Maybe It's Not “Kick Me” After All: Transactional Analysis and Schizoid Personality Disorder

Abstract

Analyzing transactions works to help individuals identify and change decisions they are conscious of making, particularly decisions that are no longer functional for them. But can transactional analysis help people change unconscious decisions about modes of operating that are so subtle, so ego-syntonic, so familiar, that changing them seems inconceivable and threatening? This article suggests that personality disorders can be understood as distorted frames of reference and that transactional analysis—the analysis of transactions that take place between client and therapist, between clients (in group therapy), and/or within a client (in individual therapy)—is a useful approach for identifying and changing these distortions.

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