Marco Mazzetti

Supervision in Transactional Analysis An Operational Model

The author discusses the distinctive features of transactional analysis supervision and presents an operational model based, in part, on the checklist proposed by Clarkson (1992) for evaluating supervision sessions. Clarksons model was modified by the author, who defines seven aspects of supervision: (1) a clear and appropriate contract, (2) identification of key issues, (3) effective emotional contact with the trainee, (4) protection of both trainee and client, (5) increasing developmental directions, (6) awareness and effective use of parallel process, and (7) an equal relationship between supervisor and supervisee. The characteristics of the seven elements are discussed for each of the three development stages of training (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and are integrated with Erskines (1982) developmental supervision model.

Trauma and Migration: A Transactional Analytic Approach toward Refugees and Torture Victims

This article presents a model for interpreting migration, a phenomenon that involves the relocation of a large group of people from their homeland and native culture to another place, an event that is usually experienced as traumatic. The author describes factors of resilience and vulnerability that affect the psychic health of immigrants and, in particular, the effects that these have on refugee populations. Due to the events that determined their migration, refugees are particularly at risk for psychotraumatological pathologies, and migration can have a retraumatizing effect. The specific psychopathological problems of traumatized refugees—in particular, those who have survived torture—are described from a transactional analytic perspective along with indications for the psychosocial management of their difficulties.

The Comparative Script System: A Tool for Developing Supervisors:

The aim of this article is to offer to transactional analysts a simple theoretical and practical tool to support relational supervision. The authors propose the comparative script system as a useful aid to the training of supervisors, with particular reference to three areas: a framework for focusing on the key issues in supervision; a practical instrument for understanding and visually representing transference-countertransference dynamics; and a clarification of the boundary between supervision and therapy. While the focus is on its use in psychotherapy, the model can be used in all fields.

Teaching Trainees to Make Mistakes

Mistakes are common in everyday life, and psychotherapy is no exception. This article offers a model that identifies two types of mistakes: strategic mistakes, which occur when a significant misunderstanding is made in a patients diagnosis or treatment plan, and tactical mistakes, which occur when the therapist, within a strategically well-designed therapy, makes inappropriate moves that produce adverse effects. Strategic mistakes, if appropriately analyzed, are good learning opportunities for trainees. Tactical mistakes are something more, because besides offering a chance to learn, they can also be seen as therapeutic opportunities. This article presents five steps to promote an effective use of mistakes in therapy: legitimation of the mistakes, cooperation with patients, awareness of our most common mistake patterns, true apologies, and identification of the healing meaning of each mistake.

Eric Berne and Cultural Script

This article identifies possible manifestations of cultural script in Western society today and the relevance they may have for the professional practice of transactional analysis. After a brief review of Eric Bernes views on script and culture, the author cites sociologist David Riesmans theory and shows how it can be used to understand social phenomena from a transactional analytic point of view. Examples of the effects that cultural influence may have on psychotherapy are discussed along with their theoretical meanings. The article concludes by presenting questions to help individuals identify possible influences of cultural script in their own lives.

Letter from the Guest Coeditors

Beginning in 1900, Sigmund Freud loved to spend his summer holidays in the small village of Lavarone in the eastern Italian Alps, better known as the Dolomites, then part of the AustriaHungary Empire. He expressed his enthusiasm for this lovely place in a letter to his wife, Martha: ‘‘Unser Herz zeigt nach dem Suden’’ (‘‘Our heart looks toward the south’’) and came there again and again until 1923. He stayed at the Hotel du Lac, a small, old-fashioned hotel overlooking the gracious lake, where the father of psychoanalysis loved to swim. In the small library at the hotel he wrote ‘‘Delusion and Dream in Wilhelm Jensen’s Gradiva’’ in 1906, the first application of psychoanalysis to the study of a literary work. More than a century later, in August 2008, a handful of transactional analysts led by Dolores Munari Poda, who also loves to spend her holidays in Lavarone, met in the same small library where Sigmund Freud used to sit. They gathered to share their interest, passion, and commitment to the analysis of very special literary masterpieces: the little scripts of little people. That was the first Lavarone Seminar on transactional analysis with children and adolescents. In subsequent years, the number of participants who gathered for the seminar made it difficult to stay in the small library, so in 2010 we moved to a larger location, the conference hall provided by the Lavarone Municipality. The group has met there ever since. The Lavarone Seminar has had considerable success and now brings together about 100 transactional analysts from different countries to deepen their knowledge about transactional analysis applications in education, counseling, and psychotherapy with children and adolescents. Most of these professionals are now members of the association of International Transactional Analysts with Children and Adolescents (ITACA), the acronym for which recalls Ithaca, Ulysses’s island, to represent a most desired territory. It was during the Fifth Lavarone Seminar, in 2012, that the three guest editors of this special issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal—two of them former pediatricians (GJ-H and MM), one a long-time child therapist (DMP), and all enthusiastic participants of the seminars—decided to propose to the TAJ coeditors a special issue of the Journal on this theme. We are grateful to the TAJ team for their encouragement and support. As we were talking about the transactional analysis literature on children and adolescents, we realized that there has not been an issue on that topic since 1988, when guest editor Frances Bonds-White edited one on children. Looking at research in child development over the past 25

Phantoms in Organizations

Eric Berne used the term phantom to refer to the continuing presence of someone in the group imago after he or she has left the group (Berne, 1963/2005). This concept can be useful in consultancy work with organizations as a tool for managing employee terminations and/or other interruptions in collaboration. This article explains the concepts of the formal aims (either social or manifest) and real aims (either psychological or hidden) of organizations, factors that must be considered if organizational work is to have a positive outcome and if it is to avoid creating phantoms that damage effective functioning. The more the formal and real aims are the same, the less likely it is that phantoms will be created. If they diverge, there is a greater risk that destabilizing phantoms will appear. This article considers the role of organizational leaders in preventing or creating phantoms and some procedures for managing such phenomena.

Transactional Analysis Certification Exams: An Opportunity to Learn

This article presents some theoretical reflections on transactional analysis certification processes and exams. Exams are considered as both an evaluation process and a learning experience. The author discusses the relationship between evaluation and power and stresses the value of a clear distinction between the two. During certification exams, there is a clear difference in power: examiners can pass or defer candidates. There is no reciprocity, although reciprocity does exist in the overall process because each participant (examiner, candidate, sponsor, etc.) explicitly accepts being evaluated by others. The main concepts discussed are: exams are learning experiences for everyone who participates in them; to promote a good learning experience, all individuals must accept reciprocity in evaluation; and it is possible to promote and maintain reciprocity in evaluation even with awareness that power is un-equal. The main goals of certification exams are considered from the perspective of the evaluation of candidates, examiners, and the training system. Three examples of dysfunctional exam boards are described.

Transactional Analysis and Psychosomatic Medicine: The Case of Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a skin disease in which a sizeable psychosomatic etiological component is widely recognized. The research described in this article was aimed at identifying this component and describi...

Being There Plunging Into Relationship in Transactional Analysis Supervision (On Receiving the Eric Berne Memorial Award)

This article was written in response to receiving the 2012 Eric Berne Memorial Award for the author’s work on supervision. It underscores the value of theoretical knowledge of supervision for all practitioners, even those not directly involved in offering supervision. It also provides a practical approach to the analysis of the relational dynamics in both supervision and clinical practice through three questions practitioners might ask themselves: What am I feeling during the session? Why do I feel what I am feeling? Why does the other person want (unconsciously) me to feel what I am feeling? The use of these questions is described and illustrated through two case studies.