TAJ January 2002 Abstracts

Measuring the Effectiveness of Transactional Analysis: An International Study
Theodore B. Novey
The effectiveness of psychotherapy carried out by a group of 27 international certified transactional analysts as a function of therapy length is compared to the effectiveness of groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, marriage and family counselors, and physicians as measured in a research study carried out by the staff of Consumer Reports, with Martin Seligman as their consultant ("Mental Health," 1995; Seligman, 1995). Comparison is also made to the results from a group of psychoanalytic psychotherapists (Freedman, Hoffenberg, Vorus, & Frosch, 1999). The results compiled from the responses of 932 clients from four language groups confirm that therapy lasting more than six months is considerably (40%) more effective than that lasting for less than six months. The data also determines that the effectiveness of certified transactional analysts is significantly higher (p << 0.001) than the effectiveness of any of the groups from the Consumer Reports study.

Factor Analysis of the Ego State Questionnaire
Donald A. Loffredo, Rick Harrington, and Allan Prince Okech
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate construct validity for the Ego State Questionnaire (ESQ) using factor analysis. The ESQ is a 40-item experimenter-constructed instrument that measures the strength of functional ego states. Two hundred students were asked to complete the ESQ in class. A VARIMAX rotation factor analysis of the 200 Ego State Questionnaires revealed five primary factors corresponding to the five functional ego states. Thus, factor analysis of the ESQ revealed that it does measure five functional ego states (factors), although with varying accuracy.

A Life Position Scale
Fredrick A. Boholst
This article describes the construction of a Life Position Scale developed by the author. Initial items representing four convictions articulated by Berne (1972)-I'm OK (I+), I'm not-OK (I-), You're OK (U+), and You're not-OK (U-)-were administered to 95 participants. The top five items for each conviction, with item-total correlations that reached an alpha level of p < .05, were retained for a subsequent factor analysis. An exploratory type of factor analysis constraining the process to two factors yielded a factor neatly containing all "I" items and another factor containing "You" items, with the OK items taking on opposite loadings to the not-OK items. Underlying factors seem to be I and You factors, not factors representing OK and not-OK. The final items are presented with suggestions for future research and a question for future theory development. Readers are free to administer the scale in their clinical and research practice but are encouraged to establish norms based on their culture and locale.

Validation of the Zulliger Test with Transactional Analysis as a Guideline
Guenia Bunchaft, Alberto Luís da Rocha Tavares, and Vanda Leite Pinto Vasconcellos
This article describes a study designed to show the validity of the Zulliger test (Zulliger & Salomon, 1970) when applied to transactional analysis constructs. Thirty-three patients who were undergoing transactional analysis therapy were asked to respond to the Zulliger test collectively applied. Their responses were blindly and independently analyzed by two specialists in the Zulliger test, and the results were compared with information from psychological profiles prepared by the patients' psychotherapist. The data strongly support the validity of the Zulliger test in the context of transactional analysis. The significance level is in the range of 1% to 5%, according to the specific construct. The study also provides evidence of two theoretical formulations: the so-called basic driver and the defensive life position.

Transactional Analysis Supervision or Supervision Analyzed Transactionally?
Keith Tudor
A review of the literature on supervision reveals surprisingly few specifically transactional analysis models of supervision. The author offers an organizing framework for supervision that locates and interrelates transactional analysis philosophy, practice, and theory, in the course of which Berne's (1966) therapeutic operations are applied to supervision as "supervisory operations." The article explores the question of whether there is such a thing as transactional analysis supervision or whether supervision is a metatheoretical-and, for that matter, a transdisciplinary-activity that may be analyzed in transactional analysis terms.

Expanding Permissions: New Perspectives on Working with Transactional Analysis and Sexual Difficulties
Fran Parkin
This article reviews the existing transactional analysis literature on approaches to sexual difficulties and suggests how these approaches can be expanded to take in postmodern ideas that deconstruct the concept of dysfunction. This literature is viewed in the context of Annon's (1976) PLISSIT (Permission + Limited Information + Specific Suggestions + Intensive Therapy) model to assist assessment and treatment planning. In particular, the concept of permission, which has specific meanings in transactional analysis, is expanded and reinterpreted at the different levels within PLISSIT. The author suggests that by diagnosing the ego states involved in the problem, the therapist can choose at which level of PLISSIT and from which ego state to respond.

The Adult: Once Again with Feeling
Claude M. Steiner
The question of the existence of emotions in the Adult ego state is explored with reference to evolutionary and neuroscience research. Love of truth is proposed as the essence of the Adult emotion.

Some Reflections on Simple OKness
Ken Woods and Mary Woods
The transactional analysis formulation of "I'm OK, You're OK" can become jargon when it is used simplistically to define the selfhood of the individual. The authors contend that selfhood is more complex than that and illustrate this idea with examples of how some mass murderers have an elevated sense of their OKness while some philanthropists struggle with a sense of their not-OKness. The authors conclude that the complexity of selfhood cannot be defined simply in terms of OKness and not-OKness.

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