ABSTRACT
Retrospective introduction This chapter forms part of a critical reading of transactional analysis from radical psychiatry (see the Radical Therapist Collective, 1971; Steiner et al., 1975; Wyckoff, 1976; and Chapter 9; see also introduction to Chapter 5). The original article was influenced by work I had written with others from within the framework of the person-centred approach to therapy (see Sanders & Tudor, 2001; Tudor & Worrall, 2006), which, like radical psychiatry, is generally sceptical about diagnosis, and specifically as it is conceptualised and practised within the medical/ psychiatric model (see Rogers, 1951). For a long time, I have also been sceptical about diagnostic categories and their implicit and even explicit claims to universalism. The article was informed by my own clinical work and, specifically, my reflections on and thinking about the origins of narcissism. These form what is the middle section of the article and this chapter (under the subheading “Take it”). As I was proposing some addition to theory, I then decided that I should argue the case for this and thus wrote the sections on “The Necessity and Sufficiency of Theory” and “Some Implications for Transactional Analysis Theory”. At this point I discussed the draft of the article with my colleague and friend Claude Steiner who encouraged me simply to state what I was wanting to say, rather than to include the sections on the nature of theory or relationship of the “Take it” driver to existing theory. In this instance, I did not take his advice, preferring to address what, for me, are important meta-theoretical issues. Given the reactions to the article, however, it would have been interesting to see if a shorter version would have elicited the same amount of heat.
