“Take It”: A Sixth Driver

Abstract

“Take it” is considered as a sixth driver that accounts, both in developmental and social terms, for the introjection by the child of Parental messages to take and own objects in an inappropriate, exploitative, and unsustainable way. As a negative driver message, “Take it” is considered to support the development of narcissism. It also accounts for the integration of messages that encourage the child to impact in a constructive and sustainable way his or her environment. The author reflects on the nature of theory and the impact of a new contribution to existing transactional analysis theory, as well as on a number of theoretical implications of this additional driver. This contribution to the literature is placed in the context of transactional analysis as a social psychology and a radical psychiatry.

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Notes on contributors

Keith Tudor

Keith Tudor, M.A., M.Sc., CQSW, Dip. Psychotherapy, UKCP registered, is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy). He has an independent/private practice in Sheffield, United Kingdom, where he is also a director of Temenos (www.temenos.ac.uk). Keith is a widely published author in the field of mental health and psychotherapy and has written over 20 articles/chapters on transactional analysis and seven books, three of which are on transactional analysis: Group Counselling (Sage, 1999); editor, Transactional Approaches to Brief Therapy (Sage, 2002); and editor, The Adult Is Parent to the Child: Transactional Analysis with Children and Young People (Russell House, 2007). He is also the series editor of “Advancing Theory in Therapy” (published by Routledge) and an Honorary Fellow in the School of Health, Liverpool John Moores University. He can be reached at 13A Penrhyn Road, Sheffield S118UL, United Kingdom; e-mail: [email protected].