transactional analysis theory, as well as on a number of theoretical implications of this additional driver. This contribution to the literature is placed in the context of transactional analysis as a social psychology and a radical psychiatry.

Metacommunicative Transactions
Mark Widdowson
pp. 58-71

This article presents metacommunicative transactions as a collaborative relational therapeutic method for exploring the unfolding of the therapeutic relationship in the here and now. The theoretical basis of metacommunicative transactions and their similarity to and difference from empathic transactions (Clark, 1991; Hargaden & Sills, 2002) is discussed. Metacommunicative transactions are firmly located within a framework of transactional analysis psychotherapy, and the article describes how they relate to Woollams and Brown's (1979) four rules of therapy. The use of metacommunicative transactions to promote insight into ego states, transactions, games, scripts, and impasses is illustrated along with ways they can be used to invite both client and therapist into autonomous relating. The article concludes with practical guidance for therapists in design and use of metacommunicative transactions in therapeutic practice.

Understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: An Integration of Transactional Analysis and Psychoanalysis
Kieran Nolan
pp. 72-86

This article presents a new model that elucidates the etiology and adult manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The author links transactional analytic and psychoanalytic concepts of symbiosis together with the latest neurobiological research and evidence. This is related to Winnicott's (1949/2004b) concept of overactive mental functioning and to illustrations from clinical work.

Letter to the Editor
p. 87

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