Transactional Analysis
Journal
July 2005 Abstract
Acceptance Speech on Receiving the 2005 Eric Berne
Memorial Award: Transgressions
Graham Barnes
This article
comprises the author’s speech accepting the 2005 Eric Berne Memorial
Award, with elaborations, including an excerpt from his study of the
circularity of theory, psychotherapy, and psychopathology, for which he won the
award, and a discussion of five questions expanding on these ideas.
Transactional analysis was the case for the author’s study. Alcoholism,
homosexuality, and schizophrenia were studied as examples of how transactional
analysis theory brought about its own psychopathology. The argument is that
there is no psychopathology until a psychotherapy is invented to generate it.
Every theory-centered psychotherapy names its own psychopathologies, which
define their own worlds of psychotherapy. This study, which is of the place of
theory in psychotherapy, is a theory of theory (of psychotherapy) and thus a
critique. The circular logic of cybernetics was utilized for this reflexive
study of psychotherapy.
The Use of Transactional Analysis in the Treatment of
Eating Disorders
Mervyn Brunt
Since 1859, when Marce described
a “hypochondriacal delirium” characterized by food refusal, eating
disorders have been recognized as having a psychological component (Silverman,
1997). This article examines the psychological factors inherent in anorexia
nervosa and bulimia nervosa using a transactional analysis developmental
perspective. The interaction between psychological and physiological factors
that maintain an eating disorder is discussed, and a psychotherapeutic approach
that includes the consideration of dietary advice, weight monitoring, and
medical intervention is offered. With reference to case material, the author
argues that ensuring adequate nutrition is compatible with the role of a
transactional analysis psychotherapist.
Role Lettering Therapy: A New Transactional Analysis
Technique from Japan
Yoshikazu Harano
Role lettering therapy,
a new transactional analysis technique developed in Japan, is described,
including its history, methodology, advantages, and applications. The technique
helps clients to decontaminate their ego states safely. Case examples are
provided, and some problems of role lettering therapy are considered.
The Therapist and the Erotic
Ken
Woods
Patients in therapy may displace their felt need for maternal
holding onto a need for sex and then present in a sexually provocative manner.
In response, the confused therapist may confront the patient for playing games
while other therapists may exploit the situation. The author suggests that the
appropriate response of the ethical and informed therapist is to treat the
patient’s confusion.
A Transactional Analysis Model for Psychological Work
with Pediatric Patients with Hearing and/or Speech Problems
Anna Rita
Carone Craig and Francesco Craig
Since children with hearing and/or
speech problems and their families often experience psychological difficulties,
it is important to provide counseling that supports psychological and social
adjustment so that such problems do not become chronic. This article describes
the multisystem method (MM) approach for working with these patients and their
families. Based on transactional analysis (Berne, 1947/1968, 1961/1971), this
method is a form of group therapy involving a number of families with similar
problems. Research into this method is described, including observations of the
therapy and progress of two groups: one with patients and their family members
and the other just with the patients’ parents. The efficacy of this
approach is demonstrated, even when intervention is possible only with parents.
Integrative Psychotherapy: The Truth of Love in the
Service of the Love of the Truth
Damon Wadsworth
This article
is a response to “Therapeutic Relatedness in Transactional Analysis: The
Truth of Love or the Love of Truth” by William F. Cornell and Frances
Bonds-White (2001). Cornell and Bonds-White critique relational
psychotherapeutic approaches in general with particular mention of integrative
psychotherapy and reparenting in transactional analysis. This article responds
by challenging their understanding of both integrative psychotherapy and
reparenting and asserts that neither stands outside of Berne’s two models
of ego states or his psychotherapeutic intent of altering intrapsychic
structure through clarifying interventions. The Parent ego state is discussed
as one of the central elements in Berne’s development of a two-person
personality theory. Questions are raised about the consistency with
transactional analysis theory of Melanie Klein’s notion of basic hatred in
human beings, which is discussed by Cornell and Bonds-White. In addition,
Cornell and Bonds-White’s consideration of the writings of Erskine and
Trautmann is shown to have numerous inaccuracies. Empathy and attunement are
defined and described in terms of both the structural and conceptual models of
ego states, and contact, as integrated from gestalt therapy theory, is
discussed as the distinguishing element of an integrative psychotherapy theory
conceptualization of empathy. Points of agreement are also offered.
In Praise of Loving “Betrayal”: Reflections on
the Steiner–Novellino Letters and the Life of Behavioral Science
Organizations
Gianpiero Petriglieri
As a reviewer for the
Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ), in October 2004 the author
read the Steiner-Novellino correspondence, which was being considered for
publication in the April 2005 theme issue on “Transactional Analysis and
Psychoanalysis.” In this article, he uses his unfolding feelings and
thoughts on reading it—in his roles as TAJ reviewer and as a member
and officer of the International Transactional Analysis Association
(ITAA)—as a starting point for reflecting on the relationship between
tradition and innovation, integrity, betrayal, and the vitality, or lack
thereof, of behavioral science organizations.
Is It about Homosexuality or Is It about Theory?
Miran Možina
This article was originally submitted as a
letter to the editor in response to the article by Graham Barnes (2004)
entitled, “Homosexuality in the First Three Decades of Transactional
Analysis: A Study of Theory in the Practice of Transactional Analysis
Psychotherapy.” In that article, Barnes cites the case of Mr. D., one of
Eric Berne’s patients and a homosexual to demonstrate that theory comes
before the psychotherapy and the psychotherapy precedes the psychopathology.
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