The last 25 years have seen the development of a signi cant integrationist movement, which aimed at nding ways of blending the theories and practices of the four foundational schools of psychotherapy. Over 400 approaches have now evolved from these schools, which alone suggests that no one therapy is correct. A number of socio-economic, philosophical and scienti c reasons have driven this integrationist trend, which seem to cluster around a number of imperatives and perspectives on integration identi ed by the author. A professional and economic imperative to nd more ef cacious treatment methods has led to constructive integration. The evolutionary imperative for higher order patterns to emerge from complex dynamic relationship has led to complicit integration, and an exoteric imperative for models of psychotherapy to have application in the world at large has led to contiguous integration. The author suggests that these patterns re ect the developmental process of psychic integration and individuation, and could form a context for professional re ection and re exivity for therapists wishing to develop a personal integrative model. The author shows how this has brought meaning to his own work, and concludes that such re ection is one way in which treaters might become more ef cacious than the treatments.It belongs to all men to know themselves and to think well (Heraclitus, Fragment XXVI)
Berne (1961/1987) described transactional analysis as a systematic phenomenology that incorporates the values of existentialism. Although there are few overt references to the existential school in Berne's popular writings, it is evident from a number of passages in his books that he embraced a profoundly existential-phenomenological attitude in his approach to psychotherapy. This article discusses the development and major tenets of existential phenomenology, their impact on psychotherapy, and how they can be readily integrated and recognized within the key concepts of transactional analysis. For example, transactions constitute intersubjectivity, ego states and life positions represent Being-in-the-world, games manifest inauthentic Being or bad faith, and script denotes the existential project and possibilities-for-Being-in-the-world. A clinical vignette helps to synthesize the two approaches and highlights how each conceptualizes the therapeutic relationship. The article concludes that transactional analysis is a system that describes human existence at both the ontic and ontological levels and that it can be readily construed as embracing the existential perspective. This may be an attribute of all major systems of psychotherapy, and, therefore, psychotherapy integration might be better achieved by the use of an expanded and enriched language taken from a range of such systems.
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