We write this editorial in a markedly different situation than the one we had anticipated. This issue commemorating the 50th volume of the Transactional Analysis Journal celebrates the breadth and depth of contemporary thought and practice in all four fields of transactional analysis. It was due to be launched in July at our world conference, where we would have been in a celebratory mood.
We are still proud to be offering these papers but, of course, the mood is more subdued. The global pandemic has rendered most of us prisoners in our own homes. It has brought us up close and personal to losses; to fury at the all too vivid inequality in the world; to fear for our own and others’ mortality; and to profound uncertainty. Paradoxically, perhaps, the global experience of the pandemic is also a strangely unifying one in which we are able to make connections and find common ground across international borders. The Transactional Analysis Journal has always been an international collaboration, and of that we are justifiably proud. Society can not come out of this current crisis unchanged, and our abiding hope is that our national governments may learn the importance of international cooperation in tackling global issues.
As we write, at least one thing is clear: We are grateful that our community has the capacity to think, to reflect, and to challenge prevailing assumptions. We can celebrate at this time possibly more than ever that transactional analysis theory has continued to expand and deepen since the first issue of the TAJ in 1971. We are grateful to all the authors included here for working with us to provide this special commemorative issue. We were keen to present authors who are pushing the boundaries of transactional analysis alongside a deep respect for its origins. We think we have a great selection to offer you.
We open with a plea for deeper cooperation and respect across the “borders” of competing modalities and approaches. In his bold and provocative article, “Transactional Analysis and Psychoanalysis: Overcoming the Narcissism of Small Differences in the Shadow of Eric Berne,” William Cornell challenges what he considers to be the narcissistic encapsulation of transactional analysis as a unique methodology. He examines how this came about after Berne’s death, despite the efforts of TA’s founder to create an open and inclusive model. Cornell considers the transgenerational impact of Berne’s ambivalent relationship with psychoanalysis, the competitive formulation of various TA schools, and the race to fill the leadership void after Berne’s death in 1970. Cornell urges us to embrace the stimulating functions of questioning and wondering in order to keep our collective minds alive and to resist the stifling impact of narcissistic identifications with theory.
The theme of challenge continues with Giles Barrow’s paper “Teaching as Creative Subversion: Education Encounter as an Antidote to Neoliberal Exploitation of the Educational Task.” His ideas seem particularly relevant during this time of lockdown because he writes about the importance of encounter, which cannot be anticipated, has no timetable, and is not ensured by any curriculum. To demonstrate his insightful knowledge about the experience of the educand, Barrow includes a moving description of his own experience as a farmer encountering the elements as he goes about tending his livestock during a storm.
We then move on to another profound example of encounter in Diana Deaconu’s article entitled “The Therapist’s Agency as a Subsymbolic Working Tool in the Clinical Encounter: On the Phenomenology of Thinking Martian.” She begins her paper with a quote from Berne (Citation1972): “To say Hello rightly is to see the other person as a phenomenon, to happen to him and to be ready for him to happen to you” (pp. 4–5). Diana uses a powerful case vignette to lead readers into their own experience of encounter or happening. This is provided through the vivid description of her taking an active stance by remaining connected to her own senses and lived experience in response to her client, leading to further elucidation and a deeper understanding of the client’s struggle.
In his scholarly paper “Relational Organizational Development,” Michael Korpiun employs a cross-disciplinary approach to the relational turn in order to reconceptualize the notion of leadership within organizations, describing it as a function of the whole group rather than the property of a leader. He takes the reader on a multidisciplinary tour of relational interpretations across psychology, sociology, philosophy, and spirituality before arguing cogently for an organizational perspective that holds the human encounter as central. His considered conclusion is to come to a reverse understanding of organizational development in which the focus lies in fostering relationships for radical outcomes as opposed to imposing change from the outside in.
Ray Little has been researching and writing about clinical boundaries and violations in psychotherapy for some time, and we are pleased to publish his latest paper in this issue. In “Boundary Applications and Violations: Clinical Interpretations in a Transference-Countertransference-Focused Psychotherapy,” he uses a previously published case study of a significant boundary violation in psychotherapy to examine the clinical considerations required in order to facilitate a therapeutic response to such enactments. This compelling historical case, which involved Freud, Ferenczi, and the daughter of one of Ferenczi’s patients, illustrates both the necessity and the complexity of clinical analysis of the therapist’s countertransference. Concluding that games/enactments are ubiquitous, Little urges readers to hold as central the supervision space in which such enactments can be scrutinized and learned from.
Anna Rotondo’s article, “Rethinking Contracts: The Heart of Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis,” is long overdue. She reminds us of two key threads that run throughout Berne’s work: intuition and the centrality of the patient as subject. Referring to the relational quality of reciprocity, Rotondo writes of valuing Berne’s work to foster integration rather than underscore opposites. She places transactional analysis among the most advanced philosophical and psychological methodologies of the time, referencing the phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger, and others. Rotondo challenges those who consider the bilateral contract as a technique and offers her own consideration of the process as a way of being-there and thinking.
Continuing transactional analysis psychotherapy’s long-standing interest in object relations, our final offering is Ales Zivkovic’s “Developmental Trauma and the Bad Object: Attachment, Identity, Reenactments.” In this stimulating article, Ales describes how continued violations of a child’s subjectivity may shape the individual’s subsequent defensive strategies. He employs Masterson’s (Citation1976) concepts of distancing and clinging, translating these into ego state theory using second-order structure. Zivkovic poses a set of complex reflections on the attachment to the internalized bad object and the clinical requirement of working at this level with clients who have suffered early relational trauma. He concludes with a compassionate plea for understanding on behalf of both therapist and client in such challenging therapeutic work.
It has been a pleasure and a privilege for both of us to work on this anniversary theme issue. Some may have noticed that we did not put out our usual call for papers. We wanted the process to be more organic, and so we waited to see what submissions arrived in our in-boxes over the course of a year. We selected the papers that we felt best manifested our hope at the start of this project: to celebrate the breadth and depth of contemporary thought and practice in transactional analysis. This process has brought us both to a renewed respect for those who feel compelled to write; for those who are willing to engage publicly with their private thoughts, ideas, and practice; for those who give their time, energy, and love to this work; and for those who have the courage and passion to share that with all of us so that we may be enriched in the process. To all the contributors, reviewers, readers, editors past and present, and the indefatigable TAJ Managing Editor Robin Fryer, we have the great privilege of being the ones to say thank you for the past 50 years as we raise a toast to 50 more.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Steff Oates
Steff Oates is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) working in the northwest of England. She is also ITAA Vice President Research and Innovation. After 30 years of practice, she remains passionately engaged with TA theory and development across applications and cultures. She can be reached at Swallowfield, Slade Lane, Mobberley, WA16 7QN, United Kingdom.
Helen Rowland
Helen Rowland, BA, DipSw, is a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) in private practice doing psychotherapy and supervision in Scotland and online. She can be reached at 6 Caerlee Mill, Innerleithen, Scotland, EH44 6AB.
References
- Berne, E. (1972). What do you say after you say hello? The psychology of human destiny. New York, NY: Grove Press.
- Masterson, J. F. (1976). Psychotherapy of the borderline adult. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel.