Transactional Analysis Holds Promise for Healing Trauma and Building Resilience at a Societal Level

Abstract

This article is an edited version of the opening address given by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, MP, to the World Transactional Analysis Conference on 7 August 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Madlala-Routledge, a Quaker, served as Deputy Minister of Defense and then Deputy Minister of Health before being dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki for her outspoken views about HIV/AIDS. She is currently Deputy Speaker of Parliament under recently elected President Kgalema Motlanthe. In this article Madlala-Routledge reflects on the traumatic past of South Africa and the need for personal and social healing and welcomes the role that transactional analysis could play in contributing to that process. She also looks at the importance of social and psychological factors in the health of individuals and societies and the need for an integrative approach such as the one transactional analysis might provide.

Cultivating Cultures of Courage with Transactional Analysis

“…My premise that "the power is in community" means that individuals also gain strength at a collective level from positive connections with others. This is in line with other more socially oriented transactional analysts (Drego, 2009;Madlala-Routledge, 2009;Mazzetti, 2010;Salters, 2011;Shivanath & Hiremath, 2003) who call for us to find ways of using the power of transactional analysis to help heal people at the societal level.…”