The Transgenerational Script of Transactional Analysis

Abstract

Individuals and families manifest in their behavior their ancestors' influence even without having met them. This is the result of unconscious communication that runs between family members from one generation to another. Organizations also experience such dynamics because they have scripts based on their founder's personality. Based on biographical information about Eric Berne and recent discussions about his script, the author analyzes the transactional analysis transgenerational script. The author aims to understand the way his script may be affecting the development of transactional analysis organizations, to improve dissemination of transactional analysis as it is understood and practiced today, and to further efforts to obtain the academic merit that the theory deserves. The purpose is to modify the narrative of the transactional analysis script by becoming conscious of the fundamental role that practitioners have in the way they teach, discuss, and transmit this theory. The author suggests that transactional analysts can reconstruct the limiting part of this script and, at the same time, reinforce the positive part. That process will facilitate the recognition of the value of Eric Berne's contribution to humankind.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Berne

(1947). The mind in action: Being a layman's guide to psychiatry. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Berne

(1961). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy: An systematic individual and social psychiatry. New York: Grove Press.

Berne

(1963). The structure and dynamics of organizations and groups. New York: Grove Press.

Berne

(1964). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York: Grove Press.

Berne

(1968). A layman's guide to psychiatry and psychoanalysis (3rd ed. rev.). New York: Simon and Schuster.

Berne

(1974). ¿Qué dice usted despues de decir hola?: La psicología del destino humano [What do you say after you say hello?: The psychology of human destiny]. Barcelona: Grijalbo. (Original work published 1972).

Clarkson

(1992). Transactional analysis psychotherapy: An integrated approach. London: Tavistock/Routledge.

Cornell

(2007). No, Fanita, I'm not a cognitive transactional analyst. The Script, 37 (5), 2.

English

(1969). Episcript and the “hot potato” game. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 8 (32), 77–82).

10.

English

(2007). I'm now a cognitive transactional analyst, are you? The Script, 37 (5), 1, 6.

11.

Jorgensen

E. W.

Jorgensen

H. I.

(1984). Eric Berne: Master gamesman: A transactional biography. New York: Grove Press.

12.

Karpman

S. B.

(1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7 (26), 39–43.

13.

Kertesz

Induni

(1977). Manual de análisis transaccional [Manual of transactional analysis]. Buenos Aires: Conantal.

14.

Laplanche

Pontalis

J. B.

(1987). Diccionario de psicoanálisis [Dictionary of psychoanalysis]. Barcelona: Labor, S.A.

15.

Noriega

(2004). Codependence: A transgenerational script. Transactional Analysis Journal, 34, 312–322.

16.

Noriega

(2009). On receiving the 2008 Eric Berne memorial award for mechanisms of transgenerational script transmission. Transactional Analysis Journal, 39, 8–13.