We Are All Relational, but Are Some More Relational Than Others?

Abstract

This article discusses Ray Little's (2013) integration of humanistic transactional analysis with both traditional and relational psychoanalysis from the vantage point of a wider, broad-spectrum integrative perspective, with particular emphasis on TA's sister tradition of body psychotherapy. The growing consensus across diverse therapeutic approaches regarding the developmental origins of relational patterns is acknowledged. The problems, inconsistencies, and contradictions within the integrative project are discussed, with particular reference to the origins of humanistic psychology during the 1960s and their partially reactive differentiation against psychoanalysis, which leaves today's practitioners with unresolved legacies in the form of fixed assumptions regarding both theory and practice as well as key concepts such as ego and working alliance. Taking the key notion of the therapist's equidistant position between the needed and repeated relationship as its starting point, the author suggests that enactment is the central notion of relationality. A multiplicity of diverse therapeutic kinds of relatedness is affirmed as valid, and different notions of the relational and inconsistencies and ambivalences in integrative formulations are addressed. The aim is to reach a more solid, robust integration that is grounded in a bodymind understanding of enactment as the paradoxical essence of therapeutic action.Ray Little (2013) does an urgent, significant, and sterling job in bringing together transactional analysis and psychoanalysis (especially its relational branch). His grasp of the two traditions and their historical roots, respective metapsychologies, and, in some respects, contradictory paradigms allows him to fashion an attempt at integration that combines the best of both worlds, one that is larger than the sum of its parts. This work constitutes a quantum leap that takes transactional analysis a long way beyond its origins in the 1960s toward the twenty-first century.

Are Games, Enactments, and Reenactments Similar? No, Yes, It Depends

“…Today, both relational psychoanalysis and transactional analysis heavily emphasize enactments that originate in issues of trauma and dissociation, ideas that were not being discussed in Berne’s era. I agree with Soth (2013) that while there are benefits to an integrative approach, there may be unintended consequences, one of which might be an oscillating by the therapist “between contradictory principles, thus unwittingly giving double messages to…clients” (p. 132).…”

“…Another reason for keeping the three constructs separate is the difficulty of integrating constructs from different periods or different theories. Soth (2013) expressed concerns about “stretching a framework” (p. 132) when that framework is rooted in an earlier historical period. For example, Berne’s game theory was developed well before the recent surge of interest and writing in transactional analysis about trauma and dissociation (Caizzi, 2012; Cornell & Olio, 1992; Erskine, 1993; Stuthridge, 2013).…”

“…In a previous article, I (Novak, 2013) took the theoretical position that games were similar to enactments when I was working clinically with trauma and dissociation. I fell into the trap Soth (2013) mentioned of appropriating a word or construct in a “taken-for-granted” (p. 132) fashion.…”

All the World’s a Stage

“…Soth (2013) made the point that being mindful of one’s countertransference makes little sense when working with our unconscious process. How do we reflect on feelings that are outside of awareness?…”