Graham Barnes

About Energy Metaphors III: Basic Conceptual Issues

The development of Bernes theory of psychic energy, and its application to practice during the period from the 1950s through the 1970s, may be divided into three phases. The First article (Barnes, 1999a) in this series, which considered Bernes selection, defense, and use of energy metaphors, covered phase one. The second article (Barnes, 1999b), which discussed how Schiff applied these metaphors in the treatment of schizophrenia, covered phase three. This current article outlines the attention to communication metaphors in the middle period, which is called the Satir phase. It discusses conceptual issues arising from the use of quantitative metaphors in both transactional analysis and psychotherapy.

About Energy Metaphors II: A Study of Schiff's Applications:

This is the second essay in a three-part study of Bernes use of metaphors of energy and cathexis in the theory of transactional analysis during the period from the 1950s through the 1970s. This article considers how Schiff was guided by these metaphors and how she applied them in the treatment of schizophrenia. Schiffs work is placed in the context of the systematic development of the logic of Bernes personality theory and the application of injunctions embedded in his theory.

Homosexuality in the First Three Decades of Transactional Analysis: A Study of Theory in the Practice of Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy

Eric Berne, in the 1950s and 1960s, constructed a theory that brought about its own psychopathology of homosexuality, leading to the virtual disappearance from the transactional analysis literature of the concepts of the homosexual and homosexuality. Bernes colleagues (and others) continued developing his ideas using life script theory to explain homosexuality as a psychopathology caused by a script. However, in the 1970s there were some gay contributors who began the work of removing homosexuality as a transactional analytic psychopathology and increasing visibility in the vicinity of the transactional analysis closet, although they left unchanged the mesh of theoretically intertwined but consistent concepts that produced the psychopathology. This essay describes how the psychotherapy of the homosexual patient generates theory, the theory creates the psychopathology of homosexuality, and, in turn, the psychopathology of homosexuality produces new theory. Also discussed are Bernes writings on homosexuality, which demonstrate that theory comes before the psychotherapy and the psychotherapy precedes the psychopathology.

About Energy Metaphors I: A Study of Their Selection, Defense, and Use in Berne's Theory

This study of the metaphors of energy and cathexis in Bernes theory covers the period from 1950 through 1970 and is divided into three parts. Part one, which is the subject of this essay, is a survey of Bernes selection, defense, and use of these metaphors. The second essay will discuss how Schiff was guided by these metaphors and how she applied them in the treatment of schizophrenia. The third essay will discuss conceptual issues and problems arising from the use of quantitative metaphors in transactional analysis.

The Role of Permission: Two Decades Later

The concept of permission is important both for parenting and for therapy. As parents, we try to provide an environment that gives permission to our children as well as security, predictability, validation, and protection. As therapists, we work to remediate the deficits our patients experienced in their early lives, deficits that influenced their life decisions. This article is a synopsis of a panel entitled, “Permission: Two Decades Later,” presented at the ITAA Major International Transactional Analysis Conference (MITAC) in San Francisco in August 1995. The panel began with a paper by James and Barbara Allen in which they outlined the changes they would make if they were writing their original paper, “Scripts: The Role of Permission” (Allen & Allen, 1972), today. This was followed by a cross-cultural panel, the members of which explained their current thinking about permission and how the concept fits into their cultural contexts. Finally, there were dialogues between the panelists and between the pan...

Not without the Couch: Eric Berne on Basic Differences between Transactional Analysis and Psychoanalysis:

This article presents an interview with Dr. Q that is a dialogue with the body of Eric Bernes work discussing the question of what transactional analysis has to do with psychoanalysis in theory and practice.

Retrieving a Flourishing Psychotherapy: A Transactional-Cybernetic Meditation on Transactional Analysis

This article offers a second-order transactional-cybernetic study of transactional analysis as a self-organizing system. A transaction is defined as a circle that includes individuals and their environment, one in which observers, observing, and observations are within the transaction. The central questions of this study involve occasions when transactional analysis has turned back on itself and the terms of relationship have changed. Three instances are discussed—Bernes death, the theory of schizophrenia, and the theory of alcoholism. This article offers a comparison between practices of transactional analysis in the 1970s, when its theory of therapy generated diversity, and later practices arising out of its theory of personality. The proposal is made to retrieve certain patterns of therapy that contributed to the legitimacy of transactional analysis as an effective psychotherapy modality.

The Health Script: Its Relationship to Illness in a College Population:

The authors developed the Health Script Questionnaire, a 13-item instrument, and administered it, in the fall of 1975, to 56 young adults. The 56 were part of a random sample of college students re...

Acceptance Speech on Receiving the 2005 Eric Berne Memorial Award: Transgressions

This article comprises the authors speech accepting the 2005 Eric Berne Memorial Award, with elaborations, including an excerpt from his study of the circularity of theory, psychotherapy, and psychopathology, for which he won the award, and a discussion of five questions expanding on these ideas. Transactional analysis was the case for the authors study. Alcoholism, homosexuality, and schizophrenia were studied as examples of how transactional analysis theory brought about its own psychopathology. The argument is that there is no psychopathology until a psychotherapy is invented to generate it. Every theory-centered psychotherapy names its own psychopathologies, which define their own worlds of psychotherapy. This study, which is of the place of theory in psychotherapy, is a theory of theory (of psychotherapy) and thus a critique. The circular logic of cybernetics was utilized for this reflexive study of psychotherapy.