Title: Compare and contrast transactional analysis psychotherapy with the Freudian approach, the work of Carl Ransom Rogers and the Kleinian viewpoint. In particular, show how you would use this approach in your practice.
Word Count: 5223
Introduction:
In 1961, Eric Berne wrote a book called Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy. It sold reasonably and was well referenced in its field.
Three years later Berne published a sequel based on the same topic. Games People Play was lighter and easier for the layman to read. It sold 300,000 copies in two years and spent two years on The New York Times bestseller list.
Underrated by critics when released, Games People Play marked the beginning of the popular psychology boom. The serious psychologists of the day looked down on it as shallow and pandering to the public.
Today, Games People Play has sold millions of copies and is quite deserving of its place among the psychology classics.
This essay will explore transactional analysis. It will explore the concepts which underpin this theory and look at it in comparison to other psychotherapeutic models. Finally, it shall explore how transactional analysis may be used within the therapeutic relationship.
I will now begin by exploring the key principles within the theory of transactional analysis.
The Princess and the Frog:
Once upon a time, a wicked witch cast a spell upon a handsome prince, turning him into a frog. The only way in which the spell could be broken was with a kiss from a princess who loved him. When this happened, he would be set free and would live happily ever after with his princess.
Berne stated that “Every human being is born a prince or a princess; early experiences convince some that they are frogs, and the rest of the pathological development follows from this”.# Like the prince in the story, we are all born as perfect and complete people. From conception we are learning from our parents and...