Transactional Analysis Journal

Individualism and internalism tend to be the norm within almost all schools of psychotherapy, be they humanistic, cognitive, or analytic. While one might expect this of the individual psychotherapies, surprisingly, it is also the norm within many forms of group psychotherapy. To these ways of thinking, the sources of all social phenomena—racism, greed, hate, violence, love, empathy, whatever—are to be found in the internal worlds of individuals. This is born of the belief that social dynamics are driven by, and are expressions of, internal psychological dynamics. Psychotherapy, then, becomes primarily a project of reading clinical phenomena (the manifest) back into the psyche (the latent). To the author, this sort of belief system is both asocial as well as apolitical, which legitimates forms of practice that are also asocial and apolitical. He presents an alternative paradigm that takes power relations and an ethical sensibility to be central to the human condition. He does this by drawing on particular strands within philosophy, psychology, and sociology. This way of thinking leads to a reversal of individualism and the claim that the social is prior to the individual. This, in turn, has crucial consequences for how psychotherapy itself is practiced.

This article is an attempt to open discussion on the role of the individual, as opposed to the group, in contemporary progressive and radical politics. The phrase making a difference comes to mind. Academic ideas about the contexts and groups in which individuals operate are important yet require extensive revision. Jung’s ideas about the relationship of individuals and the social collective are useful as is Camus’ (1951/1953) book The Rebel. This article presents new thinking about individuals as fractured and broken as distinct from the autonomous unit promulgated by neoliberal thinking. Yet they remain individuals.

In this response to the fascinating articles by Dalal (2016) and Samuels (2016) in this issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal, the author looks at the notions of the individual as responsible agent and the individual as simply a product of society from the perspective of the almost unbearable challenge of managing that paradoxical existential tension. She links to some theoretical ideas, particularly ego states, games, and focal conflict theory, and includes vignettes from her work using psychotherapeutic concepts within organizations. She suggests that there is another aspect to being human that is important and should not be missed: seeing individuals at their finest as both part of yet separate from the world.

This article discusses papers by Dalal (2016) and Samuels (2016) that explore the tensions between the individual and the group, the complexities of group power dynamics and personal responsibility, and the concept of personal growth or maturation, which this discussant article posits as an outcome of the interplay between individual and social processes.

This article is a discussant paper written in response to the articles in this issue by Andrew Samuels (2016) and Farhad Dalal (2016). The author takes issue with Samuels’s call for a return to the individual and agrees with Dalal’s critique of individualism and internalism in all schools of psychotherapy.

This paper offers a response to the presentations of Farhad Dalal (2016) and Andrew Samuels (2016) at the 2015 International Transactional Analysis Conference in Sydney and published in this issue of the Transactional Analysis Journal. After introducing Dalal and Samuels as other in the transactional analysis community, the paper reflects on the core of their contributions: the “we” makes the “I” and/or the “I” makes the “we,” both of which represent a political position. Two notions are taken from their presentations: The first is about the political position of transactional analysis, which seems to be overadapting to market demands; the second is about the validity of transactional analysis concepts. These notions are linked with each other through reflections on the neoliberal context in which transactional analysis seeks to survive and the fundamental transformation or metanoia (Jung, 1970, p. 719) that is needed within transactional analysis to research the validity of transactional analysis concepts.

This article examines the century-long pairing of international wars followed by periods of resurgent interest in group psychotherapy and community-based treatment. It then focuses on the evolution of group and community treatment models, drawing on the work of Sigmund Freud, Trigant Burrow, Wilfred Bion, S. H. Foulkes, and Eric Berne to explore and illustrate the societal functions and difficulties of living and working in groups. The author offers his personal reflections on working with groups and concludes with a discussion of how group analytic models can extend the traditional models of transactional analysis group treatment to enhance the capacity of members to work with conflict, difference, and unconscious projections.

Moving from the pioneering work of transactional analyst Muriel James (1981) on the human spirit, the author returns to Eric Berne’s (1972) humanistic reflections on the problem of “man’s essence or Self” (p. 438) as a basis for critically reviewing the best-known transactional analysis contributions on religious and nonreligious spirituality. Case material is used to argue that there is a need to advance the transactional analysis understanding of spirituality and its complex interfaces with religiosity and religious psychopathology. This is important because such factors are often responsible for both the existential dilemmas and more practical challenges clinicians face when dealing relationally with patients’ religious and spiritual experiences.

This article argues that the existential statement “We are” most accurately describes the fundamental life position of human beings and identifies some ontological, epistemological, methodological, and practical implications of this. Taking the phrase “I’m OK, You’re OK” and its variants as its theme, the article critically examines the three elements of this central aspect of transactional analysis theory and philosophy, that is, in terms of the person, OKness, and existential life positions. In doing so, it offers some clarification regarding Klein’s influence on Berne and some variations that are informed by and advance we psychology.