Transactional Analysis and Relationship Psychotherapy: A Need for Renewed Interest and Contemporary Thinking

Abstract

The author reviews all articles on relationship, couples, and marriage psychotherapy and counseling published in the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) between 1970 and 2021 to determine whether transactional analysis has a substantive model of relationship psychotherapy. He synthesizes the content in search of a coherent, integrated, systematic approach to this practice and to determine whether it is informed by contemporary theory and practice. Since the 1970s, the publication in the TAJ of papers on relationship psychotherapy has steeply declined as the broader relationship psychotherapy field has become enlivened. Discussion focuses on the significant work needed to develop this area of practice.

Keywords:

• Couples
• relationships
• relational
• systems theory
• redecision therapy
• developmental theory
• integrative models
• psychoanalysis
• transactional analysis

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.

—Maya Angelou, Arizona Republic interview

The importance of offering high-quality relationship psychotherapy (the term used in this paper to cover couples and marital psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching) and the growing demand for it cannot be underestimated. Studies in the field make it clear that many couples report relationship distress (Bradbury et al., 2000) and that adversely affects economic, general, and mental health (Doherty et al., 2002; Proulx et al., 2007; Waite & Gallagher, 2000). Studies have linked marital distress to worsening mood, anxiety, and increasing illicit substance use (Whisman & Uebelacker, 2006).

Fortunately, there is reasonably good evidence that relationship psychotherapy in a range of modalities can increase relationship satisfaction and happiness for many couples (Gurman, 2011; Lebow et al., 2012), although outcome improvements are needed in this type of work. Studies continue to reveal mixed results, with one study indicating that under half of couples who begin therapy reach satisfaction levels equivalent to those experienced by couples who do not require therapy (Baucus et al., 2003). This and other data have led to researchers raising concerns about the quality and consistency of relationship psychotherapy as it is practiced, and although there is no clarity about which approach benefits these clients the most (Gurman, 2008), many practitioners find the work extremely challenging and often overwhelming. This highlights the need for a solid, evidence-based theoretical framework for practice (Bader & Pearson, 2011b).

A recent review of the research literature on the effectiveness of transactional analysis psychotherapy confirmed a moderate to large positive effect clinically, strengthening the view that it is an evidence-based treatment for a wide range of psychotherapy and counseling needs (Ohlsson, 2010; Vos & van Rijn, 2021a). Accompanying the paper by Vos and van Rijn was a survey of self-reported practices by transactional analysts that showed 36% of clients they dealt with presented with relational or marital problems (Vos & van Rijn, 2021b). This self-reported survey finding suggests that working with relationship difficulties is at the core of transactional analysts’ practice, emphasizing the need for a strong base of theory and practice to effectively work in this area.

Approach to Research

This paper attempts to answer the question of whether transactional analysis offers a solid framework for the practice of relationship psychotherapy. To begin, I conducted a search of the Transactional Analysis Journal (TAJ) for the terms “marriage,” “couples,” and “relationships.” This yielded 221 results. After examining all of the papers, I excluded unrelated material, book reviews, papers from the organizational and educational fields, and any papers on sex therapy, family therapy, individual therapy, and domestic violence. What remained were about 45 papers published between 1970 and 2020. I did not include published books that were either dedicated to transactional analysis and marriage (Campos & McCormick, 1972; Dusay & Dusay, 1989; James, 1979) or books with references to marriage and relationship psychotherapy (e.g., Harris, 1967/2004) because most are out of print or extremely difficult to access.

Eric Berne and the “Therapy of Marriages”

Berne’s (1961/2008) original writing about the “Therapy of Marriages” (pp. 211–224) in the 1960s is remarkably insightful despite his observation that this aspect of transactional analysis theory was still in its infancy. In this short, 13-page chapter in Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, he described “marital counseling” as a three-handed game requiring particularly robust clinicians who can withstand being drawn into the couple’s script drama. In a somewhat paternalistic tone, he wrote:

The counselor, at the social level, may act as a coach, telling the couple how to play their games better, or he may perform the function of umpire. At the psychological level, he tends to become a third party to the marriage itself, usually in a Parent capacity. (p. 211)

Berne (1961/2008) warned that marriage counseling was not for the faint-hearted. Despite this warning, he described a group he ran involving two couples as one of the most stimulating experiences of his psychiatric career (p. 212). Is it possible that this injunctive message from Berne led to TA clinicians being reluctant to engage in theorizing and exploring the practice of relationship psychotherapy? Some authors (Lester, 1980, p. 33) clearly read Berne’s chapter that way, interpreting his comments as indicating couples are best treated in individual therapy. It is interesting to consider that developments in the psychoanalytic couples therapy field would come to regard therapists’ countertransference as a central consideration of the work, the equivalent of intentionally entering the script drama as a way of understanding it from a “third” position (Morgan, 2019, pp. 73–87; Ringstrom, 2014).

Some of the key messages Berne outlined in his chapter—specifically those relating to therapeutic goals—hold up today when considering the structure of effective relationship psychotherapy. He referenced awareness of various clinical presentations and the need for specific contracts and suggested the need to move games from compulsive to optional status so that more constructive games can emerge (Berne, 1961/2008, p. 216). He emphasized that games and script material need to be gradually peeled off in layers until the underlying issues are “laid bare in terms of the original protocol” (p. 14). In line with the presumption that eventually the focus needs to be on deeper unconscious processes driving the relationship dynamics, Berne wrote that central to the original basis of a marriage is “the secret contract between two Children, the contract of the script” (pp. 214–215). Berne wrote that both parties can benefit from psychoanalysis at the “critical point where these conflicts are unmasked” (p. 216), and resolving these at the unconscious level would likely lead to a more steadfast marriage.

It is important to note that Berne’s writings in the 1960s on marital therapy came from a period of patriarchal, one-person privilege and, in his case, a White, heteronormative, male perspective that does not sit congruently with today’s rightful focus on pluralist affirming and intersectionally aware relationship psychotherapy (Baskerville, 2022; Rowland & Cornell, 2021; Shadbolt, 2022). Taking account of this, in his reflective, thoughtful statements, Berne indicated two complex polarities that can be generalized about working as a relationship therapist. First, that the work is extremely challenging, and second, where there is a good theoretical framework to hold the clinician, the work can be stimulating and gratifying.

The 1970s: Early Explorations, Theorizing, and Steps Toward Integration

Despite the discouragement of Berne’s early writings, the 1970s saw several papers about aspects of relationship therapy published in the TAJ, most of which were in the short, punchy, slightly cryptic style of the time. Most of these papers focused on the analysis of games, scripts, and stroking dynamics in relationships. Matuschka (1972) wrote about the use of the “fantasized marriage technique” (p. 81). And Park (1971) authored an article on a series of games specific to marriage, referencing the myth of Sir Lancelot and his interaction with women, which is, of course, gendered, outdated, and not acceptable by today’s standards.

Consistent with the brevity of papers of the time, a “how to” guide on making a rapid diagnosis of the symbiotic quality of a couple’s relationship was the focus of an article by Lankford (1972). Rosenthal and Novey (1976) undertook a research study on the measurement of stroking in marriages, and from a practical perspective, Karpman (1974) illustrated the practical utility of egograms in relationship therapy. He showed how a couple’s egograms, when graphically superimposed, offer the couple insights about their relationship issues and provide an educative aid to therapists. For transactional analysts working from a more classical or cognitive model (Widdowson, 2010), that technique might offer some utility, but the process appears oriented toward individual therapy interventions rather than working with the conscious and unconscious interactions in the relationship itself.

Windelt and Woollams (1976) raised the question of whether individual transactional analysis psychotherapy, or any form of therapy, could adversely affect marriages but concluded that the reverse was more likely. In 1979, a research paper exploring the first integration of transactional analysis with other approaches was published by Bilelo (1979, pp. 74-76). She combined a program involving general systems theory, a marriage enrichment program, and transactional analysis involving individual, conjoint, and group therapy in the treatment of dysfunctional marriages. Bilelo concluded that the “use of a multiple impact approach involving a time-limited group appears to enhance both the process and the outcome” (p. 76). Despite her observation that the approach was effective, it is difficult to imagine such a resource-intensive approach having practical utility today.

Finally, Holtby’s (1979) landmark paper on “Interlocking Racket Systems” focused on what psychoanalytic couple’s therapists refer to as “unconscious couple fit” (Morgan, 2019, pp. 96–97). Holtby described how partners unconsciously maintain each other’s racket systems (Erskine & Zalcman, 1979) and how the “racket displays of one serve as the reinforcing experience of the other” (p. 132) with the resulting conflictual pattern of the couple reflecting this interlock. Holtby’s paper would go on to be explored beyond the behavioral aspects to the relational intrapsychic perspective by Parkin (2014) several decades later.

Overall, the 1970s were characterized by innovative efforts to fit transactional analysis theory into the exploration of relationship therapy. By the end of the decade, the emphasis shifted toward integration with other theories beyond transactional analysis, such as general systems theory. Did this move toward integration with other approaches represent a limitation of transactional analysis in working with relationship psychotherapy, or does it speak to transactional analysis as an effective and enhancing fit with other approaches?

The 1980s: Behavioral, Systemic, Developmental, and Attachment Emphasis

Eleven papers were published in the TAJ on relationship therapy in the 1980s. Thematically, the drive was toward efforts to formulate more coherent models through continued integration with other modalities prominent at the time.

Lester’s (1980) “TA Marital Therapy” took aspects of behavioral marriage therapy and integrated them with transactional analysis concepts in an approach designed to foster relationship and individual growth by promoting problem solving and communication skills. Central to this concept was highlighting couples’ awareness of the need for increased stokes, education about games, and addressing discounting. Lester posited that difficulties arise in marriages when the members of a couple are conflicted about meeting their own and each other’s needs for “archaic Parent tapes” and unreasonable Child demands (p. 33). He laid out a clear model and structure for working with marriage that included psychoeducation, improving Adult communication, confronting games with a focus on managing discounting, and increasing positive strokes. Although Adult control using these approaches was considered the first phase of the work, the second phase involved individual therapy with the members of the relationship to help change decisions and “internal” games (p. 36). Lester’s approach emphasized a combination of individual and couple work. Today, views differ about the complexities, risks, and benefits of doing relationship work with the couple and the individual simultaneously.

Laura Boyd and Harry Boyd (1981) offered a model of relationship counseling that focused on structural analysis and transactions. They identified three transactional areas requiring clinical attention in dysfunctional relationships: caring (Parent ego state or P₂ to Child ego state or C₂), closeness (C₂ - C₂), and compatibility (P₂ - P₂) transactions. Several more specific articles focused on skills and interventions, such as the use of directed imagery and play fantasy to solve relationship difficulties (Taibbi, 1981), analysis of behavior patterns linked to script decisions and an approach to confronting these destructive behaviors (Novey & Novey, 1982), stroke strategies for use with couples (Gobes, 1981), and closing escape hatches in relationships (Boyd & Boyd, 1982). These papers focused on the interpersonal and behavioral aspects of working with relationships, whereas a more intrapsychic/interpersonal paper by Zerin (1983) focused on use of the drama triangle (Karpman, 1968) to help address family-of-origin issues being played out in current relationship difficulties.

Landy Gobes (1985) contributed a paper on abandonment and engulfment dynamics in which an attachment focus was applied. Closeness and distance needs in relationship were explored along four lines: blocked individual development, script decisions, difficulties with introjects, and communication problems.

Bader and Pearson’s (1983) paper on “The Developmental Stages of Couplehood” linked a stage model of early child development with correlated stages of the adult couple relationship. Their approach was underpinned by the work of Margaret Mahler and Louise Kaplan. Since their original paper, the model has evolved and endured and is less associated with transactional analysis today. In fact, the original paper has virtually no links conceptually or theoretically to transactional analysis.

Toward the end of the 1980s, a more empirical approach to evaluating the effectiveness of transactional analysis at improving relationships was taken by Greene (1988), who analyzed all the data available over 25 years (which really was not a lot). Greene found so many methodological challenges with the existing studies that the finding about benefit versus no benefit was equivocal, and the author recommended future research be based on single-case designs, a debate that continues in the psychological literature today.

As the 1980s began, so they finished, with a return to papers on approaches to relationship psychotherapy that integrated other models with transactional analysis. Two papers by Robert Massey provided a detailed outline of an approach to relationship therapy that combined transactional analysis with general systems theory (Massey, 1989a) and then proposed techniques for the implementation of this approach (Massey, 1989b). The latter was more complex and comprehensive than any model written about before or, it could be argued, since.

The 1990s: Specificity, Action Methods, and Redecision Influences

Seven papers were published in the TAJ in the 1990s that can be characterized as more specific and integrative. Specific programs include TILT (Teaching Individuals to Live Together), which focused on family cohesion and the permeability/rigidity of boundaries. This model was described in a complex paper outlining dynamics involving couples, families, and children (Kaplan, 1990).

One theme in the 1990s was “step model” approaches, which involved fixed, sequential therapist actions or interventions. The focus on these approaches was likely related to the emerging interest in shorter-term forms of therapy being championed at the time. One such paper was “The Dance of Relationship” (Elliott, 1992), which explored how couples structure time using the metaphor of dance. The coupling of a trademarked program called “PAIRS” (Practical Application of Intimate Relationships Skills) with redecision therapy (Tyler, 1995) again spoke to the growing integration of transactional analysis with the proliferation of multiple programs and approaches with which clinicians were then working. That program included gestalt/redecision therapy interventions, TA theory, and psychoeducation over a 16-week period with couples in groups. The program has endured and can be accessed today, albeit in a significantly modified form.

José Luis Martorell (1994) explored the complexities of power dynamics through the process of “mystification” in relationships, which is, he said, a way of avoiding the confrontation of games. Sigmund (1995) offered a complex, five-step model of problem resolution in difficult relationships. It entailed a communication process for smoothing either reconciliation or divorce processes by harnessing mindful presence, facilitating reflection, developing clarity about problem definition, and having a solution focus.

Finally, The Shame Loop (Little, 1999) explored the defensive flow of shame affects arising from early script decisions in response to injunctions and reinforced by an interlocking racket system in relationships that inhibits healthy interactions or, indeed, the desire to seek relationship at all. As Little explained, structurally the loop is a negative feedback system through which one person’s strategies to defend against shame “involve the very behavior that is experienced as humiliating by his or her partner. This is because both parties are transacting from their Child ego state and projecting their Parent ego state onto each other” (p. 143). Little also recommended a structured approach to therapy that involves working with the couple in an imago dialogue-style interaction (Hendrix & LaKelly Hunt, 1980/2019) and exploration of script dynamics at play in individual work with both parties where ego strength or trauma prevents the couple dialogue structure. This continues the trend of splitting individual and couples work previously described.

The 2000s: Fewer Publications and a Focus on Redecision

In the 2000s, Carol Solomon was the first person to contribute a paper specifically about relationships, and ironically, it was about them ending (Solomon, 2003). She extensively covered a host of emotional reactions that accompany the end of intimate relationships and made theoretical links to transactional analytic theory, including referencing early decisions and internal working models. Solomon also outlined actions that individuals can take to ameliorate the difficulties.

A paper published in 2010 by Phyllis Jenkins and Anne Teachworth entitled “Psychogenetics in Redecision Therapy: The Next Generation of Couples Work” challenged the prevailing thinking about the core of most relationship difficulties being linked to unresolved parent-child dynamics. They argued that it is more useful to appreciate the intergenerational dynamics at play in the here and now and offered that it was more useful to focus on the “troubled couple relationship between the clients’ parents in childhood” to uncover intergenerational script repetitions (p. 121). The multistaged therapeutic intervention advocated by Jenkins and Teachworth involved assessment using a 10-question psychogenetic profile tool to diagnose the intergenerationally transmitted “inner couple imprint” (p. 122) that troubled the couple. They advocated moving to a resolution of the imprint using a redecision framework involving, among other interventions, the gestalt techniques of three-chair work to “reimplant” a positive parent relationship narrative. Once again, there is a sense that the focus here is on individual work within a relationship psychotherapy framework.

Bader and Pearson, after a long break from the publication of their developmental model of couple’s therapy in 1983, published a new paper on the use of redecision therapy with couples (Bader & Pearson, 2011a, p. 70). In it they applied a classical model of redecision therapy, but the focus was on the impact that the couple have on each other in terms of script decisions. They referred to the limitation of growth and differentiation in decisions made by one partner when self-protective decisions are made in response to painful experiences and disillusionments in the relationship. Script decisions, they argued, are reduced to global generalizations about the partners in response to each other leading to difficulties with interactions, behaviors, and loss of connection (Bader & Pearson, 2011a, p. 70). Central to this work is the movement of awareness in the client from what are apparently interpersonal conflicts toward intrapsychic conflicts that are then amenable to redecision because relationship decisions often have their basis in early-life decisions (p. 73). Bader and Pearson’s paper provided a detailed sequence that clinicians work through with couples to achieve redecision, but once again, the focus is on individual interventions within a relationship psychotherapy framework.

Two other important papers looked at the difficulties couples face with impasses. In 2012, Torsten Hemlin, leveraging the work of earlier theorists writing on intrapsychic impasses (Goulding & Goulding, 1979; Mellor, 1980), extended the writing of Cornell and Landaiche (2006), who moved impasse theory from an intrapsychic to an interpersonal phenomenon in which both parties are trapped in their mode of relating. Hemlin skillfully integrated various relational/psychodynamic and systemic theorists (Safran & Muran, 2000; Scheinkman & Fishbane, 2004) to explore the link between the activation of survival strategies by one partner that evoke vulnerabilities in the other, and thereby a negative feedback system is established generating an interpersonal impasse. This is then cross-translated into a representation of relational and cocreated second-degree interpersonal impasses (pp. 123–124).

Fran Parkin’s (2014) paper “Breaking the Circuit: The Power of Empathy and Understanding Interlocking Racket Systems in Deepening Work With Couples” has a relational orientation in that it integrates transactional analysis theories, including recognition hunger, and extends Holtby’s concept of interlocking rackets in dyads by moving the concept beyond the behavioral and into the relational intrapsychic realm. Both Parkin and Hemlin offered complex theories that brought with them the possibility of change occurring for the couple both in the individual (intrapsychic) and the interpersonal (couple relationship) domains. Parkin advocated an approach that examines defensive strategies couples deploy based on the reinforcing role of the racket system being played out by both parties through negative communication patterns. By using attachment theory concepts (such as the secure base) and interventions emphasizing empathy and validation, covert script-level needs can be uncovered (made conscious), thus helping the couple move out of the intersected stuckness of their racket systems.

Cassoni and Filippi, in their 2013 paper “Travel Mates: Transactional Analysis Groups for Couples,” offered what they described as a psychodynamic model for working with couples in groups. The authors described a couple as a relational system composed of two subjectivities (individual worlds) who choose to build a “new world” that has collective and reciprocal influences. Their work positioned the couple in the context of the relational field of the group and discussed in detail the elements of the structure (boundaries) and function of the group process they use with couples. The approach is underpinned by the developmental model of the couple (Bader & Pearson, 1983). They called on several concepts, including decontamination, strengthening of the Adult ego state, redecision work with couples (Bader & Pearson, 2011a), and work with second-order ego state structures, to name just a few. This work is facilitated through a range of interventions, some of which are creative, such as the creation of a “couple statue,” which is a sculptural image metaphor of the relationship (physically represented by the couple in the group).

Finally, the latest TAJ paper published on relationships, by Robert van Tol (2017), moved transactional analysis into the modern era as it explored various configurations of consensual nonmonogamy, the contemporary fluid conceptualization of monogamy, and the increasingly diverse definitions of relationship structures contemporary psychotherapists are working with. Importantly, van Tol explored the concerning lack of theory within transactional analysis with which to understand these modern relationship structures and the inherent risk of prejudice and consequent unethical enactments on the part of the therapist that might follow when we consciously or unconsciously overvalue dyadic relating. Indeed, van Tol referred to a range of transactional analysis theories that, while relevant to working with relationships, do not account for nonmonogamy. Most theories, he wrote, are biased toward the dyadic (p. 282). He provided an overview of aspects of work with consensual nonmonogamy, explored clinician countertransference challenges, and practice and treatment implications as well as illustrated the benefits, challenges, and complexities of working with consensual nonmonogamy. He also provided an illuminating case study. Throwing the focus on the practitioner and our responsibilities in terms of awareness, ethics, and countertransference issues we might face is particularly important. It is perhaps shocking that the final paper (as of November 2021) on relationships in the TAJ is the first to do so.

Discussion

At the outset of this research process, I assumed there would be a substantive body of published work on relationship psychotherapy in the TAJ, including work informed by both historical and contemporary theory and practice. My expectation was that analyzing this information would lead to a foundation on which to build a coherent conceptual framework supporting a model of transactional analysis relationship psychotherapy. In general terms, this proved not to be the case. Since this review yielded a surprisingly limited number of papers on relationship psychotherapy, especially from the last 20 years, it did not provide me as a clinician with a substantive body of theory and practice.

Combining the survey findings of Vos and van Rijn (2021a, 2021b) with data about the importance of the quality of relationship psychotherapy and its practical challenges, there is a lack of clarity about how transactional analysis, as a form of relationship psychotherapy, translates into practice in a way that illuminates exactly what clinicians are doing in the consulting room when working with couples and other relationship structures.

In light of so little information to support what we do as transactional analysts working as relationship psychotherapists, we must ask ourselves some significant questions:

• What therapeutic concepts underpin our assessment, diagnosis, contracting, treatment plans, and interventions?

• Do our theories and practices have the flexibility to be taken from an individual therapy context and applied in relationship psychotherapy?

• What approaches beyond transactional analysis integrate with it most effectively?

• Does our theoretical, practice, and ethical framework account for nontraditional relationship structures and for contemporary relationship issues and considerations?

• Are we keeping pace with rapidly changing dynamics in relationship such as consensual nonmonogamy, polyamory, and other configurations? What new thinking do we need to apply to these situations?

Unfortunately, these questions cannot be answered from our existing literature base, but looking ahead, they offer fertile ground for further theorizing, research, and clinician surveys.

It is fair to say that there have been some innovative, thoughtful papers published on relationship therapy over the last 50 years of the TAJ. Among these are Holtby’s (1979) work on interlocking rackets and Hemlin’s (2012) concept of relational impasses. These papers are of particular interest because they represent effective efforts to apply existing theory in the context of relationship psychotherapy, thereby advancing theory and offering models of the next step required in this domain of practice.

Regarding the second research question, about whether models of relationship psychotherapy are based on contemporary psychotherapeutic theory and practice, the answer is no. Only three articles have specifically articulated a coherent and structured model of couples therapy using transactional analysis. Aspects of these approaches are now redundant, either underpinned by theoretical models that are outdated or based on developmental models that are no longer supported by the literature (Bader & Pearson, 1983; Boyd & Boyd, 1981; Lester, 1980). There are three areas of focus in this regard—redecision, developmental, and systems—and one other that should be taken more into account—relational.

Redecision

Some of the models of relationship psychotherapy outlined in the papers I have cited here focus on the application of redecision therapy. This model has been critiqued for its theoretical and practice origins being based on work with well-prepared, “couch broken” therapy trainees in intensive, well-supported, and therefore heightened therapy marathons (Widdowson, 2010, p. 18). Such circumstances limit the generalizability of the approach and, from a resource perspective, make such work impractical and potentially risky when applied in office in short sessions (p. 18).

In addition, the emphasis on intensive, cathartic change and insight-generating experiences associated with redecision therapy techniques has fallen behind current discourse about the way change occurs in the therapeutic relationship. Contemporary thinking emphasizes that change occurs in a matrix of bidirectional influence in domains of experience that go beyond insight and are neither linear nor directly correlated to change in behavior (Hays & Andrews, 2020; Høglend, & Hagtvet, 2019; Kuncewicz & Lachowicz-Tabaczek, 2014).

Current theoretical perspectives suggest that for change to occur, several domains of experience need to be engaged, including the behavioral, affective, cognitive, and relational. Optimal change occurs with an intermittent and sustained level of moderate (rather than intense) emotional arousal created within an ongoing therapeutic relationship that involves, among other things, processes linked to neurological pathway changes associated with implicit and explicit memory (Widdowson, 2016, pp. 6–73).

Further, a large body of evidence strongly indicates change in psychotherapy occurs experientially through the prism of the interpersonal and relational and uniquely in a two-person mode (Stark, 1999) rather than through intense cathartic and insight-based experiences.

Additionally, redecision therapy has been challenged for its potential and inadvertent reinforcement of script and for promoting overadaptation to the therapist, which can arise or be augmented by the dogmatic rejection of transference, which many would argue is not possible (Widdowson, 2010).

Developmental

The developmental model of couples therapy, one of the few comprehensive couples therapy approaches published in the TAJ, has enjoyed global success, and clinicians continue to be trained in this approach. Despite this success, underpinning the approach with the infant developmental model first proposed by Mahler et al. (1975), which focused on the separation/individuation and symbiotic phases of infant development, needs thoughtful consideration. This view of development is generally considered to have been superseded by the large body of infant attachment and developmental research (Allen, 2011; Beebe & Lachmann, 1994, 2002; Benjamin, 1999, 2002; Lyons-Ruth, 1991; Stern, 1985), which clearly shows that infants are continuously and openly relationship seeking. There have also been critiques of Mahler’s model in the TAJ (e.g., Matze, 1988) with a specific focus on the concept of symbiosis. Matze (1988) argued that observational research had already illustrated that infants, from birth, are dynamically and reciprocally engaged in an intersubjective relationship with their caregivers and not passively open to parental programming as suggested by the developmental theory underpinning the Cathexis model (Schiff, 1975). A further criticism of the Cathexis model of child development, particularly as it relates to symbiosis, is that the theory was formulated based on the observation of severe psychopathology in adults. It is tenuous at best to consider such observations as reliably generalizable to reflect normal developmental processes in infants.

Systems

Systems theory has had a significant influence in the field of family therapy and how intimate relationships function within family and kinship systems. Despite this influence, critiques from pluralist, feminist, and postmodern positions have been significant. Systems theory has been challenged for its mechanistic, industrial references to nonhuman systems and its rarefied representation of family life (Greene & Blundo, 1999; Murphy & Callaghan, 1988). Critics regard the central concept of “homeostasis” as failing to account for social, political, and economic forces exerted on the “system” and for failing to account for the reality that relationships within family structures are dynamic and change over time (Yerby, 1995).

Feminist and gender critiques have been particularly strong because the approach does not account for gender inequality generally, and, more specifically, concerns have been raised about the inherent risks to victims when conceptualizing family violence as a systemic problem rather than a perpetrator issue (Goldner, 1985, 1989; Yllo 1993). John Gottman and Julie Gottman have written about systems theory and its history as both a revolution in psychotherapy and as flawed when applied alone because of its focus on “equal” parts, “feedback loops,” and “homeostasis” (Gottman & Gottman, 2018; Searight & Merkel, 1991).

These three models or approaches have featured in the writing on relationship psychotherapy in the TAJ and pose challenges when we try to conceptualize the theory as being informed by contemporary thinking in the psychotherapy field.

Relational

Perhaps most startling with regard to the TA literature on relationship work is the near total absence of any papers or book chapters from the perspective of the dominant relational, cocreative, integrative, or psychoanalytic schools of transactional analysis. It is also notable that the flow of published papers slows in the 2000s as the relational model of transactional analysis was emerging. A search of the TAJ archive indicates that there was less than one paper on relationship psychotherapy per year between 2000 and 2021.

In fact, no edited book published with relational or contemporary transactional analysis themes since this time has included a single contribution that explores transactional analysis relationship psychotherapy (Cornell & Hargaden, 2005; Erskine, 2010a, 2010b, 2016; Fowlie & Sills, 2011; Hargaden & Sills, 2002). It is curious to consider why, when intimate relationships are so relational in nature, no writing has taken place in this area, an area that has a richness of theory and ideas that could easily be cross-fertilized into the domain of relationship psychotherapy.

Perhaps linked to this, or for other inexplicable reasons, there has been no attention paid to the unconscious, transference/countertransference dynamics, or therapist-led factors in any of the published TA literature relating to couples/relationship therapy, and there are no papers in this literature that address contracting, client selection or assessment, treatment sequences, or specific ethical issues in the practice of relationship psychotherapy.

Going forward, perhaps the best approach is to consider how transactional analysis can work with other models of relationship psychotherapy most effectively so that one or more coherent, evidence-based approaches can be developed that could work well given that transactional analysis is known as an approach that lends itself to integration with other modalities. This is partly due to its effectiveness in multiple areas or domains of experience, including the cognitive, behavioral, affective, and relational (Widdowson, 2016).

Conclusion

In broad terms, undertaking a content analysis of the papers published on aspects of relationship psychotherapy in the TAJ over the last 50 years offers important insights about where we have been, where we are, and where we need to go in this evolving area of psychotherapy. Given the high number of transactional analysts practicing relationship psychotherapy and the number of exam candidates offering recordings of relationship therapy as part of their oral examination, it is vital that we determine whether there is a coherent body of knowledge (theory and practice) specific to transactional analysis and, if so, whether it is based on contemporary theory, research, and practice.

By undertaking the analysis described in this article, the strengths and limitations of the foundations of our work as relationship psychotherapists practicing from a transactional analysis framework can be better understood. In addition, such an analysis, having never been undertaken before, provides a foundation on which further writers, researchers, and theoreticians can build. The formulation of a model based on key transactional analysis concepts, theories, and practices that is also informed by the wealth of literature, theory, and techniques from other schools of relationship psychotherapy is an exciting prospect for our community of practitioners, academics, teachers, supervisors, and students. I hope that a renewed energy and focus on this important area of psychotherapy practice can be promoted and developed.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Brad McLean

Brad McLean, MSc, is a Certified Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), a supervisor, and a registered clinical psychotherapist with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). Brad also has qualifications in nursing (BSc) and journalism. He practices from a relational/psychodynamic orientation working as a generalist psychotherapist with individuals and as a relationship therapist specializing in work with gender and sexually and relationship diverse clients. Brad can be reached at Suite 906/2-14 Kings Cross Road, Potts Point, Sydney, 2011, Australia; email: [email protected].