ABSTRACT
A key method of the cathexis approach to transactional analysis therapy is the repeated confrontation of discounting, grandiosity and passivity. When well timed, not over-used, and in the context of a supportive and empathic therapeutic relationship, confrontation can be a highly effective intervention. The approach of providing a reparative, corrective emotional experience is also particularly seductive to therapists who have rescuer fantasies or who have not relinquished fantasies of having a new perfect childhood to make up for their own problematic childhood. The Schiffs relied heavily on the concept of consensual reality, that is, a version of reality that was determined by popular consensus. Levin's cycles of power theory and the use of developmental affirmations is also problematic in that it does not relate to and is inconsistent with established and researched child development theory and is critiqued for being too prescriptive, oversimplified and deterministic.
