This article presents a transactional analysis model of trauma located within a relational paradigm. It proposes that the Adult ego state enables us to form a narrative self or coherent sense of identity. Trauma interferes with this integrative capacity, creating excluded ego states and a disorganized self. The child's experience of abusive caregivers is internalized in a series of toxic Parent/ Child ego states. This inner world shapes the child's view of the world outside, leading to patterns of transferential enactment that reinforce a traumatic script. Therapy is concerned with developing the Adult capacity to create a coherent narrative that allows the client to move from enacting to reflecting.

Trauma can shatter the mind, creating rifts in consciousness or fault lines in the psyche. Continuity within the self becomes fractured. This article explores links between trauma, dissociation, and enactment.

The European Association for Transactional Analysis (EATA) Conference in Prague, the Czech Republic, included a roundtable on “Life Scripts” presented on 9 July 2010. The roundtable was preceded by introductory speeches given by Richard G. Erskine (convener), Maria Teresa (Resi) Tosi, Marye O'Reilly-Knapp, and Jo Stuthridge. The roundtable discussion also included comments from Rosemary Napper and Fanita English. This article presents edited excerpts from three of the introductory speeches and some of the following discussion. (Jo Stuthridge asked that her speech not be included because it duplicates material already in print.)

This article views script as a dynamic process of attributing meaning to experience throughout life. It proposes that script change occurs through a dialectical tension between destabilization and integration within the psyche. Breakdown is seen as essential to growth. This process of “story-making and story-breaking” (Holmes, 2001, p. 87) ultimately generates an awareness of the self as author of one’s reality. Two client vignettes describe the author’s experience with a gradual and more sudden experience of script breakdown. These accounts illustrate how a relational approach to psychotherapy can facilitate the disintegration of a static script through an encounter with a separate subject. This process involves client and therapist in an intimate process: falling apart and getting it together. The discussion navigates a broader theme of script and intimacy, which lies at the heart of transactional analysis theory.

Abstract Western – and Northern – psychology and psychotherapy stand accused of an over emphasis on the individual, ego, and self (“the Self”), autonomy, and self-development. These criticisms have been made from other intellectual, cultural, social, spiritual and wisdom traditions, but may also be found in critical and radical traditions within Western thought. In this article, exponents of ten different theoretical orientations within or modalities of psychotherapy reflect on one or two key aspects of their respective theories which, together, offer a holistic conception of the person; account for family/social/cultural context; provide an understanding of the human trend to homonomy (or belonging) alongside autonomy; articulate a relational understanding of human development, attachment to and engagement with others; and emphasise spirit, group, and community. As such, these psychotherapies – and critiques of Western psychotherapy – offer a wider vision of the scope and practice of psychotherapy and its relevance in and to Aotearoa New Zealand. Whakarāpopoto E tū ana te whakapae, e kaha rawa ana te whakapau wā ki te takitahi a te whakaora hinengaro o te Uru me te Raki i te takitahi, te whakaī, me te whaiaro (“te Whaiaro”), tino rangatiratanga, me te whanaketanga whaiaro. I ara ake ana ēnei kūrakuraku i ētahi atu tikanga hinengaro, ahurea, hapori, wairua, me te mātauranga, engari ka kitea anō hoki i roto i ngā tikanga arohaeheanga rerekē hoki o te whakaarohanga Taiuru. Kei tēnei kōrero, ko ngā tauira o ngā ariā tekau āhua mau ki roto, ki te āhua rānei o te kaiwhakaora hinengaro e whakaata ana i tētahi, ētahi tirohanga rānei o ā rātou ake aria, ā, ngātahi e tuku ariā tapeke ana o te tangata; whakaaturanga horopaki whānau/hāpori; whakarato moohiotanga o te ia o te tangata ki te whakaōrite (whai tūrangawaewae rānei) i te taha o te tino rangatiratanga. Ki te whakapapa mātauranga whakapā ki te ira tangata, tōna whakapiri ki me te whakapiri ki ētahi atu hoki, ā, ka whakatāpua wairua, rōpū, hāpori hoki. Koia rā, ko ēnei kaiwhakaora hinengaro – paearu kaiwhakaora hinengaro o te Uru  – e tuku tirohanga whānui ana o te matapae me te mahi a te kaiwhakaora hinengaro me ana whakapaanga katoa i Aotearoa nei.