ABSTRACT

In this fascinating and robust volume, the editors have compiled a collection of articles that provides an account of their individual theoretical journeys as they trace the evolution of relational transactional analysis. They re-examine the term ‘relational’, offering the reader a multiplicity of ways in which to conceptualise the theory of transactional analysis from a truly pluralistic perspective.

This collection of 14 stunning articles from the Transactional Analytic Journal, written over a period of nearly three decades, traces the evolutionary process of a way of thinking that incorporates both theoretical innovations and advanced methodological ideas. Central to the themes of this book is a theoretical understanding of the bidirectionality of the relational unconscious, alongside a methodology that not always, but most often, demands a two-person methodology in which the therapist’s subjectivity comes under scrutiny.

Uniquely useful as a research tool for psychotherapists interested in the most up to date psychological theories, this book offers a perspective on relational theory that is both respectful and critical. It will be of enormously useful to the trainee, the researcher, the clinician and the supervisor and will help inform the development of a clinical dialectical mind.

chapter |23 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|13 pages

Through the looking glass

Explorations in transference and countertransference

chapter 4|17 pages

Therapeutic relatedness in transactional analysis

The truth of love or the love of truth

chapter 6|9 pages

There ain’t no cure for love

The psychotherapy of an erotic transference

chapter 7|10 pages

Psychological function, relational needs, and transferential resolution

Psychotherapy of an obsession

chapter 8|9 pages

The man with no name

A response to Hargaden and Erskine

chapter 9|11 pages

There ain’t no cure without sex

The provision of a “vital” base

chapter 11|19 pages

Traversing the fault lines

Trauma and enactment

chapter 12|7 pages

This edgy emotional landscape

A discussion of Stuthridge’s “Traversing 
the fault lines”

chapter 13|14 pages

Are games, enactments, and reenactments similar?

No, yes, it depends