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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