Transactional Analysis
Journal
January 2000 Abstract
Volume 30, Number 1
Psychic Organs, Ego States, and Visual Metaphors:
Speculation on Berne's Integration of Ego States
by Allan
Jacobs
This article offers a three-dimensional, developmental visual
model to expand the traditional Bernian three-circle ego-state diagram. It
proposes that ego states grow from the inside out: Child, Parent, and Adult
respectively. It raises questions motivated by a constructivist perspective,
presented in the transactional analysis literature by Allen and Allen (1991,
1995) and Loria (1991a, 1991b). Finally, it explores the language of visual
symbol or metaphor by way of establishing a justification for the alternative
diagram.
Cocreative Transactional Analysis
by Graeme
Summers and Keith Tudor
Drawing on field theory and social
constructivism, the authors present a dynamic, cocreative approach to
transactional analysis. This approach emphasizes the present-centered nature of
the therapeutic relationship—or therapeutic relating—and the
co-creative nature of transactions, scripts, ego states, and games. The authors
frame this approach within a positive health perspective on transactional
analysis (as distinct from an undue emphasis on psychopathology) and argue that
cocreative transactional analysis provides a narrative or story about
transactional analysis itself that offers new and contemporary meanings to old
transactional truths. The article concludes with a series of questions for
self-supervision that may serve as a useful guide to cocreative transactional
analysis practice.
Old Roots Revisited: Reassessing the Architecture of
Transactional Analysis
by Ulrike Miller
This article assumes
that the concepts of ego states and script are the central ideas in
transactional analytic theory and that reconsidering them will facilitate a new
view of transactional analysis. It describes the psychoanalytic foundation on
which trans―action―al analysis is based and demonstrates
that various transactional analysis concepts either amplify or explain one of
these two cen―tral concepts. The author’s goal is to show
transactional analysis as a theoretical construction rather than as simply a
group of pragmatic methods.
From Autonomy to Contact
by Servaas
van Beekum and Bastianne Krijgsman
Autonomy is one of the key concepts
in transactional analysis. A six-year research project in the Netherlands
offers new indications of what this concept really means. Factor analysis was
used to look for confirmation of Berne’s hypothesis—that autonomy is
manifested in the person’s capacity for awareness, spontaneity, and
intimacy—as well as the suggestion by other authors who added a fourth
capacity: responsibility. The results show a different and interesting outcome.
The data provides a powerful indication that autonomy is nothing more (or less)
than good contact.
The “Small Project”: First Results, First
Perspectives
by Gisela Grünewald-Zemsch
This article
provides an overview of the intention and design of the “Small
Project,” a therapy evaluation study about transactional analysis in
Germany. It describes combining transactional analysis theory with selected
evaluation methods in order to evaluate the therapeutic process. The initial
results of the study offer positive indications that transactional analysis is
a powerful, useful method for helping people. Some ideas are suggested
regarding the future of transactional analysis as a science.
Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Relations in Management
Organizations
by John Nuttall
Since the turn of the century,
management theorists have sought to explain human behavior in the
organizational work setting. This article argues that Fairbairn’s object
relations theory and Berne’s transactional analysis theory are
complementary and that in combination they form a particularly useful model for
explaining organizational behavior. Along with a brief review of these two
approaches, a management case study is presented that offers such a combined
perspective. Fairbairn’s theories are used to elucidate the intrapersonal
object relations and anxieties of the executives concerned, while Berne’s
theory of games describes how these were manifested in interpersonal relations.
Connections are made between aspects of Fairbairn’s theories and some of
the concepts used in transactional analysis. The author concludes that only by
understanding both the nature of anxiety and the way it is behaviorally
manifested can consultants and managers plan for effective change.
Maybe It's Not "Kick Me" After All: Transactional
Analysis and Schizoid Personality Disorder
by Carla
Haimowitz
Analyzing transactions works to help individuals identify and
change decisions they are conscious of making, particularly decisions that are
no longer functional for them. But can transactional analysis help people
change unconscious decisions about modes of operating that are so subtle, so
ego-syntonic, so familiar, that changing them seems inconceivable and
threatening? This article suggests that personality disorders can be understood
as distorted frames of reference and that transactional analysis—the
analysis of transactions that take place between client and therapist, between
clients (in group therapy), and/or within a client (in individual
therapy)—is a useful approach for identifying and changing these
distortions.
Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder Using
Transactional Analysis
by Sheena Hudson
This article
describes the application of transactional analysis theory in work with a
client diagnosed as having dissociative identity disorder.
The Defensive Function of the Game Scenario
by Ken Woods Abstract
This article illustrates how confronting or
aborting a patient’s game is nontherapeutic. It suggests that game
analysis proper actually consists of analyzing rather than confronting games.
It defines the three-layered defensive structure of the neurotic condition and
recommends analyzing the defensive function of the game as well as the encoded,
unconscious communication contained within the manifest content of the
conflicted speech comprising a game. Analysis of these unconscious
communications is well within the province of the transactional analyst.
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