Rethinking Contracts: The Heart of Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis

Abstract

The author explores the philosophical context of the origins of Eric Berne’s bilateral contract in transactional analysis as well as related intersubjective factors. She describes the coexistence of Bernean psychoanalytic roots and phenomenological aspects that underlie contracts. The Bernean contract is analyzed and discussed along with other concepts such as bilaterality, multicornered contracts, and the development and maintenance of contracts. These are considered in terms of the centrality and ethics of a contractual attitude that emerge in the process of care and counseling.

Keywords:

• Contracts
• transactional analysis
• psychoanalysis
• intersubjectivity
• phenomenology
• Eric Berne
• counseling
• mutuality
• bilaterality

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Rotondo

Anna Rotondo, PhD, is a psychotherapist, a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), a founder fellow of Centro di Psicologia e Analisi Transazionale and of Terrenuove (a social cooperative working with refugees and migrant families in Milan, Italy), and the head of the families service and of unaccompanied foreigner minors service. She was also the founder and director (1994-1999) of the Postgraduate School of Specialization in Psychotherapy of the Center of Psychology and TA in Milan (recognized by the Italian Ministry of University and Research), where she now works as a teacher and supervisor. She is also a founder fellow (1989) of ATc-TA Counselling School in Milan, where she teaches and supervises. Anna is the founder and current director of the Italian TA journal Quaderni di Psicologia Analisi Transazionale e Scienze Umane. She is the author of many articles on dreams, families, groups, organizations, and contracts, the editor of many special issues, and the author and editor of several books on the treatment of migrants and refugees. Anna can be reached at Centro di Psicologia e Analisi Transazionale, Via Archimede 127, Milan, 20129, Italy; email: [email protected]