James R. Allen

A New Type of Transactional Analysis and One Version of Script Work with a Constructionist Sensibility

Since Bernes seminal work, a number of clinicians have elaborated different types of therapy within transactional analysis. Most of us are now familiar with reparenting (Schiffet al., 1975), self-...

Narrative Theory, Redecision Therapy, and Postmodernism

Redecision therapy needs to be considered both as a brief therapy and as a powerful postmodern narrative therapy. Conceptualizing it in this manner, we are in a better position to appreciate its re...

Scripts and Permissions: Some Unexamined Assumptions and Connotations

In the years since Bernes death so many connotations and relatively unexamined assumptions have accrued to key transactional analysis concepts that their original meanings are often obscured. This article examines some of the connotations of script and the biopsychosocial context of permissions and introduces the idea of a matrix of permissions.

Biology and Transactional Analysis II: A Status Report on Neurodevelopment:

Over the past decade, research in child development and neurophysiology has revolutionized our knowledge of brain functioning. This article uses some of these newer findings to deepen our understanding of key concepts and interventions in transactional analysis.

Concepts of Transference: A Critique, a Typology, an Alternative Hypothesis and Some Proposals

The authors review common usages of the term transference, offering a dermition and a delineation of four major types of transference and an outline of some major unresolved issues in this area. This is followed by a discussion of some of the problems that arise when transactional analysis adopts familiar object relations approaches to the phenomenon, however pragmatically useful, and the suggestion of an alternative approach in levels of differentiation of the archeopsyche. The authors suggest that the term transference be reserved for behavioral and experiential descriptions of certain transactions which distort perception, thinking, and expectations; that the concepts of psychic organs and the differentiation of the archeopsyche be utilized in theoretical descriptions of the underlying intrapsychic mechanisms; and that descriptive analyses of ego states and such terms as projection, introjection, and incorporation be used only as descriptions and metaphors.

To Find/Make Meaning: Notes on the Last Permission

This article extends and complements the work of Jacobs (1987) and English (1979) on autocratic power by expanding on the last of the permissions outlined by Allen and Allen in 1972: the permission to find or make meaning. Three areas are covered: (1) the relationship of the stories by which we live to how we find/make meaning and construct reality; (2) the use of strategic transactions to induce others to accept our reality and the stories we invent for it; and (3) two languages of moral development — the language of justice and the language of care. Exploring these areas offers new connotations for such basic TA concepts as decision, empowerment, and autonomy.

Ego States, Self, and Script

The concept of self and its relationship to ego states and script has been relatively neglected in the TA literature. The authors use the concept of the self to examine the work of Milton Erickson,...

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...

Biology and Transactional Analysis: Integration of a Neglected Area

Transactional analysis has been enriched by its integration with a variety of psychosocial, developmental, and therapeutic approaches. What has been missing, however, has been a comparable integrat...

Stroking: Biological Underpinnings and Direct Observations

In the 1960s Eric Bernes writing on strokes—which related strokes to their apparent biological underpinnings and such phenomena as failure to thrive, depression, and related conditions—captured th...